How to use MTP on Google's Galaxy Nexus in Linux

Short answer: You don't have to use MTP; you can use PTP.

By now it is no secret that Galaxy Nexus does not mount as USB mass storage for some wise technical decisions made by the Nexus developers. Now there are a plenty of posts floating around on how to install software in Linux to enable MTP access so that you can access the files from your Linux.

None of those worked for me, partly because of the fact that I am running Linux-Mint 10, and the libmtp that comes for this version is outdated. I can do some hacking to update my version of libmtp, and hopefully work. But, as much as I love Linux, and OSS in general, I hate to give out instructions that require compiling, editing config files, etc.

So the simplest solution that worked for me was to use PTP instead of MTP. Choosing this option causes my Nautilus file explorer to immediately identify the phone as a photo source. And voila, you can now open a file explorer and browse, add, remove files from the phone.

Savor the screenshots to get an idea how easy it is to use PTP to access the files as compared to compiling code and what-not.




6 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  2. How much storage do you have available via PTP ? I am able to see only 3.7 GB. :)

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  3. This is alright if you only want to explore the DCIM and media folders. I was able to add and remove files of any kind to the DCIM folders, but it's not ideal. Decent for a workaround.

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  4. Although it won't let you write above the DCIM dir.

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  5. If you want to access MTP devices with nautilus you need to install gvfs-gphoto2. Nautilus don't use libmtp.

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  6. Does this also allow for connection to other 3rd party softwares that deal with other management of enterprise IT assets?

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