On Sat, 19 Jul 2003, Carl Fink wrote: > I'm thinking about getting a portable MP3 player so I can listen > to recorded/downloaded content in my car. I have never used > one, and I'd love to get some advice on an inexpensive one (I > don't care about audio quality) that is supported by a Debian > package.
The rioutils program supports enough of the Rio 800 to upload, list, and delete mp3's. I thought it was a Debian package, but on closer inspection, it looks like I compiled it from source. I'm using rioutil-1.2a4. Here's my cheat sheet for communicating with it: sudo modprobe usbdevfs sudo mount usbdevfs sudo modprobe usb-uhci I like the Rio; I wouldn't go less than 64Mb of memory, as that gives me about an hour's worth of music to choose from -- less, and I'd be wanting to rotate the music more. If you're looking at 3+ hours of commuting, you may not be looking at "inexpensive" mp3 players any more. From what I've seen, there are either the walkman-type small players, with up to about 2 hours of memory using memory cards, and then you get into the 20Gb+ hard-drive backed players -- those may be more appropriate for you, but are mor expensive than the smaller players. The Rio's main problem is the battery; I use it for about half an hour each day (while working out), and I can only reliably get about a week out of it before needing to recharge --> approx 4-5 hours of use. It claims to have about 10 hours of use per battery charge. I have a feeling it "leaks" juice even while off. I go through the recalibration every once in a while, which seems to help a bit. HTH, -jeff -- ''We're rudderless, directionless, and in some cases, clueless,'' said Ken Johnson, an aide to Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La. http://www.usatoday.com/news/e98/e155.htm -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
