Ubuntu – Connecting Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich / Jelly Bean / KitKat) phone

androidusb

I'm using the US Model 16GB version of the Samsung Galaxy S3 (I747), however, I cannot mount it to my laptop from some reason. I have tried using both FTP and MTP connections, but neither work.

What should I do?

Best Answer

Update: The GVFS-MTP module is included in the default installation since 13.04. For troubleshooting see this anwser.

There have been several projects to bring MTP support to Linux during the recent months. Here is a quick overview:

GVFS

The best solution would be to use GVFS via the recently released GVFS-MTP-backend to mount your Android phone. There are two PPAs with a newer GVFS version.

  1. ppa:langdalepl/gvfs-mtp

        sudo add-apt-repository ppa:langdalepl/gvfs-mtp
    sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

  2. ppa:webupd8team/gvfs-libmtp

        sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/gvfs-libmtp
    sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Source:

go-mtpfs

You could use go-mtpfs to mount your Android phone.

go-mtpfs screenshot

Install needed packages and get the source:

sudo apt-get install golang-go libmtp-dev
sudo go get github.com/hanwen/go-mtpfs
sudo ln /usr/lib/go/bin/go-mtpfs /usr/local/bin/

Add yourself to the group fuse (after that log out and log in again):

sudo adduser $USER fuse

Create a folder for your Android phone and mount it with go-mtpfs into that folder:

mkdir android
go-mtpfs android

Unmout your Android phone (wait for the end of file operations):

fusermount -u android

Source: https://linuxundich.de/de/android/mit-go-mtpfs-unter-linux-auf-android-handys-via-mtp-zugreifen/

jmtpfs

You could use jmtpfs to mount your Android phone.

jmtpfs screenshot

Download jmtpfs, unpack and change into directory:

cd /tmp
wget http://research.jacquette.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/jmtpfs-0.4.tar.gz
tar -xzf jmtpfs-0.4.tar.gz
cd jmtpfs-0.4

Add yourself to the group fuse (after that log out and log in again):

sudo adduser $USER fuse

Install needed packages, compile and install (for checkinstall questions hit enter) jmtpfs:

sudo apt-get install libmtp-dev libfuse-dev libmagic-dev checkinstall build-essential
./configure
make
sudo checkinstall

Create a folder for your Android phone and mount it with jmtpfs into that folder:

mkdir ~/android
jmtpfs ~/android/

Unmout your Android phone (wait for the end of file operations):

fusermount -u ~/android

Source: https://linuxundich.de/de/ubuntu/mit-jmtpfs-mtp-gerate-wie-das-galaxy-nexus-oder-das-samsung-galaxy-siii-in-ubuntu-mounten/

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