Sansa Clip, Linux, and my laptop

My husband has switched over our main home computer to Linux, while my laptop is still a windows machine.  I would like to keep the laptop the same, and I don’t think my husband is willing to switch back to windows for the main computer.

I have several clips, and i seem to be the person in my extened family who fills up all the old folks’s players.  I keep trying to get them to deal with their own devices, but…well.   

Anyway,  two questions. I seem to have found ways to fill up the player either on the Linux box, OR the windows box, but they don’t want to reconize stuff that is on the player from each other.  Is there any way to make it so that when i’m on linux box, i can play with all the files, and vice versa? 

Second question:  what would would all recommend as the best music player/music file manipulator (ie, something that puts playlists and such together, and transfers them onto the play) for the linux box? 

Thanks for any imput, Jordana

Is it possible you’re connecting in MSC with the Linux machine and MTP on the Windows one? The player could be doing this without your knowledge if the USB setting on the player is set to Auto Detect (Defect).

Files loaded in one USB mode are not visble or accessible while connected in the opposite mode.

Intresting…I will try this and see.  I know I need to change it to MSC for it to be visable on the linux, but I had not know that if things were loaded in one mode, they would not be visable in the other mode…I guess i get to see if the msc mode will even work on the windows machine.  THANKS for the clue, will post back later. 

It will work on the windows machine, however, you won’t see the music that was loaded in MTP mode. You might want to save all the music regardless of mode, reformat and stick with MSC mode. As far as playlists on Linux, winamp works well for windows in msc mode. You would have to investigate what is available for Linux. However, if you used winamp in windows to create a playlist, you could use as template for making new ones in Linux, assuming the little different text file format isn’t a problem for the clip.

I wanted to mention that the files do seem to viewable on both the win and the linux, I just have to make sure it stays in msc mode.  thanks for the tip. 

I can confirm that if you have your Clip set to MSC (not Auto Detect), and load all the music in MSC (you will have to change the settings in Windows Media Player) then all the music will be viewable in either OS. I have Linux machines with Suse 11 & Ubuntu 10.04, and a desktop with Windows XP Pro, and can use any to load new music. Some new types of CD (OpenDisk?) only seem to work with Windows otherwise I would have not bothered trying to make it work with Windows.

BTW I started using RythmBox recently on my Acer One NetBook to play music and it is very impressive. Easy to use and a nice interface. I haven’t yet tried it for synchronising with the Clip.

I’ve had a 2Gb clip for nearly two years and bought a 4Gb this year. Very good devices.

Sorry to piggyback on an old question, but I was wondering if anyone here knows how to access a MicroSDHC card inserted into the Clip or Clip+. I can access the internal memory without a problem, but it would be very nice to be able to get to the card directly instead of having to eject it and use the MicroSDHC to SDHC card reader adapter.

It should show up as a separate drive, in other words you see two drive letters. Of course with Linux you have to be sure that drive gets mounted, I assume it’s automatic but I haven’t used Linux for a long time.

@oldpink wrote:
Sorry to piggyback on an old question, but I was wondering if anyone here knows how to access a MicroSDHC card inserted into the Clip or Clip+. I can access the internal memory without a problem, but it would be very nice to be able to get to the card directly instead of having to eject it and use the MicroSDHC to SDHC card reader adapter.

If you are using Linux, make sure your player is set to MSC (Settings > System settings > USB Mode).

And if you are using a Mac, make sure the USB mode on the player is set to MSC . . . .

On my Linux machine (Lubuntu 12.04), the MicroSD card shows up as a separate drive as soon as I connect the player. I have the player configured for MSC.

Thanks for the suggestions about using MSC only, but I already do that, and it still makes no difference.

I expected to see the MicroSDHC card to show up either as another drive or another partition.

The internal memory I mount under /dev/sde, and I figured the card would show up as either /dev/sde1 or /dev/sdf, but neither shows in the log with a quick check using the “dmesg” command, and trying to mount either fails.

I’m pretty sure I have my kernel and system set up right, since I have long been able to access my iPod using its mountpoint, /dev/sde2.

Thanks so far, and I appreciate any further help if you feel so moved.

I don’t use Linux anymore, however, I did once make a bootable stick with Ubuntu installed. With that system running on my laptop when I plugged in the clip+ I see two drives, SANSA CLIP and 7.9GB Filesystem. I later renamed the 2nd drive MICRO CARD in windows and I’m sure it would show up as such in Linux.

Shame about Linux, I would prefer to use it but like others am married to too many windows programs (and no, wine doesn’t do it for me). Maybe I’ll try a multi boot system again some day.

For what it’s worth, you can still cheat and run either VMWare or VirtualBox within Linux.

Just a tangent of a thought.

Found! The answer is a simple kernel reconfiguration. CONFIG_SCSI_MULTI_LUN=y in the .config before compiling the kernel was all that was needed to make the card accessible under LInux.

That’s what I like about these groups, always a chance to learn something new. You didn’t state how you discovered the fix. All this talk of Linux is tempting me to give it another try. 

Here’s one link - http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/showthread.php?t=53653

Earlier I posted saying I didn’t use Linux, well now I have installed Ubuntu 12.04 alongside windows.

The clip+ came up with a dialog for MICRO CARD, I selected open, same for folder called SANSA CLIPP.

As in windows, the music folder on the clip shows empty, although it does contain the sample music that comes with the device put there in MTP mode I suppose. 

Getting to like Linux, but I don’t want to sart that silly war.