MTP
MTP is the "Media Transfer Protocol" and is used by many MP3 players such as the Creative Zen and some Walkmans. In addition, Android phones and tablets use it since version 3.0. It is part of the "Windows Media" Framework and has close relationship with Windows Media Player.
1 Installation
MTP support is provided by the libmtp package, to install:
# pacman -Su --noconfirm libmtp
2 Usage
After installation, you have several mtp tools available. Upon connecting your MTP device, you use:
$ mtp-detect
to see if your MTP device is detected.
To connect to your MTP device, you use:
# mtp-connect
If connection is successful, you will be given several switch options in conjunction with mtp-connect to access data on the device.
There are also several stand alone commands you can use to access your MTP device such as,
mtp-albumart mtp-emptyfolders mtp-getplaylist mtp-reset mtp-trexist mtp-albums mtp-files mtp-hotplug mtp-sendfile mtp-connect mtp-folders mtp-newfolder mtp-sendtr mtp-delfile mtp-format mtp-newplaylist mtp-thumb mtp-detect mtp-getfile mtp-playlists mtp-tracks
3 Using media players
You can also use your mtp device in music players such as VLC. To do this you may have to edit /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules (The MTP device used in the following example is a Galaxy Nexus): To do this run and look for your device, it will be something like,
$ lsusb Bus 003 Device 011: ID 04e8:6860 Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd GT-I9100 Phone [Galaxy S II], GT-P7500 [Galaxy Tab 10.1]
in which case the entry would be,
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="04e8", ATTR{idProduct}=="6860", MODE="0755"
Then, reload udev rules,
# udevadm control -R
4 mtpfs
Mtpfs is FUSE filesystem that supports reading and writing from any MTP device. Basically it allows you to mount your device as an external drive.
It's available in the community repository.
- To mount your device
# mtpfs -o allow_other /media/YOURMOUNTPOINT
- To unmount your device
# umount /media/YOURMOUNTPOINT
Also, you can put them into your ~/.bashrc:
alias android-connect="mtpfs -o allow_other /media/YOURMOUNTPOINT" alias android-disconnect="umount /media/YOURMOUNTPOINT"