Latest Sony Walkmans powered by Linux?

[3rdalbum]

I just bought one of the new touchscreen Sony Walkmans, and while reading through the documentation I noticed a "License and Trademark Notice" leaflet. It turns out that Sony's player uses HEAPS of open-source projects:

c-ares
Expat
libcurl
OpenSSL
SSLeay
pppd
wpa_supplicant
Open-source Marvell wireless driver

That's not the most interesting news. There was also a link to download source-code for GPL-licensed parts of the player's software; this is where it leads:

http://www.sony.net/Products/Linux/Audio/NW-X1050.html

Yes, it looks like the Walkmans use Linux kernel 2.6.10 with Busybox 1.1.0. How very interesting! What's more, my previous Walkman uses the same and I never knew it until now.

I don't really expect any replies to this topic, although I don't mind discussion about it. But I just love the thought that my MP3 players run the same operating system as my computer!

One thing mystifies me: Why is the browser closed-source?

[hansdown]

Nice find 3rdalbum.

That is interesting.

[pt123]

That is nice but how well do these connect to Rhythmbox or Banshee?

The sound quality of the Sony mp3 players are better than the ipods

[stwschool]

Linux is everywhere, which was highly amusing given that my Windows-addicted (and very shouty about how much he hates linux) collegue doesn't even know he's using linux every day.

[sydbat]

Sony also uses Linux in their Playstation 3 (why do you think they advertise loading Linux onto a PS3??)...which means that the games developed and run on the PS3 are natively Linux, yet they are not available to Linux computer users...only as ports to Windows. Something seems off about this...

[3rdalbum]

I didn't actually think the the PS3 operating system was Linux-based, all I knew was that Sony supported installing Linux on the PS3. The guy at the Sony store told me yesterday that he had a hard disk that couldn't be read in Windows or Mac OS, he connected it to his PS3 and could actually browse the directories on it.

I haven't tried this Walkman in Banshee or Rhythmbox, but it's drag 'n' drop USB Mass Storage (or, optionally, MTP). Rhythmbox works with my old one but it's better to drag 'n' drop anyway otherwise you end off with 1,000 MP3 files loose inside the "MUSIC" folder.

Yes, the sound quality is awesome, and the screen is really great too - I just need to modify my program to output higher bitrate videos to take advantage of the screen.

It's just a shame about that shockingly terrible web browser. Words can't describe how terrible the web browser is.