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iRiver H10 on Ubuntu Linux Howto

I’m pleased to announce that after looking into it off and on for the last 6 months, I’ve got my iRiver H10 5GB fully working in Linux for the first time.

The H10 comes in MTP mode – Microsoft Transfer Protocol, insead of being a UMS – USB Media Storage device. MTP is needed for Plays for Sure compatibility, so it will work with Napster-To-Go or Yahoo, for example. A UMS device, when plugged in, just shows up as a drive letter on your PC, so you can drag and drop files on to it. Sacrificing Napster-to-go (which I haven’t used in 6 months) is a small price to pay to use this on Linux – especially as no modern online music store has a Linux client yet.

The steps needed update your firmware, convert your iRiver to UMS mode, and then you need to install EasyH10 to rebuild your music database. Do this at your own risk!

How I did it, and be prepared to lose any music on your H10:

  1. I updated my firmware from 2.03 to 2.51 MTP, [version 2.51 at iRiver.com][1].
  2. Go to the [Misticriver.net H10 Wiki][2]
  3. Follow the [instructions to convert your H10 from MTP to UMS][3].
  4. Download EasyH10: [Windows or Linux tarball][4] or [Debian / Ubuntu package][5]. (I used the [i386 Debian package][6] on Ubuntu 5.10 with no problems).

  5. If installing on Ubuntu or Debian, at a terminal, type: sudo dpkg -i easyh10_1.2.1-1_i386.deb

    • Plug in your H10 to your Ubuntu box. It should mount in /media/H10 (if it didn’t, for the purpose of this, I’m going to use that going forward).

    • At a command line type:

      cd /usr/share/easyh10/model (On Ubuntu, could be /usr/local/share/easyh10/model on other distributions) and then ls

      Find your model in the list, I have a H10UMS_5GB_FW2.04-2.51.model so we’ll use that in the next step.

    • From a terminal, type in the following: cp /usr/share/easyh10/model/H10UMS_5GB_FW2.04-2.51.model /media/H10/easyh10.model (Or whichever corresponding version you have, copy it over as easyh10.model in the root directory of the H10).

      • Unmount your H10 (right click and click unmount), unplug the USB cable, let it reboot and install, and then plug it back in to your PC.
      • Copy some music in to your H10/Media/Music directory. Not Music the directory!
      • From a terminal type easyh10 -Un -on /media/H10 to rebuild your database. That should be it! However, if you run in easyh10 and see this, like I did:

      `EasyH10 [CUI] 1.2.1 Copyright (c) 2005 by Nyaochi

H10 model template: /media/H10/easyh10.model
Path to database: /media/H10/System\DATA/
Path to music: /media/H10/Media\Music/
Path to playlist: /media/H10/Media\Playlist/
Playlist extension: .plp

Enumerating music files:
236 files found.

Reading H10 model template:
H10 (UMS) 5GB firmware 2.04 - 2.51

Obtaining media information from 236 files:
236 files obtained.

Updating database

Writing H10 media database:
Failed to write the H10 database (code = 8). (That smiley face should be an 8 )
ERROR: Database update.` Per [this thread on the EasyH10 forums][7], delete all your files in the H10/System/DATA folder. Run it again, and you should see: `silwenae@shaftoe:/usr/share/easyh10/model$ easyh10 -Un -on /media/H10
EasyH10 [CUI] 1.2.1 Copyright (c) 2005 by Nyaochi

H10 model template: /media/H10/easyh10.model
Path to database: /media/H10/System\DATA/
Path to music: /media/H10/Media\Music/

Enumerating music files:
236 files found.

Reading H10 model template:
H10 (UMS) 5GB firmware 2.04 - 2.51

Obtaining media information from 236 files:
236 files obtained.

Updating database

Writing H10 media database:
100%: (H10DB.hdr)
` It’s my understanding that after every time you add music files to your H10, you need to run EasyH10 to update your database to let your H10 know that the music is there. You could choose to play songs through the Browser on the H10, but it’s easiest in Music. Unfortunately, the H10 isn’t recognized in [Banshee][8], but with how the database needs to be updated each time, I doubt it will ever work. Though this is a great start for using in Linux, as this was the last thing that required me to have a Windows box. [1]: http://iriver.com/html/support/download/sudw_view.asp?searchProductIdx=&searchCategoryIdx=&searchString=&page=1&idx=739&tmpSearchProductIdx=&tmpSearchCategoryIdx=&tmpSearchString= [2]: http://www.misticriver.net/wiki/index.php/H10 [3]: http://www.misticriver.net/wiki/index.php/H10_Firmware_Conversion:_MTP/UMS [4]: http://easyh10.sourceforge.net/download.html [5]: http://webb.ens-cachan.fr/debian/pool/main/e/easyh10/ [6]: http://webb.ens-cachan.fr/debian/pool/main/e/easyh10/easyh10_1.2.1-1_i386.deb [7]: http://easyh10.sourceforge.net/forum/index.php?topic=39.0 [8]: http://www.banshee-project.org

Dell 2405 Modelines

As I mentioned in my last post, I needed to use different modeline setting on my Nvidia xorg.conf file than when I had my ATI card installed.

I have no idea why, but it worked. For posterity’s sake, I thought I’d just document ’em here in case I ever needed again.

For my Nvidia card, in the Monitor section of my xorg.conf:

Section "Monitor"<br /> Identifier "DELL 2405FPW"<br /> HorizSync 30-82<br /> VertRefresh 60-60<br /> Option "DPMS"<br /> Modeline "1920x1200" 92.473920 1920 1992 2192 2464 1200 1209 1217 1251 -HSync +VSync interlace<br /> EndSection

And from my ATI x800 xorg.conf:

Section "Monitor"<br /> Identifier "Monitor0"<br /> HorizSync 30-82<br /> VertRefresh 60-60<br /> Option "DPMS"<br /> Modeline "1920x1200" 193.16 1920 2048 2256 2592 1200 1201 1204 1242 -Hsync +Vsync

EndSection

They both worked for 1920×1200, the monitor’s native resolution, flawlessly. There’s a big difference in going from 1920×1200 to any other resolution, especially 1600×1200 or below. This monitor is definitely most crisp and bright when running in 1920×1200 like it should be.

OS Installation Headaches

I thought I was done with installing my operating system, but I ran into another glitch today. I installed, or more appropriately, tried to install Quake IV and Doom 3. Quake IV I had working previously before the reformat, and I kept meaning to get around to installing Doom 3 on Linux to try out some of the mods.

Fixing my Doom 3 problem was easy – for whatever reason, my DVD-rom drive wouldn’t read the first disc, so I couldn’t transfer the .pak file over I needed. Put it on the NAS, and fixed it.

Quake IV is driving me nuts. All of the menu’s have the wrong text, such as #str_000000 or different numbers. Searching on Google turned up one hit on the SUSE mailing lists – and the guy reinstalled and it was fine. I’ve re-installed 3 times with no luck, including trying the 1.05 installer instead of 1.06.

I even thought the above problems were a video card driver problem, that my ATI card wasn’t working right. So I swapped it out for a Nvidia 6800 and spent a good hour reconfiguring my X server (that was fun). Turns out I needed different mode lines for my Dell 2405 (more on that later).

The net result is I’m running a Nvidia 6800 instead of my ATI x800, so the net result is about equal. It took a while to get my 1920×1200 resolution back, but it’s working. Doom3 is working, but no Quake IV yet (and I even backed up my save games!).

OS Installation Master

I am the OS Installation Master. I must have installed or booted LiveCDs of Ubuntu at least 10 times today.

When I re-installed 5.10 last week, I got a weird error on my first bootup that no OS wasn’t found. I re-installed, and deleted all the partitions on both hard drives, and no problems.

Well, similar situation after installing Edubuntu and Dapper Drake Flight 3. Same error. After installing and reinstalling OS’s to no avail, including wiping the main hard drive, and spending a couple hours tweaking GRUB by hand, it turns out that the boot order in my BIOS was out of order, looking at the 2nd hard drive first, instead of the 1st hard drive. I have no idea how the BIOS was changed (sure wasn’t by me!), as the MBR is on the first hard drive. Changed the BIOS option, and booting in to (a fresh version) of Ubuntu. Now the test will be installing Edubuntu again on the 2nd hard drive.

But I can say I have installing Ubuntu down cold. The bad news is, was that I installed Quake IV and Doom 3 this morning, patched ’em, and downloaded a few mods. It was time consuming, but not that big a loss. The good news is was that re-installing wasn’t that big of a deal, as I had everything backed up from my fresh install last week.

Reformat Complete

I’m up and running on a clean install of Ubuntu 5.10. Everything went smooth, swapped the hard drives out, re-installed from scratch, wiping my hard drives clean.

One of the cooler things I found during the re-install, was Automatix and Easy Ubuntu. Both are illegal in the United States, specifically for the codec support they install (DVD, MP3, etc).

Basically, they do the same thing, though Automatix is more complete. They provide a script to install everything a default Ubuntu installation didn’t – support for MP3, DVD, plugins like Flash and Java for Firefox, missing applications like dvd::rip, windows codecs, multimedia players such as mplayer, etc. All automagically by updating your sources.list file for you and just runnign the script. Automatix lets you pick and choose, and then just installs the stuff. Very cool that the user community have started these projects.

I’m going to wait on installing Dapper Drake Flight 3 on the second hard drive. Instead, I downloaded Edubuntu, and am going to install that first. With three kids under the age of 10, I’ve always wanted to start them on Linux. My 10 year old son no longer really plays games – he plays a ton of flash games on the net from Lego, Yahooligans, etc. Edubuntu may be a great alternative, but I will need to find a new wireless card. So we’ll install that and take a look-see.

Ubuntu Fun

As I mentioned in my last post, screwing around with my Ubuntu repositories has messed some stuff up on my system. Most of my Mono apps no longer work, with the exception of Tomboy.

This past Sunday, I was modding another Xbox, and unzipping ROM files like a madman, when I ran out of disk space. 60 gigs goes fast, especially with all the music and photos on this machine, as well as a few games.

I have a 20 gig installed as a secondary drive, where I keep a development version of Ubuntu running. I haven’t booted in to that drive a while.

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to contribute something to Ubuntu this year. Whether it’s writing documentation, bug hunting, or on the wiki, I need to do something. (God knows I can’t right code). More on that in another post.

How do these all tie together? Today I began the process of backing up my stuff on this machine, and I’m going to swap out hard drives and reinstall. I debated about just throwing in an extra hard drive replacing the 20 gig to fix my space problem and mounting that, but I discarded that option. I’m going to get a 120 gig drive as my main hard drive to run Ubuntu 5.10 as my stable operating system, and make the 60 gig drive run the latest development version of Ubuntu, Dapper Drake.

So tonight I’ll swap out my CDRW for a DVDRW, remove and add a hard drive, and re-install Ubuntu a couple of times.

Fun!

Upgrading Mono – whoops!

I wanted to upgrade the to the latest Banshee music player something fierce. I’ve been meaning to blog about Banshee for forever and a day, but with the latest tarball out, that includes plugin support, especially Audioscrobbler, I tried to upgrade.

Well, Banshee wants the latest and greatest Mono. I checked the Ubuntu Backports, but they didn’t have the latest Banshee nor Mono.

So I tried something that worked when I was running Ubuntu 5.04 and wanted the latest VLC to stream 89.3 The Current – I changed my sources.list to the latest Ubuntu (Dapper Drake), upgraded the Mono and Banshee packages, and then downgraded my sources.list back to Ubuntu 5.10.

Mono seems to be working fine, and the Mono apps I have loaded (Tomboy, F-Spot) with one exception – Banshee. Banshee segfaults if you just look at it funny. I can’t listen to music, import my library, or restart it after a crash.

Ah well, back to XMMS for listening to music.

Ubuntu Desktop News

The first Ubuntu Desktop News has been published.

It contains an overview of all the work being done on the upcoming 6.04 Dapper Drake release of Ubuntu, specifically around desktop improvements.

With lots of topics, including speed improvements, being able to install packages by just double-clicking on a .deb file (!), Rhythmbox mention, and an interview with Sebastian Bacher, if you’re an Ubuntu user, this is worth a read!

10 Things That Make Ubuntu a Neophyte's Distribution

I don’t think of myself as a neophyte when it comes to Linux or Ubuntu, but the All About Linux Blog covers 10 things that make Ubuntu great for a new Linux user.

I won’t cover them here, as he does a great job of explaining them. And I whole-heartedly agree – Ubuntu is the only distribution I would recommend for someone new to Linux. Or even to a user who’s used Linux for a while. By far the best distribution I’ve ever used, and it’s still my day to day OS at home on my two primary machines.

Installing and Configuring Ubuntu on a Laptop

LinuxDevCenter.com: Installing and Configuring Ubuntu on a Laptop. Jeremy Jones of the Weather Channel purchases a Dell, and installs Ubuntu on it.

It’s a pretty good overview, and he runs into a couple quirky things that installing Linux on a laptop always seem to have, but no more than desktop installations now. Linux installs on laptops have come a long way in the last two years or so. While I had a similar experience with HP dv1000, it always comes down to the little things. The only big thing I’m still stuck on is suspend support.

Pretty good article if you’re looking to install Linux or Ubuntu on a laptop, especially a Dell.