RebootKid
I'm running fedora core 2. Are you refering to FC3?

Where did you read this? I would like to know why fedora can apparently load a g4 ipod.

To be completely honest, after googling this scenario 87 million times, and reading almost every hit, it's hard to say "it's at XYZ" Simply because my memory isn't *that* good.

What I read was that Kudzu picked it up, and mounted two partitions /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2 as vfat partitons. The only reference was fedora, I dont know which core they were running.

Course, I could be confused, that person could have been using firewire connectivity.

I have also searched for this problem all over, and the real problem is that people posting solutions do not indicate what type of iPod they are talking about, and so it is nearly impossible to figure out where things stand. I am 99% sure that this is not a problem at the mounting level i.e. selecting the correct module from msdos, ntfs, hfsplus, etc., but a problem at the firewire level, i.e. the spb2 module. You do not need to attempt to mount the iPod to get a cascade of errors in dmesg and I get identical symptons regardless of usb 2 or firewire connectivity, so it seems like the file system modules aren't even getting a chance to correctly mount the drive, hence the Bad Superblock error. I am running a Fedora Core 2 system, and I have also seen the post that refers to getting it working on Fedora Cora 3 test 1, but I would surprised if that were the fix for the 4th gen iPods since this should be something that would be fixed at the kernel level, and the Fedora pre-installed kernels are usually one or two minor versions behind. I compiled a stock 2.6.8-rc4, which should hopefully have the most recent linux1394 code in it, with no improvements. I'm thinking that our best bet to getting this fixed is to draw attention to it on the linux1394 mailing lists, unless someone can convince me that there is a more likely place to look for answers.

holmanelias: I secound that. Those guys have been the best at getting the other generation ipod working so far. Its good hear someone testing this with firewire becasue I can't at the moment. Though if the problem is 1394 where does that leave USB? And why does it mount with USBFS is that the firmware part of the drive?

I think also we need to find the difference in ipods from 3g to 4g/mini. Mostly everything I have read is all 3rd gen and lower ipods, so that convinces me that the architecure has changed.

When attempting to mount the ipod on a on a windows 2000 system without any apple software installed it mounted simply with no problems....As a USB mass storage device. everything there. So it can't be that big of a deal to get it mounted.

Just to get the ball rolling, here is the bug report/support request I submitted, as indicated in an earlier post:

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index...52&atid=202252

I submitted anonymously as I don't have a sourceforge login. If people want to post additional info, that would be great. I'm going to subscribe to their users mailing lists and see if I can get some answers there.

It's a good start, but I thougth most (if not all) folks who were having difficulties were USB users, not firewire users. Is that really an appropriate place to start things?

Of course these guys have been getting ipods working on linux for a while now. As the problem is identical on both firewire and USB we must assume that once solved both connection types should work.

-M@

After speaking with people on the linux1394-users mailing list, I have been given some helpful suggestions to try to figure out where the problem is. The first is to build a 'spartan', as one poster put it, version of the kernel, i.e. just what is needed to support this particular issue. This means the firewire subsystem, and not much else. The recommendation is also to try a 2.4 stream kernel, as that code is much more stable. I will do that to see if I can duplicate the problem under 2.4. If not, then it may be a question for the kernel developers, i.e. why does this work under 2.4, but not 2.6? Otherwise, I will try the linux1394 mailng list again. I'll post my results as soon as I can. If any reader out there in linuxquestions land has a 2.4-based system and wants to try the same experiment, by all means give it a shot! If this really is a bug, we may simply have to raise the profile of the problem enough to make someone in the kernel development world want to fix it, or maybe one of us brave souls can try our hand...

Awesome work. No 2.4 here. But if I get the time I will build one as well and see what happens.

Good luck.

Ummm I'm not sure who is using mini's and who is using 4g 20gb models. It appears our prayers have been answered....
http://members.iinet.net.au/~bsisko/iPodandLinux.html
I was lead to there via
http://www.qbik.ch/usb/devices/showdev.php?id=2737
This site struck me when googling for USB mass storage device trouble. These problems have been solved on both USB and Firewire.

This guy claims to have a mini mounted....On kernel 2.6.7
I'm at work so I can't try this yet but sure will when I get home!
Good luck.

Hrm. Perhaps I'm a bigger n00b than I thought. He references custom compiling a kernel. I'm a bit leary of that (breaking other stuff,etc) is there a way to check and see if things are compiled as he indicates?

I did install the hotplug packages that he referenced but was unable to find the udev package on the site provided (perhaps I'm blind?) I grabbed the latest version for Suse from www.rpmfind.net, and got this when I was attempting to update:
# rpm -Uvh udev-0.2-29.i586.rpm
error: Failed dependencies:
libsysfs.so.1 is needed by (installed) 3ddiag-0.716-108
libsysfs.so.1 is needed by (installed) hotplugctl-0.08-256
libsysfs.so.1 is needed by (installed) yast2-core-2.9.79-3
libsysfs.so.1 is needed by (installed) sysconfig-0.31.0-15.8
libsysfs.so.1 is needed by (installed) hwinfo-8.51-0.2

So, not really sure what to do, I rebooted the system, and plugged in the ipod.
This is what I got from /var/log/messages on connect:
Aug 24 21:54:05 nwkenpm001w1 kernel: usb 1-1: USB disconnect, address 3
Aug 24 21:54:28 nwkenpm001w1 kernel: usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using address 4
Aug 24 21:54:28 nwkenpm001w1 kernel: usb 1-1: Product: iPod mini
Aug 24 21:54:28 nwkenpm001w1 kernel: usb 1-1: Manufacturer: Apple
Aug 24 21:54:28 nwkenpm001w1 kernel: usb 1-1: SerialNumber: 0000006D2BB8
Aug 24 21:54:28 nwkenpm001w1 kernel: scsi2 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Aug 24 21:54:28 nwkenpm001w1 kernel: Vendor: Apple Model: iPod Rev: 1.60
Aug 24 21:54:28 nwkenpm001w1 kernel: Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Aug 24 21:54:29 nwkenpm001w1 kernel: SCSI device sda: 7999488 512-byte hdwr sectors (4096 MB)
Aug 24 21:54:29 nwkenpm001w1 kernel: sda: assuming Write Enabled
Aug 24 21:54:29 nwkenpm001w1 kernel: sda: assuming drive cache: write through
Aug 24 21:54:29 nwkenpm001w1 kernel: sda:end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 7999480
Aug 24 21:54:29 nwkenpm001w1 kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 999935
Aug 24 21:54:29 nwkenpm001w1 kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 7999480
Aug 24 21:54:29 nwkenpm001w1 kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 999935
Aug 24 21:54:29 nwkenpm001w1 kernel: sda1 sda2
Aug 24 21:54:29 nwkenpm001w1 kernel: Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi2, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Aug 24 21:54:29 nwkenpm001w1 kernel: Attached scsi generic sg0 at scsi2, channel 0, id 0, lun 0, type 0
Aug 24 21:54:29 nwkenpm001w1 kernel: USB Mass Storage device found at 4
Aug 24 21:54:30 nwkenpm001w1 scsi.agent[3972]: disk at /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb1/1-1/1-1:1.0/host2/2:0:0:0


Now, for the first time in a long time, I've seen it detect /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2
However, I'm still seeing errors reading things. I'm still unable to mount things. Before I upgraded the hotplug version that was installed, Suse tried to mount things automatically, but it would error out. Now it no longer tries to automatically mount it. Suseplugger does detect the ipod, but when you attempt to configure, nothing comes up. I'm also getting errors about arts not starting properly now. I think I'll be returning to the previous version of hotplug for now.

Let us know how much success you had, Fred22.

I have invited the guy I refered to in my previous post over to look at our discussion and comment. So hopefully he comes over and enlightens us.

rebootKid: You can compile a new kernel and use a boot loader to switch between kernel images. Which is what I'm going to do because currently a kernel upgrade will stuff with my system too much. Also I believe you are missing things if you look at the other link he refers to a few drivers that are loaded. Maybe your missing something. I will post again soon with my trial on this method.

-M@

Hi all,
I have mysteriously gotten my click-wheel (20 GB, not mini) iPod working under 2.6.8-rc4, and I would assume it works back through a couple of kernel versions. The problem is, I'm not quite sure what I did differently. First, I took the advice of the ieee1394 people and tried a 2.4 kernel. I keep an old 2.4.25 kernel around just in case, and I was able to boot on that (although my USB mouse freaked out and was unusable under that configuration). I plugged in the iPod, and then explicitly loaded the following modules: ieee1394, ohci1394. It automatically loaded sbp2, which is the module specific to the iPod and other hard-drive-like firewire devices. At this point, it was recognized, but not mountable as it had not been seen by the scsi system, which is what makes it mountable as /dev/sda2 or whatever. I ran the scsi bus rescan script, available here:

http://www.cs.duke.edu/~geha/ipod/

Look down at Item number 7 and you will find it. It recognized the added device and linked it to /dev/sda, and then voila! I was able to mount it as described in oh-so-many documents like 'mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/ipod' or whatever. My first instinct was, okay, it works under 2.4 and not 2.6. Moving back to my 2.6.8 kernel (and regaining the use of my real mouse, not the stupid laptop track pad thing), I tried the same set of steps. I started by removing all of the firewire modules so that I was starting from scratch. I plugged in the iPod, added ieee1394, ohci1394, and then ran the scsi bus rescan script. And, believe it or not, it worked! I still get lots of Buffer I/O errors in the log, but it's mountable.

Next, I tried to figure out what I did differently, maybe it was the unloading and reloading of modules? So I rebooted, and tried to just plug in the iPod and see what happens. Of course, it worked perfectly, and has every time since. I plug it in, mount the device, and I can copy files, etc. I have no idea what I did to make it work, really. The only thing I can guess is that the scsi rescan script somehow reconfigured things. I haven't tried the USB interface yet, so I'll post when I get a chance, but I just wanted to pass along my experience to see if it might help anyone else. If anything I've described here needs further explanation, let me know. Good luck!

I'm trying to get iPod mini to work with Fedora 2 via USB2. I tried the latest kerenl 2.6.8.1 but no luck. I also tried the FC1 kernel 2.4.22 which I installed as a rpm package and it worked out of the box without any module loading. So I guess this is some weird sort of kernel problem.
Unfortunately I cannot use 2.4.22 kernel cause some stuff just doesn't work.
If someone has any more ideas or running thing on kernel > 2.6 I'm all ears.

holmanelias, have you got a report for USB? Thanks.