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gMTP v0.9 - A simple MP3 player client for Oracle Solaris 10.

Darran Kartaschew (aka Chewy509).
Released under the BSD License. 2009-2011.

A simple MP3 player client for MTP based devices.

Due to Oracle Solaris 10 not having a native MTP based MP3 player support application, I've written my own GUI client for MTP devices. It supports:

For other needs like managing your audio collection, ripping CDs I suggest you look at Gnomad2 or another full featured media application.

Requirements

Installation (Binary)

Oracle Solaris 10

Download SYSV package below, gunzip it and use 'pkgadd -d gMTP-0.9-i386.pkg' to install.

Debian GNU/Linux

gMTP is available in the unstable (sid) package lists. Use 'apt-get' to install.

Ubuntu

gMTP is available in the universe package lists. Use 'apt-get' to install.

Installation (Source)

libmtp

Download the libmtp source code, unpack and run: $ INSTALL=/usr/ucb/install MAKE=gmake ./configure

Note: If you don't have a libusb.pc file (configure complains about libusb being missing), then you can use this one. Copy to /usr/lib/pkgconfig/libusb.pc.

Then normal make and make install routine.

Once installed, test the mtp package by connecting your MP3 player, and run mtp-detect from a commandline. If all is well, you should see your device details scroll across the screen.

libid3tag

Download the libid3tag source code, unpack and run: $ INSTALL=/usr/ucb/install MAKE=gmake ./configure

Then normal make and make install routine.

copy id3tag.pc to /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/id3tag.pc

libflac

Download the FLAC source code, unpack and run: $ INSTALL=/usr/ucb/install MAKE=gmake ./configure

Then normal make and make install routine.

gMTP

Download and unpack the source code, and run the normal make, make install and make register-gconf-schemas routine. Note: The build process will use GTK+-2.0 by default, to use GTK+-3.0 (EXPERIMENTAL) use make gtk3, make install-gtk3 and make register-gsettings-schemas.

run gmtp to start the appication. Feel free to add a launcher to the JDS menu as needed.

Note: For Solaris10/OpenSolaris, the default makefile assumes you have SunStudio 12 installed. If you don't then modify the make file to use gcc instead. All other OSes will use gcc as default.

Downloads

gMTP Source: gMTP-0.9-i386.tar.gz
gMTP Solaris 10 Package: gMTP-0.9-i386.pkg.gz (Warning: Does NOT contain libmtp, libflac or libid3tag).

Usage

run gmtp. Use the Toolbar buttons for various functions. Files surrounded by "< .. >" are folders, double click to enter. Double clicking a file, will download it. Use the Preferences to set upload and download paths. (Note: the last upload/download path is saved when you exit the application). Drag'n'Drop support is enabled for uploading files to the device. Simply drop the desired files/folder into gMTP to upload the files/folders to the device.

FAQ

Q. What is MTP?
A. MTP = Media Transfer Protocol. MTP has been adopted by most major MP3 and Mobile Phone manufacturers as the method of talking to devices to upload/download files to/from a PC. See Media Transfer Protocol for more information.

Q. Why doesn't gMTP support my iPod or Creative Nomad player
A. These devices do not use MTP for moving data to/from a device. Apple iPod uses it's own custom protocol in additional to USB Mass Storage and Creative devices use NJB.

Q. I have a MTP enabled device and it is connected to my PC, but it doesn't get detected by gMTP?
A. Most devices are capable of using different modes to talk to your PC, so ensure that the device is in MTP mode.
A. Or, libmtp doesn't know about your device or how to handle it correctly. Run $ mtp-detect to see if it can be found.

Q. I get asked which storage device to connect to when I connect to my mobile phone?
A. Some devices (notably mobile phones), have both internal storage (non-removable) and external storage (removable storage) in the form of a micro-SD card or M2 card, and gMTP will treat these as different storage devices.

Q. Does gMTP support Albums and uploading Album Art?
A. Yes. Album data is autocreated/updated when you upload a MP3 (or other supported audio file) by using information contained within the audio file, eg. Using the ID3 Tag information in an MP3 file. Once the Album has been created, you can upload the album art via the Edit / Add Album Art menu option.

Q. Will this software work on OpenSolaris, Linux, *BSD or other POSIX Operating System
A. I have reports that it runs successfully on OpenSolaris, Arch Linux, Debian and Ubuntu.

Q. What about SPARC, ARM or other non-x86 systems?
A. It should work fine but is untested. (If libmtp and libid3tag work fine on your platform, then gMTP should as well).

Q. Do I need root access to use gMTP?
A. On Solaris 10, in general No. (If you do need root access, then double check your RBAC setup for your user then). On Linux, in general No, as libmtp should have set your udev rules correctly for libmtp known devices.

Q. In the file view or playlist editor, tracks have a length of 0:00?
A. The length field displayed is reliant on the track data being set correctly when the audio file was uploaded. Some file transfer utilies do not set this information correctly (and earlier versions of gMTP are also guilty of this). Simply download and re-upload the audio file using gMTP to correct the track data on the player.

Q. I have the same audio file loaded on my device in different formats, but the song duration is different between them.
A. WMA, FLAC and OGG all store the song duration in header information, and this is set by the encoder used to create the file. It may be a bug with the encoder? With MP3 files, the track duration is calculated when the file is uploaded, so this information should be correct unless you have a corrupt MP3 file.

Q. The translations are pretty awful or just plain wrong, or why don't you have xyz language?
A. The initial translations were done using Google Translate services, so accuracy is not 100%. Please email me with corrections to existing translations. If you would like a particular language added, and are happy to assist, please let me know or simply email me with the correct *.po file with the translations for your langauge.

Q. I'm using French Canadian (fr_CA.UTF-8) as my locale on Solaris 10, but I don't get French translations?
A. This is due to an idiosyncrasy on Solaris 10 and language translations. Either:

  1. Copy the gmtp.mo file from /usr/local/share/locale/fr/LC_MESSAGES to /usr/local/share/locale/fr.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES, and restart gmtp.
  2. or, create a symlink fr.UTF-8 pointing to fr in /usr/local/share/locale using 'ln -s fr fr.UTF-8'.

French translations should now be present. (Technical information: On Solaris, the gettext() call will only look in the current locale folder as defined by the LC_MESSAGES environment variable and not the base language folder as well for translations, so if the locale is set to 'fr.UTF-8', gettext() will only look in that locale folder and not 'fr' as well - which is what the GNU version of gettext() does). This applies to all languages on Solaris 10. For Linux/FreeBSD uses this should not be an issue as most will use the GNU version of gettext().

Q. The column view options do not appear to be working?
A. The gconf schema was updated in v0.8. Please update your local schema file.

Screen Shots

Default interface gMTP
gMTP screen shot
Device Properties
gMTP screen shot
gMTP Preferences
gMTP screen shot
Album Art
gMTP screen shot
File Upload to Device
gMTP screen shot
Playlist Editor
gMTP screen shot

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