All Sony MP3 players with model numbers beginning "NWZ" are mounted as regular USB Mass Storage devices, and music, video and photos can be loaded by simply dragging and dropping these files into the relevant folders on the player. They also support MTP mode, and can be mounted either way.

X-Series Walkman

You may need to place your X-series Walkman into "USB Connection Mode", which keeps the player turned on for long enough for the kernel to detect the unit and mount it.

1. Press the HOME button on the Walkman.

2. Tap the settings icon (the little toolbox)

3. Scroll down to "Common Settings" and tap it

4. Press "USB Connection Mode".

5. Plug in your Walkman.

6. After you are finished transferring media, and you have unmounted the drive and unplugged the cable, press the HOME button to exit USB Connection Mode.

This applies to NWZ-X1050, NWZ-X1051, NWZ-X1060, and NWZ-X1061.

Video Encoding

It's possible to use FFMPEG to create videos that are compatible with the Walkman. You will need AAC and mpeg4 support installed on Ubuntu along with the "unstripped" libav libraries.

ffmpeg -y -i <inputfile> -b 576k -s 320x240 -vcodec mpeg4 -ab 192k -ar 44100 -ac 2 -acodec libfaac

Due to the changing state of FFMPEG, the codec names may change some time in the future. For information about the current codec names, run ffmpeg -formats.

The Walkmans also support h.264 files.

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS and Automatic Mounting

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS will attempt to mount the Walkman as an MTP device and silently fail. The Walkman can be manually mounted on the command-line.

Ubuntu 9.04 and Automatic Mounting

Ubuntu 9.04 will once again attempt to mount the Walkman as an MTP device, but when you double-click the icon on the desktop it will show an empty device.

This is a Gnome-specific problem, and does not occur when running KDE or XFCE.

Gnome users can follow this order-specific procedure:

1. Plug in the Walkman and wait for its device-specific icon to appear, if necessary using the USB Connection Mode on the Walkman.

2. Run this command:

killall gvfs-gphoto2-volume-monitor

3. Unmount and unplug the player, and then plug it straight back in.

4. The Walkman will appear with a generic "storage device" icon, and the contents will be visible.