MTP

MTP is the "Media Transfer Protocol" and is used by many mp3 players (e.g. Creative Zen) and mobile phones (e.g. Android 3+ devices). It is part of the "Windows Media" Framework and has close relationship with Windows Media Player.

Installation

MTP support is provided by libmtp, installable with the libmtp package from the official repositories.

Usage

After installation, you have several MTP tools available. Upon connecting your MTP device, you use:

# mtp-detect

to see if your MTP device is detected.

To connect to your MTP device, you use:

# mtp-connect

If connection is successful, you will be given several switch options in conjunction with mtp-connect to access data on the device.

There are also several stand alone commands you can use to access your MTP device such as,

Warning: Some commands may be harmful to your MTP device!!!

 mtp-albumart        mtp-emptyfolders    mtp-getplaylist     mtp-reset           mtp-trexist
 mtp-albums          mtp-files           mtp-hotplug         mtp-sendfile
 mtp-connect         mtp-folders         mtp-newfolder       mtp-sendtr
 mtp-delfile         mtp-format          mtp-newplaylist     mtp-thumb
 mtp-detect          mtp-getfile         mtp-playlists       mtp-tracks

Using media players

You can also use your MTP device in music players such as Amarok. To do this you may have to edit /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules (the MTP device used in the following example is a Galaxy Nexus): To do this run:

$ lsusb

and look for your device, it will be something like:

Bus 003 Device 011: ID 04e8:6860 Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd GT-I9100 Phone [Galaxy S II], GT-P7500 [Galaxy Tab 10.1]

in which case the entry would be:

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="04e8", ATTR{idProduct}=="6860", MODE="0666"

Then, reload udev rules:

# udevadm control --reload

Note: After installing MTP you may have to reboot for your device to be recognised

mtpfs

Mtpfs is FUSE filesystem that supports reading and writing from any MTP device. Basically it allows you to mount your device as an external drive.

Mtpfs can be installed with the packge mtpfs, available from the official repositories.

• First edit your /etc/fuse.conf and uncomment the following line:

user_allow_other

• To mount your device

$ mtpfs -o allow_other /media/YOURMOUNTPOINT

• To unmount your device

$ fusermount -u /media/YOURMOUNTPOINT

• To unmount your device as root

# umount /media/YOURMOUNTPOINT

Also, you can put them into your ~/.bashrc:

alias android-connect="mtpfs -o allow_other /media/YOURMOUNTPOINT"
alias android-disconnect="fusermount -u /media/YOURMOUNTPOINT"

Or, with sudo

alias android-disconnect="sudo umount -u /media/YOURMOUNTPOINT"

Note: if you want not be asked for password when using sudo, please refer to USB Storage Devices#Mounting USB devices

jmtpfs

jmtpfs is a FUSE and libmtp based filesystem for accessing MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) devices. It was specifically designed for exchanging files between Linux systems and newer Android devices that support MTP but not USB Mass Storage. jmtpfs is available as jmtpfs^AUR in the AUR.

Use these commands to mount and unmount your device :

$ jmtpfs ~/mtp

$ fusermount -u ~/mtp

go-mtpfs

Note: Go-mtpfs gives a better performance while writing files to some devices than mtpfs/jmtpfs. Try it if you have slow speeds.

If the above instructions don't show any positive results one should try go-mtpfs-git^AUR from the AUR. The following has been tested on a Samsung Galaxy Nexus GSM and Samsung Galaxy S 3 mini.

If you want do it simpler, install go, libmtp and git from the official repositories. After that install go-mtpfs-git^AUR from the AUR.

As in the section above install android-udev^AUR which will provide you with "/etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules" edit it to apply to your vendorID and productID, which you can see after running mtp-detect. To the end of the line add with a comma OWNER="yourusername". Save the file.

• Add yourself to the "fuse" group:

gpasswd -a [user] fuse

• If the group "fuse" doesn't exist create it with:

groupadd fuse

Logout or reboot to apply these changes.

• To create a mount point called "Android" issue the following commands:

mkdir Android

• To mount your phone use:

go-mtpfs Android

• To unmount your phone:

fusermount -u Android

You can create a .bashrc alias as in the example above for easier use.

gvfs-mtp

Philip Langdale is has implemented native MTP support for gvfs. The weaknesses of gphoto2 and mtpfs are listed in his blog post.

• The native mtp implementation for gvfs has been merged upstream and has been released in gvfs 1.15.2. You can grab the stable gvfs-mtp package from extra, when gvfs 1.16 will be released in the stable Arch repos.

• Devices will have gvfs paths like this

gvfs-ls mtp://[usb:002,013]/

simple-mtpfs

This is another FUSE filesystem for MTP devices. You may find this to be more reliable than mtpfs. simple-mtpfs^AUR is available in the AUR or can be built from source. Remember do not run the following commands as root.

• To list MTP devices run

 simple-mtpfs --list-devices

• To mount a MTP devices (in this example device 0) run

simple-mtpfs /path/to/your/mount/point

• To un mount run

 fusermount -u /path/to/your/mount/point

KDE MTP KIO Slave

There is a MTP KIO Slave built upon libmtp availiable as package kio-mtp.

Using KIO makes file access in KDE seamless, in principle any KDE application would be able read/write files on the device.

Usage

The device will be available under the path mtp:/

Workaround if the KDE device actions doesn't work

If you are not able to use the action "Open with File Manager", you may work around this problem by editing the file /usr/share/apps/solid/actions/solid_mtp.desktop

Change the line

Exec=kioclient exec mtp:udi=%i/

To

Exec=dolphin "mtp:/"

GNOME gMTP

gMTP is a native Gnome application used for MTP access.

gmtp^AUR is currently located in the AUR .

Workarounds for Android

MTP is still buggy and may crash despite the best efforts of developers. The following are alternatives:

• AirDroid - an Android app to access files via your web browser.
• FTP client on Android - If you run a local FTP server on Arch (such as Vsftp), there are many FTP clients available on the Play Store which will give read/ write access to your device's files.
• FTP Server on Android. Note: since FTP client using passive transfer (server connect to client) do not forget to disable firewall or adding rules for allowing FTP server connect to your PC.
  • Ftp Server (by The Olive Tree) app in Play Store acts as FTP server on Android and allows RW access to pretty much all your storage.
    • Pro: Doesn't require root and just works!
    • Cons: Doesn't work with tethering network.
  • FTPServer (by Andreas Liebig) - Just work.
• SSH server on Android.
  • For example, SSHelper, available on the Play Store, just works without requiring root access. Assuming SSHelper is listening on port 20 and the phone's IP address is 192.168.0.20, the following command will synchronise a local directory with the external SD card of the Android device:

 rsync --rsh="ssh -p 20" --modify-window=1  ~/local_files  192.168.0.20:/mnt/extSdCard/remote_files

Note the --modify-window option, which is often used when rsyncing to a FAT filesystem (such as the one used by Android devices for their internal memory and external SD cards).

• Samba - an Android app to share your SD card as a windows fileshare. Pros: Your desktop apps work as before (since the SD card appears as a windows fileshare). Cons: you need to root your phone.