The computers I use at school run on Red Hat Enterprise. Obviously, I don't have root access. They have a few programs for music installed, such as Rhythmbox, but of course no .mp3 plugins. Is there a way I can have a program on my flash drive that I would use to play songs off of my iPod? At the moment I can either listen to music or charge up my iPod, which is kind of frustrating.

Thanks

Yep - you can run a player from anywhere in memory - provided you have authority to do that.
Alternatively, you can install rockbox to your ipod and enter the world of open format music...

Thanks for the reply.

Okay, so how do I make it so that I run the player from my USB stick when I plug it into the computer?

I remember iTunes having options to convert music into different formats, but I figured 128bit .mp3 (I think that's what I picked) was the most efficient in terms of quality per byte.

Is there a way to convert all my iPod music while it's on the iPod? I don't want to have to delete it all, convert the files into different formats, and put them back on if I can avoid it.

Have you tried looking for a simpler solution, like just figuring out how to make your iPod let you listen to music and charge at the same time? I don't own an iPod but I've seen discussions about how to listen to music whilst also charging via USB and I'm fairly sure there are ways to do it. Telling the computer to unmount the iPod thus making the iPod controls usable again is one possible solution that I seem to recall being mentioned.

No, I'm far too stupid to look for a simpler solution.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll look into that first. I thought that would have been a hardware issue on the iPod's side, but I guess I never did think about it deeper than that.

put the binary on the usb stick, plug the stick in, cd into the directory containing he binary then enter:

./playername

what you can do depends on the player. There is lots of choice.

For some programs this will be a big ask - you'd want it to be fairly self contained, which means putting all the libraries etc in there too.

I think something like mp321 may be easiest.
How are you computing Q (quality)?

byte-for-byte, 128bit vorbis will give higher Q factors in many industry standards with smaller filesize... but it does depend on what you are measuring. The files are slightly smaller ceterus paribus - but encoders often default to higher quality so most people experience an increse in file size.

Wikipaedia has a decent article

Transcoding from mp3 to vorbis will lose quality - technically. However, I have yet to find anyone who has been able to hear the difference in double-blind tests on quite good equipment - it's tough enough to spot with signal processing equipment - over ipod headphones you'll never tell.

FLAC format will preserve your current Q level, regardless of how you measured it, but will increase file size. I have not seen figures for how Q/mem fares for flac.
If it can act as a UMS device then sure. You can mount it as a regular directory and manipulate the files normally.

I'm curious though - which formats is iPod supporting these days?

4GB sticks go for what, $20 these days? I could load an entire OS onto it if I wanted to. So space isn't really an issue. But I see what you are saying, though. Putting all that stuff in there will be a pain.

They had MP3, WAV, and I think WMV. I just said 128bit is about as good as my ears can detect, at least when it comes to music with headphones, so I went for that.

Thanks.

Cans! I have a pair of Sony MDR-V6s I stick in my backpack. It's not top of the line, but still completely blows away those tiny iPod ear phones. Especially on the bus.

No clue. I have been loading my songs through Rhythmbox and Banshee lately. I haven't touched iTunes in months and really don't want to (and can't, my XP partition died!). I can't see anything in either of those that could convert my files. Well, I'm sure finding something that will do that for me wouldn't be too hard. The funny thing about iPods is that all they do is rename your files with what I guess is base-64 "digits" or something. I can't remember if base-64 has characters that wouldn't be allowed on a filename...

In any case, they are just renamed and stuck into different folders, 3 at a time or something. So You can still listen *and* transfer files to a friend who doesn't have iTunes (and Apple does not want people to be able to import songs off of an iPod last I checked. Not allowed in iTunes).

So if I found something, I guess it would be as easy as
cd /ipod
whateverprogram *.mp3 flac

Or whatever the syntax would be. You get the idea. It should be a very easy thing to do. Thanks for the suggestion. I still have free space on my iPod, so I'm not too worried about file sizes. At the time I had a nano. I have a bigger one now but just stuck with the 128-bit .mp3s.

No one has been able to catch up to Apple," IDC analyst Susan Kevorkian said. "Apple's ongoing dominance has made it difficult not only for major consumer electronics brands to compete, but also the much smaller brands.

Hi Gary - welcome to LQ.
While that is a good quote - it is usually more helpful to offer quotes in support of what you say rather than, instead of saying anything. And, if you offer a quotation, it is good form to provide a reference so we can look it up.

Please read the advice in my sig.