I get around the general problem by using Google Drive/Dropbox/OneDrive. For my music files, I've uploaded all my music (about 50GB of music I own) to Amazon MP3 and Google Music. Depending on how much music you're talking about you might need to spring for paying for the space, but I believe both have free tiers.
On Mar 25, 2014 11:50 PM, Ben Scott <dragonh...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Work has provided me with a new handheld computer, a Galaxy S4, made > by Samsung. It runs Android 4.3 plus whatever unspeakable horrors > Samsung and Verizon have inflicted upon it. There's a microSD flash > memory card mounted inside, and I'd like to be able to copy files to > and from it, from my Linux home desktop. This is proving unreasonably > hard. > > Aside from coping general documents, photos, etc., back and forth, I > have a large collection of MP3 files on my desktop that I want to keep > in sync on my handheld -- adds, changes, *and* deletes. rsync does a > fine job of this on a filesystem. My previous handhelds let me plug > in the USB cable and access the mem card as a USB Mass Storage Class > (MSC) device. In other words, like a disk drive. Block device > appeared, I mounted it, I did filesystem things, I unmounted it, done. > Apparently that's not an option for this device. > > Difficulty: I can't root the device. Corporate policy. Whatever I > do has to play by the rules. Apps are generally OK, but not apps that > attempt to circumvent security mechanisms. > > It appears the Galaxy really wants to speak MTP (Media Transfer > Protocol). I've been playing with MTP stuff on Linux. My desktop is > running Debian 7.4 "wheezy", kernel 3.2.0-4 package version 3.2.54-2. > > There's some issue that causes libmtp to hang for 20-30 seconds > whenever it opens the device. That's maddeningly irritating at best. > If you're wanting to run a bunch of commands in sequence, it's > basically a showstopper. > > I've played around with the mtp-tools package from Debian (package > version 1.1.3-35-g0ece104-5). It lacks a command to create > directories. It can't transfer more than one file at a time (see > "showstopper", above). The commands lack any documentation or help. > I think they're actually just example skeletons from the libmtp > sources that were packaged up and passed off as utilities. :-p > > I tried the mtpfs FUSE filesystem (1.1, built from source). I found > it couldn't create directories. That's a problem if I want to > replicate a directory tree (see MP3 collection, above). > > I tried gmtp (pkg ver 1.3.3-1). It suffers from the libmtp hang > issue, but at least once it's connects is responsive. It can create > directories. But it can only transfer files in one directory at a > time. (Ibid.) > > I could, of course, take the mem card out of the handheld, plug it > into my desktop's card reader, and do the I/O that way. Problem there > is, I've got a fancy sealed protective case for the handheld. Opening > it repeatedly is bad for it. And annoying. And exposes the handheld > to damage. > > I've seen some suggestions of using "cloud" storage, like Dropbox > or Google Music, etc. It seems silly to have to send many gigabytes > out my netfeed only to have to immediately download it again, on the > same feed, just to copy between devices which are six inches apart and > connected via USB cable. > > Anyone got a better idea? Bluetooth? Wifi? Floppy disk? > > -- Ben > _______________________________________________ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
