Rio500 on Michael’s Domain

Audio CDs to the Rio 500 mp3 player using Linux

Sat, 26 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

OK, it is easier on a Mac. iTunes is free and does it all for you (and does it well). To replace iTunes I need at least three applications on Linux :-(

rio500-0.7-1.i386.rpm works under RedHat 9

Sat, 26 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I again tried to compile rio500-0.8.1, but without success. Compiling fails under kernel 2.4. This is an unresolved issue and mentioned in the discussion forums. So I installed the Rio500 package rio500-0.7-1.i386.rpm. Interestingly I managed via the command line to a) format the internal memory: rio_formatb) create a folder (which is necessary before one can upload a song): rio_add_folder c) upload mp3s: rio_add_song ). That’s a big advantage to the crappy Windows Rioport interface. Next time I try to install the Gnome GUI.When listening to the first songs on the Rio500 that I transferred under Linux, they appeared very silent. When I encode next time some songs I should try the lame option –scale . However, I don’t know what argument to use to get some decent amplification of the sound.

Using Riositude under VMware

Thu, 24 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I have to admit, that there is no really functioning GUI for the rioutils. Meaning that if I want to upload mp3 files to my Rio500 under Linux I have to use the command line (and even the command line seems to be somehow instable as the rpm was created a while ago and compiling fails under the recent Linux releases (Red Hat 8,9, Suse 8, 9). So I used first the Rioport AudioManager 3 under VMware. It is slow and the GUI is as bad as it gets (bloatware). A really cool replacement program for Windows is Riositude . It’s much faster, easier to use and takes not even 200 KB disk space. It works great from VMware provided I start it up immediately after plugging in my Rio500. Otherwise the Linux takes over (I guess a usb kernel module is loaded automatically upon plugging in the Rio). The kernel module has to be removed manually by “sudo /sbin/rmmod rio500” to allow VMware to control the Rio. To check which kernel moduls are loaded, use “/sbin/lsmod”. I should somehow get rid of this module if I want to stick to Riositude/VMware to operate my Rio. There are of course other programs for Windows, that can do a similar job, e.g. Rio FXP . Unfortunately this one didn’t work for us under WindowsXP. A listing of Riosoftware can be found at rioworld.org .

Rio500 drivers for W98 and W2K under VMware

Mon, 21 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

VMware W2K and W98 do not recognize my Rio500. As I run not from a physical disk, I cannot reboot into W2K or W98 and install the driver from there. I checked, however where the drivers go during the install under W98: the driver consists of two files: riousb.inf and RioUSB.sys. The riousb.inf goes to two places: to C:\windows\INF and (under the new name of RioPort.Comriousb.inf) to C:\windows\INF\OTHER. The RioUSB.sys goes to C:\windows\system32\drivers. I couldn’t check where W2K puts the drivers, becasue when I tried to start up W2K I got the following error: Cannot find file system32\ntoskrnl.exe. Please reinstall.