Linux and...well the iPod Nano?
 

Hello there! I don't know if this has been asked before ya know, rush rush!

Anyway, I have Ubuntu Linux installed on my computer which is equipped with the necessary USB2 port to use Apple's new iPod Nano. I also happen to be very interested in that tiny white gem! Is it possible to use my Linux box to load the iPod with music or will I be needing iTunes?

I am looking forward to listening to the Linux questions podcast on my shiny new toy!

Re: Linux and...well the iPod Nano?
 

I don't see any problem using an iPod nano with Linux. I use gtkpod to transfer music between my Linux box and my iPod mini via USB 2.0, and I don't see how it's different with the iPod nano. :)

I see there is an option for iPod in Music Player would that work? I tried apt-getting gtkpod but it threw up security error or something!!

amarok supports ipod

Last I heard... amarok didn't support the ipod nano. Anyone confirm using the nano on linux works though? I'm about to buy one if it does...

In my experience, AmaroK and Rhythmbox support iPods. Also, there's GtkPod.
But most Linux distributions don't have an easy way to unmount iPods properly. If you just "unmount" the iPod, it will still say "Do not Disconnect" on the screen. You have to actually "eject" the device to get it to unmount properly.

Well I got Amarok! I decided not to go for the NANO and get the colour iPod with more space instead! I'll pick it up at the airport duty free in a week and a half and let you know how I get on! Hope I can eject it tho!

--EDIT--

Got GTKPod now too!

I eject my iPod by manually unloading the module used to access the iPod. I think it is the sbp2 module or something like that. If you unload that module using rmmod, you will get the "It's now save to disconnect" message in the iPod window.

I had written a cool script to load and mount the iPod and unmount and unload it. My disk crashed however and the script is gone forever. It isn't really difficult to code, maybe I'll do it again sometime.

Have fun with the iPod

Thanks for the reply! So I type rmmod sbp2 at the terminal? I'll note that down!

If you have the >=2.6.12 kernel I'm pretty sure it supports ipods much better. I got my ipod nano yesterday and all I do is plug it in and mount it. To remove it, I just type

And that's all. And btw, it works well with gtkpod but amarok crashes when syncing.

I use gtkpod with my ipod mini (Ubuntu Hoary is the distro)

http://www.gtkpod.org/about.html
The new iPod nano is supported as well, but you need to call 'File->Create iPod's Directories' once before syncing. This restriction is lifted in the latest CVS version.

Neither of those methods work for me
 

Im running Mandriva2005LE with the 2.6.11-6 kernel. Does anyone know what could be wrong there?

Thanks,

unholy

I don't know about the eject command, I've never used it, gonna try that one tonight.

About the 'rmmod sbp2' thing. I think that you've compiled sbp2 into your kernel instead of as a module. So, you can't remove it. You need to recompile the kernel and compile sbp2 as a module.

Re: Linux and...well the iPod Nano?
 

Anyone tried YamiPod (www.yamipod.com)? I'm having a go with Ubuntu 5.04. It's supposed to support the iPod nano.

Robert

yamipod, amarok, gtkpod & ipod nano (my experience)
 

I've tried YamiPod with the nano and it managed to browse the music collection and play it without any trouble. When I tried to sync however, it crashed. Yamipod seems to have a lot of functionality, (notes, calender, lyrics, etc) but i dont think it's that stable yet. Also, it's packaged wierdly, no source, jst a binary file.

Amarok 1.3.7 can also browse the nano but it crashes whenever it ry to put songs on.. i've heard that the cvs version works but it's not advised in its current state (it wiped someone's entire database and he had to reinstall firmware and the likes..) so we've got to be patient till amarok 1.4 i think..

i tried gtk 0.94 but that also failed (the 'cant find F01 F02, etc' errors i think arise from the fact that the nano's file system is actually in lowercase 'f' instead of F, chosing 'create ipod directories' fixed that. bt that was on a shuffle) anyway, 0.99 was released yesterday bt there's no rpms yet (suse 10 and right now i dont hav my dvd to install some packages required before i build from source.. bt will do tonight.

cheers for now.

And about the eject I get an error when I eject my ipod...

] eject /dev/sda1
eject: unable to eject, last error: Invalid argument

but the ipod still ejects... So if you get that error while ejecting I wouldnt worry about it... BTW the IPOD nano does work with a USB 1.0... many people told me that it wouldnt. but I havent had any problems then a lil slower transfer speeds and it doesnt charge the battery totally... Prolly bad for the recharge cycles on the NiMH battery in the nano... But I got mine for Free...

Next step im going to try putting linux on my ipod... I'll post when i have succeded in that...

Hi,

Just thought I'd confirm that I have an iPod Nano working with Debian Sarge. It shows up in Konqueror when selecting Storage Media from the panel System Menu as IPOD. Clicking that will mount it and allow it to be browsed, but before being able to do anything with it gtkpod was needed to create the iPod directory structure. It first had to be told where the iPod was mounted, /media/sdf2.

Before Amarok could do anything with it though, a line had to be added to /etc/fstab like:

To find out which device the iPod appears as, ask dmesg which should say something like this just after plugging the iPod in:


Then after first plugging in the iPod and clicking it's icon in Storage Media it will be mounted at /dev/ipod, and Amarok will gladly transfer files to it straight from your playlist.

My version of Amarok is 1.2.3-1, and it's only requirement for working with an iPod nano was for it to be mounted at /dev/ipod.

Unmounting and removing the iPod is not so clean, as mentioned in earlier posts. Selecting unmount, or even "Remove safely" from the device icon's right-click menu can unmount it, but to properly eject I've so far had to resort to issuing "eject /mnt/ipod" as root and ignoring the error message.

One more point worth mentioning, is that even though I'm running Sarge, I'm using KDE 3.4.2 from backports which is an experience I can highly recommend. Add these 2 lines to /etc/apt/sources.list and do an "apt-get update", and "apt-get upgrade" and then be prepared to spend a few hours manually installing all the packages that get held back:

cheers