Mom wants an iPod for her birthday

[K.Mandla]

The problem is that she's a rabid Ubuntu fan, and gets most of her music from Jamendo. I'm worried that an iPod won't play ogg format, or will be too much trouble to sync with her laptop. The price is also a bit intimidating, although it's my mom, so how could I say no?

Can anyone suggest something that won't give her hardware headaches, and will play open formats? I know it's possible to make an iPod work with Ubuntu, and I know it's possible to convert between formats, but I'd also rather put the money into something that does what she wants, without additional effort -- and perhaps subsidize a manufacturer that is closer in line with our principles.

Thanks in advance!

[Polygon]

maybe consider rockbox? You can install it on a ipod.


Rockbox has some pretty sweet themes, it has shuffle, you can make playlists (you do shuffle of all the music on the device by simply making a playlist and pointing it too the root of the drive) and there are some patched versions to have album art, it plays mp3, ogg, wav and it works fine on ubuntu (since rockbox makes the ipod basically just a large storage device, and you can drag your music into the player, and use some syncing program to sync between the ipod and the music folder on the computer

the only problem is, that if your music isnt in a very logical format (as in its just all in one folder instead of organized by artist, album, etc) then its going to be a pain organizing it all so you find the music on your rockbox ipod (since rockbox is a file list player, it doesn't go by a database)

the controls are a bit weird, but maybe thats cause i am so used to the default apple ipod way, but once you get used to it, its fine.

[AusIV4]

If she must have an iPod, Amarok supports the iPod pretty well, and can be set up to automatically convert from OGG to other codecs as it transfers the music. This would result in a little loss, however. Alternatively, RockBox (http://www.rockbox.org/) and iPod Linux (http://www.ipodlinux.org/Main_Page) both enable iPods to play Ogg Vorbis files, but these have other issues of their own. I found the Rockbox interface to be unbarable, and last time I tried iPod Linux, the power management sucked horribly.

If you can convince her otherwise, this page (http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/PortablePlayers) has a list of players that support Ogg and information about each one.

[K.Mandla]

Okay, I didn't know you could change the iPod software itself. Is it manageable for someone who's not tech-savvy? I could set it up for her, but I'd want her to be able to handle it on her own after that. She's good about arranging her songs, so I think that would be okay. Cool!

[DrOlaf]

You would have to set it up for her, I think, as you are essentially replacing the firmware. Once you have installed it, a rockboxed iPod just appears on the desktop as an external drive and you drag the music files to it. Once they're on the iPod, you browse the folder hierarchy as you would on the desktop.

By the way, I don't want to imply that you are really replacing the firmware. What you end up with is a dual-booting iPod, so if she decides that rockbox is not for her you just reboot it back as a regular old iPod.

EDIT - I think this just relates to the full-size, hard drive-based iPod. It won't work with the shuffle, and I don't think it will work with the nano.

[christhemonkey]

+1 for ipod and rockbox.

Seems to be quite useable (dont personally have an ipod or a supported device but im waiting: http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=5735.0 )

[Polygon]

once you set it up its pretty straight forward. You move the wheel and use the center button to select directories or playlists. If you select a song it starts playing the song, or if its a playlist it starts playing the songs in the playlist. While playing a song, if you press menu it gives you some general options. If you press the center button lightly it goes back to the directory menu. If you hold the center button it goes to some song specific options. Left and right while playing a song go forward or backwards through songs, long left and right skip through the song, and pause and play are obviously stop/resume, and when you hold it , it shuts rockbox down.

here are some videos that show what rockbox is like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LfetxFePgY <- that one is weird, i dont know why the song names arnt listed by whats in the ID3 tag/ogg tag, but by the filename... on my the titles of the ongs (when your browsing through menus) are the ones listed in the ID3/ogg tag

http://youtube.com/watch?v=d_VH9rtOmdg <- a good overview

[PatrickMay16]

Is your mum very techy? Perhaps you could just get her a Samsung YP-U1; it plays ogg , mp3, wma, and works like a mass storage device. It has a screen, etc, so if your mum is not such a tech person she wouldn't notice the difference.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v299/dusthillguy/samsung_ypu1.jpg

[banjobacon]

and perhaps subsidize a manufacturer that is closer in line with our principles.

If you really care about this, don't let people talk you into an iPod/Rockbox combo. As cool as Rockbox is, you'd still be giving your money to Apple.

iRiver and Cowon make good audio players that support Ogg Vorbis files. I've never heard anyone say anything bad about Cowon's iAudio X5.

[epimer]

One thing to note about RockBox is that it doesn't work on every iPod (yet?). For example, it doesn't work on my 2nd generation nano.

So if that's what you're going for, check that it's going to work before letting go of your hard earned cash!

[PriceChild]

Yeah as the above poster said, rockbox isn't officially supported on the 5.5 ipods. I tried it on my b/w ipod and it wouldn't stop hard freezing :(

[K.Mandla]

Thanks everybody for your help with this. It looks like, for the short term, she'll get most of her music from Jamendo as mp3s, and use them that way. Rockbox might be an option in the future, but for now this works well. Cheers!

[Bigbluecat]

I don't know how much storage you are looking for but I have always been tempted by this one:

http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/shop/Portable_MP3_Players.1/M-Cody.193/M202GB/Mcody_M20_2GB_MP3_Player.1493.html

Good reviews. Looks absolutely stunning. Plays OGG.

This is the best looking MP3 player currently out there in my view.

Have not used it. Don't know how it would play with Ubuntu. But it looks great and should sound good.

[natedawg]

If you don't want to go with an IPOD and 8gb of storage will work for you then I would recommend the Samsung T9 . It has records voice and radio, plays video and has a picture sideshow as well as a few games.
http://samsung.com/Products/MP3Player/MP3Player/YP_T9JABXAA.asp
This player rules! You just have to be sure to load the newest firmware 1.67 (its not on the samsung site but you can do a google search and find it easily)
With the 1.67 firmware you can play ogg files and you can transfer files to it like a USB drive (without the lame included windows software).

Here is a video of it with the 1.67 firmware.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jWuK7gW3HA

[Hendrixski]

:-) Although, now iTunes sells some of EMI's songs without DRM, so she can use that... in fact should, to get the market to turn away from DRM (and away from other unethical software).

[me1on]

I've heard some good things about the "vibez" mp3 player. It supports most file formats (including OGG, MP3, FLAC, WAV, etc.), looks pretty cool, and it's Linux-friendly. I've never actually tried one, but you can check it out here (http://www.trekstor.de/en/products/detail_mp3.php?pid=66&page=1) and here (http://www.amazon.com/TrekStor-vibez-Player-Black-Silver/dp/B000KDZR5U/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-5826389-4311648?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1173406008&sr=8-1).