Jun

7

Mounting the Nokia 9300 file system on Linux with p3nfs

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This is how I made my Nokia 9300’s file system available to my Ubuntu Dapper box. I can now copy/move files around, as well as edit files on the phone just like I could earlier with the 9210.

Browsing the 9300 in Nautilus
Browsing the phone’s filesystem in Nautilus

You need a working Bluetooth setup. See my earlier Bluetooth related HOWTO on how to find out your phone’s Bluetooth address with the hcitool and how to setup a PIN so you can pair the devices in a friendly fashion. You need to have portmap installed (in order to use any kind of NFS shares). Then you need the key ingredient, p3nfs. Download the ARCH Linux binary package and the corresponding nfsapp SIS installer for the 9300/9500.

1. Install nfsapp on the phone (send the file over via Bluetooth, or browse to the p3nfs homepage with the phone’s browser and download it)
2. Convert the ARCH linux binary package of p3nfs into a debian package and install it: sudo alien -i p3nfs-x.xx.pkg.tar.gz
3. Set the suid bit on /usr/bin/p3nfsd so that you don’t have to be root to access the phone’s filesystem: sudo chmod+s /usr/bin/p3nfsd
4. Bind an rfcomm device to your phone. The nfsapp uses the Bluetooth channel 13: sudo rfcomm bind /dev/rfcomm0 XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX 13 (XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX being your phone’s address)
5. Start nfsapp on the phone. Check that it’s using Bluetooth/13 to communicate. If not, press ‘p’ to change it
6. Make a convenient mount point in your home directory, such as ‘Phone’
7. Start p3nfsd: p3nfsd -series80 -tty /dev/rfcomm0 -dir /home/<username>/Phone
8. Browse to the Phone directory with a file manager or in the terminal
9. when you’re done, exit any application, file browser or terminal accessing the ‘Phone’ directory and unmount the phone: ls /home/<username>/Phone/exit — wait for output confirming that p3nfsd has exited cleanly

You would probably prefer not to type all those commands by hand every day, so make a few nice aliases in your ~/.bashrc:
alias bindcomm=’sudo rfcomm bind /dev/rfcomm0 XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX 13′
alias mountphone=’p3nfsd -series80 -tty /dev/rfcomm0 -dir /home/username/Phone’
alias umountphone=’ls /home/username/Phone/exit’

NOTE: Do not mess with files on the E: and Z: “drives” on the phone. They belong the running system’s internal memory and touching that stuff may crash the phone and perhaps make it unbootable.

NOTE: This HOWTO is just a quick list of steps to get this working. It is not a substitute for actually reading the p3nfs README file. The p3nfs documentation also deals with situations when things are not working. I won’t, so don’t call me for support :)

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Jun

4

Exaile! The amaroK replacement for GNOME

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My search for the perfect music player has continued for a long time. I like Rhythmbox-like players with good library management over the straightforward XMMS-style players. Lately, I’ve been using Quod Libet a lot. Its search function is second to none, and Ex Falso, its companion application for tag editing is really sweet. I never felt comfortable with Quod Libet’s radio stream support. So, most of the time I reverted to browsing Shoutcast streams with Streamtuner and playing them with Beep.

I’ve always admired amaroK’s all-in-one philosophy. Functionally, it’s the undisputed champion of players. Alas, amaroK is very resource-hungry and my poor box is slow. To make matters worse, amaroK loads a bunch of KDE libraries along with it, so running it in GNOME is painful.

Thus, I have been on a lookout for an amaroK replacement for GNOME for some time now. Listen seems promising, but frankly it has always felt a bit unstable (not that amaroK itself never crashes, but that’s one thing we don’t want to clone from it.) Then I stumbled upon an even younger Exaile! on the Ubuntu forums and it is awesome. Written by synic in Python, it promises to be all i’m looking for. Rock!
Exaile
Exaile! player jazz action

Exaile has all I want:

  • You can easily browse either your library or the file system
  • Good search function
  • Streaming radio support and shoutcast directory browsing
  • Tag editing
  • Album art fetching from amazon.com
  • Is a GTK+ app and fits well into the GNOME desktop
  • iPod and mp3 player support (well, I don’t need this but there it is if you have python-gpod installed)

Of course, after testing this app and falling in love with it, i had to biuld a package for Ubuntu Dapper. Enjoy, but remember that this project is very young and you might find bugs (all standard disclaimers about my packages’ reliablility apply too, of course.)

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