Hey all!

Let me go stratight to the point:

I have an audio player in which I want to clone my ~/Music directory when I connect it to my computer. The only relevant thing about it is that it’s a barebones filesystem and I cannot run cool stuff like Syncthing on the player (otherwise this question would already have a solution). Right now, my solution is that I connect the player to the computer and manually copy file to and delete files in the player. As you may have guessed, this is an error prone process. In order to solve that, I want to run a single command that clones ~/Music (src) into /path/to/player/Music (dst).

My requirements are:

  • All new files in src MUST be copied into dst.
  • All files no longer present in src MUST be deleted from dst.
  • All files present in both src and dst that have more recent modifications in src MUST be copied and overwritten into dst.

As you can see, my player’s filesystem is a strict replica of my main computer’s. Now, I know I can write a Python script in an afternoon to do just that, but I want to know if there are any good tools first to do this. I searched the web in hope that rsync would help me here, but the only answers I can find are for buffier cp. It may be that I have a vocabulary problem and I’m not searching for the correct terms.

I’d love to read your ideas! A note about LLMs: I’m not interested at all in any comments about how llm-of-the-week coded this in a moment, I asked fake-chat and here’s what it said or whatever. If you are not a human that can be bothered to write an answer, I won’t be bothered to read it.

Thank you!

  • groctelOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    2 days ago

    I added some context here. The thing is that it still took ages because stating every file is still very slow in my target player, so if I cache the status I can automatically create a script that just performs the required operations and run that.

    And yes, I do enjoy writing small utilities :p Thanks!

    • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      2 days ago

      What’s your player?

      I used to copy to the SD card, which was faster, but the dongle I bought from Walmart is really garbage and I realized I could plug directly into the player, but it’s much slower.

      Even then, at a max of 64GB, I don’t think it takes more than 90 minutes to do a full transfer.

      I’m enjoying my ownership music journey. Definitely the BEST part is going to thrift stores with 5 CDS/$1 and just exploring, rolling the dice. My latest find is some African jazz dude (Mokassa something or other). I don’t know why I can’t do the same thing on Spotify, but I think something about having the CD art and description physically right there to inform me, and that I literally know NOTHING about the music.

      It is sad, though, because algoirthmic exploration would be a powerful thing, but it’s counter to the profit motive. Most people aren’t explorers, and the fear of having someone stop listening is too great, so all the paid-service algorithms play it WAY too safe, even within a genre it’s often “what is most popular with the most people”, so you can’t deep dive anything. What is the point? Much better off listening to an internet radio with a pen and paper handy to write down what you like.

      • groctelOP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        9 hours ago

        It’s an Innioasis Y1, which I’m in the process of changing for another player because the filesystem gets stuck buffering many songs (like 1/5 or even more).

        We don’t have thrift stores here, so I get my recommendations from friends! Algorithmic exploration is one thing I do miss from YouTube. Even though it was still on the safe side it got me to find many great albums. Nowadays I browse wikipedia pages for genres I’m interested in, the /mu/ essential charts (fuck 4chan but wow what a great resource) and conversations with friends and fedi <3

        • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          8 hours ago

          I like Innioasis but ultimately decided against it because the SD card is embedded in it; maybe yours is failing?

          Thanks for the charts!

          • groctelOP
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            8 hours ago

            I actually replaced it! That’s why I’m positive that the issue is with the underlying filesystem driver. At the end of the day, it’s just running a basic Android KitKat with the Rockbox app on top. What player do you have? I’m considering getting a new one but have no clue what to get yet XD