Re: Sansa fuze+ with linux

Michael Black <et472@xxxxxx> wrote:
JohnF wrote:

Very miscellaneous question, indeed -- not even really linux related,
except that I'm using linux and couldn't find a really relevant ng.

Essentially, need the directory structure of the SanDisk Sansa Fuze+,
and some related text file formats, so I can manage it without the
supplied windows software. I can mount it okay (as sdx1,
x=whatever letter's next, with -t msdos or auto) okay, and copy
files, but haven't quite figured out what's going on directory-
structure-wise.

I think you may be making it seem more trouble than it is.
I've never used my Fuze with WIndows.

First, thanks a lot for the detailed and informative followup, Michael.
Exactly what I was looking for. I'd googled several bulletin-board-type
posts from people like me looking for info, but none that I found was
ever followed up as well as yours.

I had no problems updating the firmware from Linux,
though I don't remember the process (it was detailed somewhere).

Firmware updates are a question I hadn't even considered yet.
I read the Fuze+ doc that tells you where to download the windows
exe update program from, and just figured it would be big trouble
on linux. Good to hear it's doable.

I just mount it, and copy over the folders from my hard drive. So
I sometimes just copy songs to the /MUSIC folder. Sometimes there
is an album compied to there. Other times I have more than one album
for that artist, so I have a directory of albums of that artist that gets
copied to /MUSIC. Note that I do have proper MP3 tags on these.

Yeah, like I mentioned in preceding followup to Stan, ...
"Seems to more-or-less work following their Music/artist/album/song.mp3
structure. All the songs show up somewhere on the player after I've
umount'ed and unplugged it, but not always exactly where I'd have
thought. But somewhere. And, once found, they do play fine."

So I unmount and unplug the Fuze, and it churns for a while. And
everything is fine. If I play by artist, it picks them up, if I play by
album, it picks them up, it doesn't really seem to care. I'm assuming the
churning is to build up a database based on the tags (since somethings
have odd tags since I used CDDB, and thus where I have something is
irrelevant, it's the tags that count).

Mine seems to pick up everything by Song, but I thought I was having
trouble by Album, etc. Maybe I'm doing something or other wrong (wouldn't
be the first time). I'll try to cp some stuff more carefully later,
and try to see if the problem is my fault.

The churning can be significant, especially the more material there is on
the player. I got a 16gig microSD card, thinking I might eventually get
some cards for specific artists and swap them, but there is considerable
churning to pick up what's where, long enough that I don't feel like
swapping cards.

I have one of the slotradio cards, and memory says the Fuze churned for a
bit when I plugged it in, so it doesn't have a separate database built
into the card.

Note that the microSD card is not visible when plugged into the Fuze,
until one has the kernel set up to recognize multiple LUNS. But once you
can fill the card, it shows up integrated with the rest (ie if I have
some Grateful Dead on the main memory, having a similar Grateful Dead
folder on the microSD card appears like it's folded in with the folder
in the main memory, though there is an icon to indicate what's on the
memory card).

I don't have any additional stuff for the Fuze+, and hadn't even
noticed any churning for the few songs I uploaded while testing.
But a general understanding of what it's doing is very useful
when trying to guess where to look and how to get it working on linux.

I don't have an adapter so I can't look at the microSD card directly in my
computer.

That's the one thing I do have, a usb card reader for various cards
I use for other purposes. $10 or so for a multiple format reader,
highly recommended.

Seems to be Music/artist/album/song.mp3 ("Music/" is hard-coded,
so to speak, and everything else is variable). And that works okay.
But then I tried several variations to organize songs differently,
and couldn't figure out how what I did correlated with what showed
up on the fuxe+'s menus.
Likewise, tried to hand-edit some playlists, etc (which all seem
to reside in the top-level directory), but without much success.

The only thing to a playlist I have is the integrated "GoList" and there's
no matching file (or any undefinable files) appearing anywhere on the
Fuze, so I'm assuming it's somehow in the database file,
which must be MTABLE.SYS.

Thanks for the info. I'll certainly give it a look (and a google
for further info).

The format for the playlists is supposed to be m3u, which is apparently
standard, and there's lots out there about it. It is a text file, but
since it links to the specific song (complete with path), it may be
cumbersome to do by hand.. Since it's a standard, there
may be a program for Linux to deal with it.

Thanks again. The google keywords are a big help.

Couldn't successfully google this kind of info with terms like "fuze+"
"directory structure" "linux" (or "folder structure" without "linux").
I'd have thought somebody would have documented the directory
structure and text file names/formats this thing uses, and how those
map onto the device's displayed menus. Then I could easily manage
it by hand, without the windows software SanDisk provides for the
purpose. Thanks for any info, or pointers to info,

You're looking for the details, rather than the how to. There is
a fair amount out there about using the Fuze with Linux. Too much
for me to post links to when I've not played with any of the playlist
stuff. <sansa fuze m3u linux> gets results, as does <sansa fuze playlist
linux>

Just having useful keywords is great. No need to post the links
as long as I can rummage through them myself via google.

I honestly had thought the GoList would generate a file that I could
gather information from, but that's not the case.

That is too bad. I'd assumed more than one playlist would be easy,
and had hoped I could construct them myself with vi. Sounds like
neither works.

I haven't figure out where to place photos to go with the albums or songs,
the sansa fuze wikipedia entry (well in the discussion) has talk about
the size of the graphic files for the Fuze, which I did try and was able
to display photos (though as photos rather than connected to albums.

That's also too bad. I saw what I thought were directories for
photos, videos, voice, podcasts alongside the music directory.
And I'd assumed (apparently incorrectly) I could cp stuff to them
as easily as to the music directory.

Thanks again, Michael,
--
John Forkosh ( mailto: j@xxxxx where j=john and f=forkosh )
.