[NTLUG:Discuss] Fwd: Unable to transfer music files to iPod in Amarok

[Leroy Tennison]

Ralph Green wrote:
> Howdy,
>   I answered because he posted twice and asked if anyone knew anything
> about Ubuntu.  I was trying to make the message frank, but not nasty.  I
> toned it down from what I originally wrote to make everything I wrote to
> the point.  I wanted him to know he could get help from the group, and
> even me.  But, I also wanted him to know that his bad decision about a
> music player was not Linux's fault.  From the tone of his second post, I
> thought he would either quit in frustration, or keep pleading.  I was
> trying to give him an honest answer to his question.
>   I did not say he was silly, but I did say that this question of his
> was.  A subtle point, maybe.  Everyone asks silly questions, and I know
> I have.  But, I don't run away and pout when called on it.  The closest
> I even came was a few years back when someone was posting flat out lies
> and attributing them to me.  I decided to just lay low and not post for
> a while then.
>   The ipod is a mediocre design, at best.  The only nice thing I know
> about it is that it looks good.  Just because a lot of people use it is
> no justification to whine about Linux.  Apple goes out of their way to
> cripple the device and make it support only the Mac and Windows.  I like
> Chris's suggestion about Rockbox.  If the model that Robert has was
> compatible with Rockbox, he could make it into a decent player.  It
> won't be a great player, but it will be decent and then support Linux.
> Rockbox is quite nice, open source and flexible.  
>  Finally, I did write a note to Robert, off list, asking him to give us
> another try.  I told him that he had no need to apologize and would be
> welcome to try us again.
> Have a good day,
> Ralph
> 
> 
> On Wed, 2009-06-03 at 11:44 -0500, Michael Barnes wrote:
>> On Sun, May 31, 2009 at 10:58 PM, Ralph Green <sfreader at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>>  If I were to waste time on an iPod,
>>
>> Just curious.  Why then, did you waste your (and our) time with a long
>> and nasty post.  You could have hit delete and moved on.  The Linux
>> community has many ways to do pretty much anything, and everybody has
>> a right to attempt to work with whatever hard/software they desire.
>> And they should have that right on any forum without fear of not being
>> taken seriously or called silly.  We have enough problems bringing
>> people into the Linux community as it is.
>>
>> Despite your distaste, the iPod does have an overwhelming market share
>> of portable audio devices.
>>
>> My $.0002
>>
>> Michael
>>
>> Note to First Last:  Hang in there.  With Linux, almost anything is
>> possible.  Keep looking.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> http://www.ntlug.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> 

Hopefully I can be kind and yet straightforward as well.  There are 
times when you have to make a decision between hardware and software.  I 
"got that opportunity" when I made the mistake of buying a VIA chip 
based motherboard.  All hardware vendors support Windows (to a better or 
worse degree.  I worked for Microsoft in support at one point and we got 
a problem ticket about a cheap SCSI controller, the escalation engineer 
replied that we would have been better off buying the customer a good 
SCSI controller than trying to support the piece of junk they selected).

But I digress, unfortunately not all vendors support Linux as well.  I 
had to choose between hardware and software, I choose the latter (anyone 
want a VIA chip based motherboard?  The price is right!)  I wouldn't 
attempt to tell Robert what to do about his iPod, all I can say is that 
he may have to make a choice.  I learned the hard way that it is a good 
idea to Google and post here before buying hardware.