Media :: Sync Music Via FTP From A Linux Server

Part of why I bought a HTC Desire to replace my 2G iPhone was getting away from iTunes - piece of bloat required me to keep a Windows computer around, updating music was pesky, etc.

The plan with the HTC is to sync it over Wifi when it connects to my home network. The system it syncs with is a media server running Linux and storing my music collection.

I've gotten so far to have Tasker start FTPServer on connecting to Wifi, and have built a little script called every 10 minutes by cron that checks for presence of the phone. If it finds the phone, it connects and syncs a folder, then makes the ftp server on the phone shutdown, so it won't reconnect every 10 minutes.

So far, so good (I'll gladly share the bash script, if anybody wants to use. Needs some more polishing, though)

The bit that bugs me is playlists. I can create m3u playlists and copy them over fine, however once they are on the phone, they disappear from the Music folder and cannot be changed/deleted anymore - except by the built in music app. This is quite inconvenient, since I have a number of podcasts that get updated daily and that I'd like to take on the phone, with a playlist showing the newest episodes first. I can make the playlist easily on the computer, however the phone will end up with multiple copies of these playlists, which I can't get rid off.

If there's no way, I'll work around by editing track/album MP3 tags and grouping my stuff together this way, but I'd prefer using simple playlists...