I am sharing the same iTunes library across 2 ipods and 3 computers.

Computers:

iBook (mac Os/X, all the music is stored here as it has the biggest drive.)

Powerbook (gentoo, this thing is old and slow no music files on it.)

P4 Desktop (gentoo, gtkpod is what I am using here. no music files on here either.)

iPods:

20Gb 4th gen (HFS+ no journaling)
60Gb 5th gen video (HFS+ no journaling)

The ipods are synced with iTunes on the iBook. When I want to listen on my linux desktop I plug in one of the iPods and fire up gtkpod, but on the powerbook gtkpod takes about 15 minutes to hash and sort the 3500 mp3 files (blazingly slow 333mhz G3). What are my other options software-wise for this? All I want to do is browse and play music that is on the iPod. I don't need to be able to update the iPod at all. I prefer to avoid kde stuff as much as possible but I'm willing to make an exception.

Well if all you want to do is browse and play, any media player with a good library would be fine. When you're using the iTunesDB it renames your files all random and such, but most decent media apps allow you to browse via the ID3 tags anyway so you wouldn't notice. An idea at least?

but what media player would support read the itunesDB? (or are you saying it wouldn't have to?) I am using xmms now but I don't know that much about what else is out there. all the mp3 files seem to be randomly organized and named. (like qzmf.mp3)

Don't need to read the iTunesDB. There are some that do but they probably wouldn't be quite so lightweight. As I'm sure you know, MP3 files contain ID3 tags, information about the file, artist, title etc. Most media players can read that so if you find one with a good library function then you should just be able to add your iPod mountpoint to the library and it'll work out the rest. Rhythmbox is okay but requires most of GNOME. There are plenty of others but my brain doesn't want to work this morning

portage says it needs to install 30 dependencies before rhythmbox but I've heard its quite iTunes like and at least a gnome app should look good and use the gtk-theme that I made.