Embedded and Other Multimedia Devices

Portable multimedia devices for playing music are very popular. The smaller devices use flash memory, whereas the larger ones use hard drives for increased storage capacity. Typically they can play music in MP3, WAV, or Windows WMA formats. Dedicated DVD players for watching movies are also available.

Files are transferred to these devices from a PC. Most current products do not officially support Linux as a host PC. Devices that use the standard USB mass storage protocol should work fine with Linux. Many devices tend to use proprietary protocols. A few of these now have Linux utilities that have been created, sometimes by reverse engineering. It may also be possible to run the Windows applications provided by the vendor under Wine. It is hoped that in the future more hardware vendors will officially support Linux.

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