MPD is used as a music server in my office and Is running on an old Dell Latitude C400 Laptop. I have a Trust SC-5500p USB Soundcard plugged in and outputting sound to my amplifier.

To get Ubuntu (tested on Dapper, Edgy, Gutsy and Jaunty) working with the second sound card I needed to do the following:

1. Set the USB card as default:

zudo@music:~$ sudo asoundconf list
Please note that you are attempting to run asoundconf as a privileged superuser, which may have unintended consequences.
Names of available sound cards:
I82801CAICH3
Audio
zudo@music:~$ sudo asoundconf set-default-card Audio

Then reboot.

2. Set mpd to use the card.

sudo vim /etc/mpd.conf

Change the output to look like the following:

audio_output {
    type                    "alsa"
    name                    "USB Audio"
    device                  "default:CARD=Audio"     # optional
    #format                  "44100:16:2" # optional
}

Restart MPD and test:

sudo /etc/init.d/mpd restart

ncftp is a great set of command line ftp utilities.  It supports a fully fledged FTP client as well as utilities for putting, fetching and batching files.

Here’s how to use ncftpput to upload a file:

ncftp -u username -p password www.hostname.com path/to/remote/file path/to/local/file