I always get yelled at by some moderator when I bring up whats missing so I'll try to say this as nice a possible;

One of the KEY requirements of AMAROK is device support. Since it's not yet available in any sort of real feature can somebody tell me when that might happen?

I've been keeping a virtual box of KUBUNTU 10.04 running with the sole intention of following AMAROK.... but it seems as if the killer functions of 1.4 are not even being discussed.

Is there a reason for no Mass Storage Device support? (and I'm not talking about a hack to make it work, I mean real device support)

And no I can't program ... if I could I would love to help out. If Amarok needs any Interactive design or heuristic evaluation .... i'd love to help ....


T

Please describe "Mass Storage Device support" - I plug in a device (cd, Sansa mp3 player) and it shows in Amarok in the "local collection", nothing to configure - it just shows (you might have to make sure it's mounted, I think I have my stuff mounted automatically)

this might help (though ipod centric)
http://bausparfuchs.wordpress.com/2010/ ... -amarok-2/

Explain how mounting in local collection equels device support? How do i easily get tracks to the device without effecting the home collection?

If there is a way to do this, its completly in intuitive in Amarok.... not a complaint but a usability bug in a big way.

t

I was asking you to define what you meant by "Mass Storage Device support", in other threads posters can't figure how to get the device seen in Amarok - to me this is "device support" which is the thread title.

If you're looking for the ability to copy and paste between multiple collections from within Amarok then right click an album or song and select "copy to collection", etc .........

If you're looking for syncing capability? If so this should answer you question viewtopic.php?f=116&t=85139&p=158657&hilit=amarok+sync#p160959.

Personally I just open the device in Dolphin (or Konq) and copy and paste

If you're looking for something else then explain

PS - "device support" doesn't come close to describing what you're looking for

These things are completly unintuitive within the UI .... what your describing are "hacks" that people have "figured out" in order to make it work.

What I would like is something CLEAR in the ui that does complies with the following reguirements:

1 - Move playlist tracks to a mounted removable device

2 - secure user that tracks are not being moved from the main collection perminatly,

3 - allow any device to be added to amarok and copy, delete, move files from within the application.

4 - all actions with the device should be clearly identified within the UI.


OK pretty easy.

See Amarok 1.4 if your confused

http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/Cl ... ent=120598

google01103 wrote:Please describe "Mass Storage Device support" - I plug in a device (cd, Sansa mp3 player) and it shows in Amarok in the "local collection", nothing to configure - it just shows (you might have to make sure it's mounted, I think I have my stuff mounted automatically)

I think what coacharnold is talking about is the fact that it doesn't "just show" for some of us. When I have Amarok 2.3.1 running and plug in either my iPod Video or my iPod Classic a file browser pops onto the desktop, but nothing changes in Amarok. In particular, nothing new shows up in the local collection. Right-clicking on a track does not offer a "copy to collection..." choice because there is no other collection to copy to. Amarok simply doesn't see the device.

Note that, while an iPod behaves like a mass-storage device, you cannot simply copy content onto it and expect the embedded OS to see it. You have to update the iPod's database. That's why I used Amarok 1.4.x. Of all the (universally awful) choices available on Linux at the time, Amarok could be made to do the right thing. In 2.3.1, support for iPods is broken under some circumstances. And rather than getting down to figuring out what causes the breakage, people here are arguing with users who are simply reporting the breakage.

I understand the lack of time, an all-volunteer army, and all that. I'm willing to cut some slack for a UI designed by and for the developers of the UI. I've been guilty of the same sin once or twice. But, can we get past the notion that all users are doofuses who can't figure out how to mount a filesystem? In the adjacent "Devices" thread, I asked what can cause an iPod to not be noticed by Amarok. I repeat that question here. Coacharnold and I appear to have setups that don't work with Amarok. Can anybody describe what infrastructure pieces have to be working in order for Amarok to see an iPod? Anybody?

this might help (though ipod centric)
http://bausparfuchs.wordpress.com/2010/ ... -amarok-2/

Sorry. That doesn't help at all, since it assumes that all the behind-the-scenes infrastructure is working and Amarok magically sees the iPod. It's not, and it doesn't, on my 64-bit Fedora 11 setup. (But gtkpod works fine.)

Paul Allen

@allenpl and I think what he was saying is that the functionality he liked in 1.4 for copying to and from a mp3 player is not there in any meaningful and useful way in 2.3.x - I don't see where he says his device is not seen

FYI - I posted a bug report because my thumb drive is not working correctly - the drive shows but nothing is shown in it's collection and yet I'm pretty darn sure it worked fine a while back. But I've not had trouble with my mp3 player so go figure.

Have you tried posting on the irc or mailing list?

"allenpl and I think what he was saying is that the functionality he liked in 1.4 for copying to and from a mp3 player is not there in any meaningful and useful way in 2.3.x - I don't see where he says his device is not seen"


ok then .... ALL OF THE ABOVE .... the program has serious usability issues and whenever they are brought up it evokes a flame .... the job that programmers have done is top notch ... but here's a clue .... "YOUR STAKE HOLDERS ARE HAVING ISSUES" ..... this means as programmers someone among you needs to take the time and answer the questions before getting upset and FLAMING!!!!

google01103 wrote:@allenpl and I think what he was saying is that the functionality he liked in 1.4 for copying to and from a mp3 player is not there in any meaningful and useful way in 2.3.x - I don't see where he says his device is not seen

Well, the device support in 1.4 was explicit, although figuring out how to actually use it was non-obvious. In 2.3, device support is a bit more subtle. Apparently a new collection shows up in the browser when a device is plugged in. I'm willing to believe that this functionality exists, although I've never seen it work on my system. It sounds to me as if coacharnold is seeing the same thing I am, and he's equating it with the total absence of device support because it's indistinguishable from that.

Have you tried posting on the irc or mailing list?

Nope. Are those better places to find developers? I just want to know what chain of events leads from the USB driver noticing a device insertion to Amarok noticing the new device. Knowing how that is supposed to work might let me diagnose what's going wrong on my system.

Paul

The chain is likely as follows:

Kernel > > HAL > Solid > Amarok.
How HAL listens... I don't know. Note that Amarok filters those newly connected devices to show only those it knows it supports, using Solid predicates.

If your device is shown in the output of "lshal" and "solid-hardware list" then the problem is in the predicates used.

Amarok 2 doesn't support newer Apple devices. That's a fact.
I've here an
iPod Video 5.5Gen, which works
iPod Shuffle 3Gen, which is recognized, but not usable
iPhone 3GS, which doesn't work at all.
Apple devices highly depend on libgpod. So please check, that they work with gtkpod.
If so, devs probably should evaluate why these devices don't work with Amarok.
Atm. Amarok is not usable for syncing/filling iPxxx. You can mount them and add the directory to the collection, but...
Handling of compilations, last.fm and filling my iPod were the main reasons for using Amarok. Now one issue doesn't work and another one (last.fm) can be handled by nearly any other musicplayer. Meanwhile I'm using floola.

m0nk

[quote="bcooksley"
If your device is shown in the output of "lshal" and "solid-hardware list" then the problem is in the predicates used.[/quote]

Excellent! That's the detail I've been waiting for.

Lshal shows this:

udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_FC44_94A4'
access_control.file = '/dev/sdd2' (string)
access_control.type = 'removable-block' (string)
block.device = '/dev/sdd2' (string)
block.is_volume = true (bool)
block.major = 8 (0x8) (int)
block.minor = 50 (0x32) (int)
block.storage_device = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/storage_serial_Apple_iPod_000A27001516BDEC_0_0' (string)
info.callouts.add = {'hal-acl-tool --add-device', 'libgpod-callout', 'hal-podsleuth'} (string list)
info.callouts.remove = {'hal-acl-tool --remove-device'} (string list)
info.capabilities = {'volume', 'block', 'access_control'} (string list)
info.category = 'volume' (string)
info.interfaces = {'org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume', 'org.podsleuth'} (string list)
info.parent = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/storage_serial_Apple_iPod_000A27001516BDEC_0_0' (string)
info.product = 'IPOD' (string)
info.udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_FC44_94A4' (string)
linux.hotplug_type = 3 (0x3) (int)
linux.sysfs_path = '/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb2/2-2/2-2:1.0/host10/target10:0:0/10:0:0:0/block/sdd/sdd2' (string)
org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.method_argnames = {'mount_point fstype extra_options', 'extra_options', 'extra_options'} (string list)
org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.method_execpaths = {'hal-storage-mount', 'hal-storage-unmount', 'hal-storage-eject'} (string list)
org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.method_names = {'Mount', 'Unmount', 'Eject'} (string list)
org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.method_signatures = {'ssas', 'as', 'as'} (string list)
org.podsleuth.method_execpaths = {'hal-podsleuth', 'hal-podsleuth --update'} (string list)
org.podsleuth.method_names = {'Scan', 'UpdateModelTable'} (string list)
org.podsleuth.method_signatures = {'', ''} (string list)
volume.block_size = 2048 (0x800) (int)
volume.fstype = 'vfat' (string)
volume.fsusage = 'filesystem' (string)
volume.fsversion = 'FAT32' (string)
volume.ignore = false (bool)
volume.is_disc = false (bool)
volume.is_mounted = false (bool)
volume.is_mounted_read_only = false (bool)
volume.is_partition = true (bool)
volume.label = 'IPOD' (string)
volume.linux.is_device_mapper = false (bool)
volume.mount.valid_options = {'ro', 'sync', 'dirsync', 'noatime', 'nodiratime', 'noexec', 'quiet', 'remount', 'exec', 'utf8', 'shortname=', 'codepage=', 'iocharset=', 'umask=', 'dmask=', 'fmask=', 'uid=', 'flush'} (string list)
volume.mount_point = '' (string)
volume.num_blocks = 58412336 (0x37b4d30) (uint64)
volume.partition.media_size = 30005821440 (0x6fc7c8000) (uint64)
volume.partition.number = 2 (0x2) (int)
volume.partition.start = 98703360 (0x5e21800) (uint64)
volume.size = 29907116032 (0x6f69a6000) (uint64)
volume.unmount.valid_options = {'lazy'} (string list)
volume.uuid = 'FC44-94A4' (string)

Solid-devices shows this:

udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_FC44_94A4'
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_part1_size_98574336'
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/storage_serial_Apple_iPod_000A27001516BDEC_0_0'
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_5ac_1209_000A27001516BDEC_if0_scsi_host_0_scsi_device_lun0_scsi_generic'
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_5ac_1209_000A27001516BDEC_if0_scsi_host_0_scsi_device_lun0'
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_5ac_1209_000A27001516BDEC_if0_scsi_host_0'
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_5ac_1209_000A27001516BDEC_if0_scsi_host'
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_5ac_1209_000A27001516BDEC_if0'
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_5ac_1209_000A27001516BDEC'

Amarok's debug output shows stuff like this:

amarok: [MountPointManager] Factory "uuid" could not create device handler
amarok: [MountPointManager] Device added and mounted, checking handlers
amarok: [MountPointManager] found handler for "/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_FC44_94A4"
...
amarok: [MountPointManager] Factory "uuid" could not create device handler
amarok: [MountPointManager] Device added and mounted, checking handlers
amarok: [MountPointManager] found handler for "/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_FC44_94A4"
...
amarok: [MediaDeviceCache] Found Solid PMP that is also a StorageDrive, skipping
amarok: [MediaDeviceCache] Found Solid::DeviceInterface::StorageAccess with udi = "/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_FC44_94A4"
amarok: [MediaDeviceCache] Device name is = "IPOD" and was made by ""
amarok: [MediaDeviceCache] Solid device is not accessible, will wait until it is to consider it added.
...
amarok: [MediaDeviceCache] Found Solid PMP that is also a StorageDrive, skipping
amarok: [MediaDeviceCache] Found Solid::DeviceInterface::StorageAccess with udi = "/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_FC44_94A4"
amarok: [MediaDeviceCache] Device name is = "IPOD" and was made by ""
amarok: [MediaDeviceCache] Solid device is not accessible, will wait until it is to consider it added.
...
amarok: [MediaDeviceCache] Found Solid::DeviceInterface::StorageDrive with udi = "/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/storage_serial_Apple_iPod_000A27001516BDEC_0_0"
amarok: [MediaDeviceCache] Device name is = "iPod" and was made by "Apple"
...

Amarok appears to see the iPod, but is deciding not to touch it. This particular device is an iPod Video 5.5gen that works fine with gtkpod and worked fine with Amarok 1.x.

Where can I find the solid predicates? Or, do these messages suggest some other line of attack?

Thanks bunches!

Paul

Unfortunately only an Amarok developer will know how to adjust the code to detect it properly.

Great that this is devolving into a programming discusiion cause yes thats entirely important .... but my original post was on the simplicity if MASS storage device ..... I should be able to plug in a thumb drive and have it work ..... it shouldn't matter