I use my cell phone more for email reading and web browsing than for actual, you know, conversations. My previous phone was getting on in years, the web browser was primitive, email access was through the browser, and in general it didn’t have any of the cool features other phones had. I finally succumbed to my gadget envy and bought a new Verizon Droid a couple of weeks ago. Since Verizon was having a “buy one get one free” sale, Mrs. Salad Is Slaughter got one too.
One of the things I wanted to do with the new Droid was to load it up with old radio shows. I went to archive.org, found a bunch of radio shows from the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s and started downloading several gigs of MP3 files to my Ubuntu laptop.
I assumed that the process of moving MP3 files to my Droid would be easy so I did a google search for the procedure. Yeah, it was easy, but the Droid Forums web site said, “Your phone supports Microsoft® Windows® XP, Windows Vista®, and Apple® Macintosh®. Other operating systems may not be compatible.”
So, I’ve got these files on Ubuntu, why not give it a try. I hook up the USB cable, tell the Droid that I want to transfer files over the USB, and wait. Almost immediately Ubuntu pops up a dialog box and tells me that the device contains photos (yes it does) and would I like to open the photo editor, or do something else? I select the option to open the phone as a directory.
It worked; I can see what’s on the memory card. I did a drag-and-drop from the Linux box to the phone. No problems yet. I unmounted the phone from the laptop, closed the USB connection on the phone, and gave the music player a try. I started hearing a “Dimension X” radio show from the 50’s just like I asked for. And it sounded great.
Mrs. Salad Is Slaughter wanted some music from her iTunes moved to her Droid. iTunes happens to live on the other computer, the Windows Vista laptop. I figured that this would be easy. I had no problem using Linux Ubuntu to transfer MP3 files and that isn’t a supported operating system according to Verizon. Windows Vista should be a snap.
I powered up the Vista box and Mrs. Salad Is Slaughter copied files she wanted on her phone from iTunes to a new directory. After she had the 95 or so songs she wanted transferred, I did my thing.
First hook up the phone to the Vista box. Then tell the Droid to get ready for the transfer. Windows Vista comes back to me with a message that it has to find a driver for the unrecognized Motorola device and starts looking. After several minutes Vista gives up and says that it doesn’t have a driver. Should it look on the internet? For an allegedly supported system, Windows Vista was sure having a lot of issues with this phone. I declined the option to look for a new driver and told the Droid that a USB transfer was not to be.
I decided to go with what worked. I transferred Mrs. Salad Is Slaughter’s songs to a thumb drive, moved that over to the Ubuntu box, hooked up her phone, and within minutes I had her music on her Droid.
Nuking Windows on my second laptop and loading it with Ubuntu was one of the best things I’ve done and it has made my life easier. The only reason that the other laptop still has Windows Vista on it is because iTunes doesn’t work on Linux.
This isn’t the first time that Linux has come to the rescue. Last year I hooked up an old scanner that had been sitting gathering dust because Windows didn’t know what to do with it. Linux converted it from a paperweight back to a scanner. For stuff that I really need to do, Linux just works.
