USB mode, playlists, syncing, and Linux

I’m running LInux on a laptop with a Windows XP virtual machine, so I can easily switch back and forth between Windows and Linux.  I was having a problem where I couldn’t get a playlist to transfer from the computer to the Clip using Sync.  After fiddling quite a bit, I discovered that syncing in Windows Media Player doesn’t work, or at least doesn’t seem to work, in USB=MSC mode.  I was using MSC mode so I could connect via Linux.  When I switched to USB mode, I was able to transfer the playlist. 

The Playlist folder shows up in Windows Explorer in MTP mode but not in MSC mode.  In MSC mode the sync operation proceeds without complaint but does nothing.  In MTP mode, Windows Explorer brings up a top-level folder called Internal Memory which has different music than the MUSIC folder I get in MSC mode.  MSC mode and MTP mode seem to have different views of the Clip memory altogether.

So I can’t see how to create a playlist in MSC mode, which Linux needs.  I can’t even view the existing playlists in MSC mode, even though the Clip tells me that they are there.  I know people have succeeded in setting up playlists using Linux, but no one has explained how you even get to look at the playlists – where they are in the directory structure.

What I’m ultimately trying to do is to create Clip playlists in LInux.  I know people have been able to do that, but if I can’t even look at playlists under Linux I don’t see that I have much hope in creating them.