Ubuntu and smartphone

Van Occupanther

Running Ubuntu and just finding my around. Its time to change phone soon and getting rid of iphone. Wondering if there are any out there that are either compatible with ubuntu or if it is possible to transfer music from Rhythmbox to an SD card and then will it work on my phone?

Bit of an ubuntu novice here so any info appreciated.

Tree

Most of the android based phones (and an awful lot more besides) will let you plug your phone in and mount your SD card as a disk. Transferring files to it is easy then.

Van Occupanther

So they should play ok on the phone's music player then - no need for apple style syncing, I take it?

PogMoThoin

Tree wrote: »

Most of the android based phones (and an awful lot more besides) will let you plug your phone in and mount your SD card as a disk. Transferring files to it is easy then.

There are even easier ways to send stuff to your Android phone over wifi
https://market.android.com/details?id=org.swiftp&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsIm9yZy5zd2lmdHAiXQ

And this is how you set it up with nautilus
http://maketecheasier.com/use-nautilus-as-a-ftp-client/2010/01/20

Galen

Another option is using Samba. Use Ubuntu Software Center to install Samba and then add this app to your android phone.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.funkyfresh.samba&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsImNvbS5mdW5reWZyZXNoLnNhbWJhIl0.

PogMoThoin

Galen wrote: »

Another option is using Samba. Use Ubuntu Software Center to install Samba and then add this app to your android phone.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.funkyfresh.samba&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsImNvbS5mdW5reWZyZXNoLnNhbWJhIl0.

Does that give access to root directories? Looks like it just shares the SD card.

Galen

I haven't used in a quite a while but now that you mention that's all it does do.

Khannie

Van Occupanther wrote: »

So they should play ok on the phone's music player then - no need for apple style syncing, I take it?

That's exactly right. The music player keeps an eye out for new music on the SD card.

KAGY

ES file explorer also handles smb / samba file shares. I play my videos from my HTPC (Mythbox) through it.
I gave up on native linux nfs sharing ages ago as I couldn't find the correct modules.

On problem with copying folders of music over directly is that all album art shows up in your Gallery. (except for pictures named folder.jpg apparently, or is that cover.jpg, something like that)

henbane

Khannie wrote: »

That's exactly right. The music player keeps an eye out for new music on the SD card.

+1, I've spent enough time waiting for android to finish its media scan on every restart to know that an android phone will pick up any media not stored in an explicitly blacklisted folder.

Khannie

Do you restart your phone frequently? I restarted mine for the first time since I can't remember when last week. Didn't know it did the scan at boot time though. I only have a 2G card so I don't store much on it.

henbane

Khannie wrote: »

Do you restart your phone frequently? I restarted mine for the first time since I can't remember when last week. Didn't know it did the scan at boot time though. I only have a 2G card so I don't store much on it.

Not very often, it's only hassle when you need something now and it's off. I can live with a a slow boot but it may be samsung specific or a slow sd card or both.

Not the best wording above either as I emphasised restart. It does a similar but less laggy scan when disconnected after being connected as a disk via usb so yeah, android seems to pick up any files pretty efficiently

Khannie

Ah right....I leave mine in airplane mode rather than switch off.

Ste-

Check this and this.

Might help somewhat.