The next hurdle to take was the placement of the files when you drag them onto the removable device shown in Rhythmbox. By default, the files would be placed in the root of the device. As the folder for mp3s is actually “mp3″ on the Memory Stick, we have to open the prevoiously created “.is_audio_player” file and place the following content into it:

audio_folders=mp3/
folder_depth=1

This tells Rhythmbox to place any files into the “mp3″ folder of the Memory Stick and create a “<Artist>-<Album>” directory where the songs are stored. Specifying “folder_depth=2″ would actually create a folder for the artist and below that one a folder for the album. But that’s not my preference.

So, all in all I am quite confident with this now. But the question remains why one has to search the net for such information, hand craft a file and put obviously undocumented – or at least not easily findable – configurations in there? Rhythmbox has support for the Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) which could make live easier, but this doesn’t account for pure USB mass storage devices. So at least that part should be configurable within the music management application itself. Room for improvement.

A big improvement has been made in the package management system. It’s incredibly fast, and is the total opposite to the pain in the a** 10.2 incarnation with poping up status windows. 10.3 got better, but now, it’s fast and usable. The package management tools have undergone a revamp and it’s some clicks away just adding new repositories while browsing the currently available packages. Thumbs up!

The second area I’ve had a more intense look at was the Bluetooth integration. I was surprised how easy it was plug my Bluetooth dongle in and browse my mobile with Nautilus. Once again, a total opposite to my Windows experience with bloated legacy Broadcom software not even providing explorer integration. The only downside is that I am still not able to transfer/copy files directly via Nautilus. I’ve read that other people have problems too. OBEX file transfer seems to work when the mobile is not connected, but I rather place the files where I wan’t and not let the mobile decide itself. Either the phone is not cappable of the operations I wan’t to perform, or there is still something fishy. (Bluetooh-Oliver: Any ideas? ;)) But even this issue doesn’t bedim my positive impressions from this release.

And overall: I like the dark-greyish-green new look. ;)