I'm a Mac user who may be switching to Linux on the desktop (already run it on my server) in a year or two, but one of the things that is on my mind is podcasts. Listening to podcasts is very important to me, and is very much a part of my daily life. The problem is, the primary place to go to find podcasts is the iTunes podcasts directory, which seems to require iTunes the program to access.

Sometimes podcast makers only provide an iTunes Store link to get to feed and subscribe; they don't provide a standard feed link at all. Considering that there is no native iTunes for Linux, how does a Linux user get to those feeds to subscribe (or at least to get the actual feed URLs)? Do you have to use CrossOver and run the Windows version of iTunes to do that?

Amarok and a few other programs claim to know what to do with Podcasts, so maybe you want to try those? I'm sorry I can't give exact information if they work or not, or how well, since I can't afford a Mac. I do have an iPod (but don't use Podcasts), which I operate on Linux only; Windows version of iTunes is so bad I wouldn't recommend it to anyone (has already destroyed two of my iPods, on two different computers, with two iTunes versions, which Apple's warranty luckily saved -- never going to touch iTunes again, not the Windows version at least).

If you've got a Linux around, install one of these iPod-handling software pieces like Amarok and try.

I think you misunderstood the question. The question is not so much about download podcasts, as I know there are plenty of programs that can do that. The question is about finding the URLs of the actual podcast feeds when the podcast producer only provides an iTunes Store link. iTunes the application is required to get to iTunes the store, which is all some podcast websites are linking to. iTunes the program is not natively available for Linux.

Also, podcasts are not limited to just iPods. They're just standard audio (or video) files linked to in an RSS feed. The problem is that some podcast providers don't provide links to the feeds themselves, but only a link to their listing on the iTunes Store podcasts directory.