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Sync Your iPod on Linux
scatboy writes "Tex9 has software for using an iPod (yes, another iPod story) on Linux. It uses a graphical drag-and-drop interface through xtunes, their version of iTunes on Linux. They are looking for beta testers of the xpod software now.
I have a dual boot box that has only gone into Windows lately to load my iPod with the betas of XPlay. I held out on making the final purchase of XPlay due to rumours of Apple coming out with their own Windows software at MacWorld New York. This is an even better reason to wait. I am very excited about a chance to measure uptime in months again!"
But I'm still waiting for the iPod for Game Boy Advance hacks!!
this would be really cool. now i know where to spend my first paycheck from my new job!
Why the heck didn't Apple come out with a Windows version in the first place? They have arguably the best MP3 player in the industry - imagine how many people would have bought one if it had come supporting Windows from the outset.
People aren't gonna buy an iMac just for an iPod. But if they buy an iPod for Windows and LOVE it, they might be better inclined to buy Apple computers in the future. Seems to me Apple went about this the wrong way...
I think xtunes is really too similar to iTunes. The deveopers should change the name to somethin else before Apple lawers get after them ... ...).
Does the beast runs on linux PPC ?
This is one thing that bugs me in the inux world , the lack of support for non IA-32 architectures.
Apple used to be more linux friendly (but that was way before they purchased NeXT and got a "modern" unix, do not read A/UX here
On the same scale of things is there any effort to bring a quiktime player for linux ? would people use such software ?
none Yet.
But it is lame!
People who disagree with you are not automatically evil, greedy, or stupid.
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
Personally, I think this is a vindication of Apple's strategy to keep the iPod Apple-only for a time. It kept demand to a reasonable level, allowed them to focus on Apple-only hardware, sold a lot more Macs, and in the long-term will not keep anyone out of the iPod Revolution.
Will they send me an iPod? woo-hoo!
I'd want winamp on it.
This is really cool tech, a really cool program, and good for linux.
But i couldn't help but notice: did you see the little thumbnail screenshot? It appears that they are attempting to directly copy the iTunes interface, right down to the positioning of widgets and aqua+brushed_metal skin.
STUPID. Apple has made it very, very clear that they consider the skins/themes to their programs "trade dressing", and that if you sell a product with the same interface and textures as one of theirs, they WILL send lawyers after you. Notice that anyone who tries to make a theme explicitly described as "aqua lookalike" gets a letter from Apple Legal. No matter whether you believe apple has the legal right to do this, you have to at least acknowledge *they do this*, and it really isn't worth the bother of risking having to deal with apple legal. Just make something DIFFERENT, and then this won't be a problem. It's just a matter of saneness and safety.
I will agree that trying to copyright "look and feel" is bullshit, but look. Skins are images. You can copyright images. There is no reason to pretend that a skin/theme to an mp3 player is not a copyright violation just because, well, the textures may look exactly the same as they do in the interface you're knocking off, but hey, they aren't EXACTLY the same images! Um, no.
You can also copyright layouts, like in graphics & design, leading me to think that if you create a program where every button, text field, and interface widget is in exactly the same place as in iTunes, and you got hauled into court over this, you WOULD lose.
What is so hard about just HUMORING APPLE and DESIGNING YOUR OWN INTERFACES AND GUI SKINS? You just look stupid when you clumsily copy someone else's interface vertabrim. Yes, i get the idea is to be all like "look, you can do things on linux just the same as on mac!", but what it actually COMES ACROSS AS is "look, i am too uncreative or incompetent to design a user interface, so i just ripped off Apple's wholesale!"
Apple won't like that. They already strong armed mediafour out of using that name for Xplay.
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
Of course, XPlay was originally named Xpod, before Apple put the beat down. Better get ready for some nastygrams from Apple!
Arh, youcan niw use xtunes, and sync, using a graphical drag and drop with the thing od f linux?
HOLY COW!
What is this obsession with uptime? It almost sounds like innuendo! It seems it's the geek version of my car is bigger than your car, and we all know what that's really about. Give it a rest: turn your computer off at the end of the day and be nice to the environment,
What is it with you people and uptime? Is this just another way of comparing penis size? (My uptime is longer than your uptime, etc)
Grow up! It won't kill you to reboot once in a while!
Reality has a liberal bias
Seriously, just buy a Mac. You know you want to. You'll feel better in the morning. You know you will.
Okay. You've been trolled. Heh!
Wasn't that the old name for XPlay (another iPod utility), which was changed at the request of Apple?
See here ("Apple muscles Mediafour into dropping "XPod" name for Win-enabling software for iPod").
I don't think they'll be able to use that name for very long.
Why buy a Mac just to use your iPod? Not that it is any good for much else. You'll feel pretty bad in the morning, knowing you'd rather integrate that iPod into your much more useful Linux system that you already have.
Why the heck didn't Apple come out with a Windows version in the first place? They have arguably the best MP3 player in the industry
Because in less than a year, Apple's seen the iPod become so successful that Windows and Linux developers are creating their own solutions--some of them complete with FireWire cards--to do Apple's job *for* them.
Besides, fully half the reason the iPod is as big a hit with Mac users as it is is the integration with iTunes: create your MP3 playlists, organize your collection, and it will be automatically synchronized with your iPod when you request it. iTunes isn't just Apple's MP3 jukebox, its their "driver" software for iTunes. Creating a marketable Windows/Linux solution would require them to achieve the same level of integration with one or all of those platforms' MP3 packages. Why take the time to do that, when someone else is clearly willing to do the job for them?
Personally, and somewhat pettily, I think Windows users deserve to know how it feels to have a peripheral with no built-in support for their platform for a change. For years, Mac users have had to spend extra money to read files, access networks, sync PDAs, download digital photos, scan from scanners, and print to printers designed for the other 95% of the computing world. I'm reasonably certain there's not a single other MP3 portable on the market that sports full Mac OS synchronization. If Windows users have to wait a little while to use a gadget Apple designed that they want, then I consider that poetic justice.
Sorry if you got redirected or the link was temporarily hijacked. It was xTunes for me back then and it is xTunes for me now. Below is a pasted excerpt of the text, in case this problem happens again:
xtunes
xtunes is a comprehensive digital music system. It supports ripping CDs, burning CDs, playing digital music (MP3 and Ogg Vorbis), and organizing digital music in a library with playlists.
Features:
* xtunes maintains a library of all the digital music files it knows about. Music files get into the library by either ripping cds or importing existing files.
* xtunes supports the standard playback methods including loop and random to play any song in the library. The user can create unlimited playlists of any length to specify the playback of their music. xtunes can play any audio cd.
* xtunes can rip any audio cd into any supported digital music format. It uses cddb to look up information about the cd. A playlist is automatically created for the cd and all the songs are organized into the library.
* Creating an audio cd using xtunes is a piece of cake. Simply select a playlist and click the burn button and xtunes handles all the rest: decoding the songs in the playlist to wav files, spawning cdrecord to create the cd.
* xtunes is built with an extensible plugin framework, similar to xmms or the gimp. Plugins are used for decoding, encoding, song information, and output. This allows xtunes to support ripping/playing/burning multiple digital music formats.
* xtunes now supports the Apple iPod. Simply drag songs or playlists onto the iPod icon and they are automatically transferred to the iPod. See the xpod page for more information.
Their xTunes software looks like a feature-for-feature clone of iTunes. I read somewhere that apple asked MediaFour no to name their software "xpod" ...
In other words, I can see Apple attacking this company, Tex9, for tradmark infringment, as is their way...
I see that xTunes is GPLed, and that xPod is a pluggin...it doesn't seem to be GPLed currently...Tex9 may end up making it proprietary or something...
Want to use your iPod under Linux? Why not contirbute the the HFS+ project (http://sourceforge.net/projects/linux-hfsplus/)?
Currently the diver is read-only.
Yay.
Because the ipod was never really an option for me. Most people were relieved that there was a Windows product released to transfer tunes. That still did not help me. So now this will become a viable option now that it will run on an OS (linux) that I have in my house. Having a partition for Windows is kinda like a recovering alcoholic keeping a 12 pack in his fridge...
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Desiring an iPod, I went out and bought OsX for my virtually-unused iMac. I had a version of Os 9.something that was a bit too old.
I haven't regretted either purchase in the least - they are both top-quality products.
Now I'm looking seriously at their servers...
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
Apple's seen the iPod become so successful that Windows and Linux developers are creating their own solutions--some of them complete with FireWire cards--to do Apple's job *for* them.
At least this time, Apple isn't frivolously wielding the DMCA against the makers of such software; the company has only requested that third-party software publishers not infringe Apple trademarks. Thus, "XPod" becomes "XPlay", but big whoop; development and sales continue.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Nothing personal, I just felt like paraphrasing that great freedom fighter who said it.
Look sonny, when I need to work I want to leave my computer running for 2 or 3 days without having to close all my apps and find where I was last time I was working and without waiting for the machine to come back from its nth ( n>>>>1 ) crash.
Specialy now with broadband connection to the internet, the computer can do many things during the night or while I am at work. For that to happen the underlying OS has to be stable.
In my office I have to reboot my Winblows machine 2 or 3 times per week because it just gets confussed when running more than one or two things (MS things, mind you).
Similar apps in Linux can run for weeks without any problem.
Did ya get it now?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
...Don't get me wrong. This is really great that there will be full iPod support for linux, as well as Windows, but why oh why does it seem that both camps need to *copy* a great device and it's great software, rather than coming up with something completely new and usable of their own. MS has done nothing new and innovative with a UI in... well... ever. And the open desktops, both Gnome and KDE, are just trying to be as Windows-like as possible. They're mimicking a piece of shite. So here come the guys at Apple, rethinking things for the first time. You'd think others would follow suit and try to come up with new ideas, but instead what we see is, "Hey! Apple's doing some great stuff here! Let's copy that, too!" But who am I to talk, I live in a glass house...
How are you going to keep them down on the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus?
When it first came out the HD was the same price as the iPod, but as far as I can tell the Toshiba hard drive has dropped in price yet the iPod hasn't.
I wouldn't expect the iPod's price to drop at the same rate but at least something. Otherwise the markup on the product is increasing all the time and the later you leave it, the more you're essentially being ripped off.
I'll readily admit that I don't have the facts to hand but if this is the case, then it might be better to get an Archos Jukebox and put up with the lack of functionality (but gain on massive savings).
Or wait for the Toshiba Gigabeat.
(Again, I could be wrong, so please correct me)
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
But I'm still waiting for the iPod for Game Boy Advance hacks!!
Are you talking about a GBA to IEEE 1394 adapter to read games from the iPod's hard drive? That would be possible in theory, but you wouldn't be able to run any of the commercial games because they require a 120 ns access time to ROM, which rotating-media hard drives cannot provide. Without mass production (which would draw nastygrams from NOA), it'd be darn expensive to 1. license the patents on IEEE 1394, and 2. provide 32 MB of RAM to hold the ROM image during play, plus an interface to that RAM. However, it would be easy to make an interface that just supports loading and saving data, for which the community could write special games. The GBA development mailing list had a discussion a few weeks back about the feasibility of a CD-ROM drive for GBA; search archives for "Disc System".
Will I retire or break 10K?
But i've yet to run across a piece of linux software that i couldn't get to work under OS X eventually.
What about proprietary application software for Linux that is provided only as a binary for Intel x86 architecture? What if your boss asks you to use it (the software) or lose it (your job, which is very precious in this depression)?
Will I retire or break 10K?
So what is so surprising about the fact that Linux gurus are trying to copy every single detail of Mac app GUI's? They already do that with Windows apps.
And Microsoft did it to the Mac when it introduced Windows.
Will I retire or break 10K?
However, with the power saving features of modern computers, it's not really necessary to turn them off at the end of the day (unless they're misconfigured).
Or unless the motherboard manufacturer's ACPI implementation is extremely buggy and just barely manages to work with Windows, and the manufacturer doesn't give FreeBSD driver writers any help in working around those bugs.
Even without power saving features, the real power drains have always been CRTs, not the computers themselves.
Excuse me? An NVIDIA GeForce 4 card is not part of a CRT.
Will I retire or break 10K?
This game doesn't work with computers, because prices are continually dropping. But for things like the Airport Base Station, iPod, special adapters, etc, Apple really has a great strategy.
They release it at some price with a razor thin margin (or even take a slight hit). As technology becomes cheaper, the profit margin skyrockets. When the iPod came out, Apple's profit was something rediculously small, like $20 per unit. With the dropping price of that hard drive, it looks like 40-50% of an iPod is pure profit.
I don't think Apple has the balls to release a $699 MP3 player, so I expect that if there is a new, bigger iPod they may announce price drops. But there is almost *no* competition for the iPod (flames aside), so Apple has little motivation to drop its prices.
I looked at an iPod, it's nice but it's not suitable for running, i can't stick a firewire card in my work PC (where all the bandwidth is) and it's far too expensive for me.
So, I'm looking at the Frontier Labs, Nexus II. Anyone bought one? Is it any good? Do you like it? Major points for me is:
For $200, it may not be everything iPod is, but looks a good bargain.
Many thanks to anyone who answers!
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
"Why bother dealing with the hassle of Windows software support issues"
They don't have to worry. All they have to do is release it while saying they won't support it.
That is pretty much what Microsoft does. I've given up on ever calling them about problems (the thing that makes them look bad is that they say they support it).
this defines the RPM DEPENANCY HELL that you hear about so much. I'm having to install ~7 RPMs on Mdk 8.2. And ppl ask me why I'm moving to gento....
P
"But there is almost *no* competition for the iPod (flames aside), so Apple has little motivation to drop its prices."
There are already several competitive models, some of which have definitive advantages over the iPod.
"And Microsoft did it to the Mac when it introduced Windows""
And Apple did to Windows when M$ edged ahead with Windows 95.
"Apple isn't in the business of selling an OS, or even hardware. They're in the business of selling a user experience, a digital lifestyle"
Did you used to work for J. Peterman or something? That's ad copy. Not news or an intelligent comment to news.
"It might sound like marketting bullshit, but think about it... Coca Cola doesn't sell a can of carbonated sugar
Yes they do. Think about it. Critical as I am of Apple advertising claims, I know they can only get so far on vapor claims. They reason they succeed as much as they do is nothing but hardware and software sales.
It looks about as throwback/regressive/poorly thought out as running old Windows 3.1 software. Quicktime is that bad, it it would take little effort to fix it.
For most Windows users, this is the introduction to how Apple does things. It is more likely to repel than to attract to Apple.
It is my understanding that:
1. The iPod uses HFS+ (the preferred FS of OSX)
2. Linux can't read HFS+ at present (if you dual-boot a Mac OS and Linux, your bootstrap partition is limited to HFS)
Can someone elaborate?
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
"At least this time, Apple isn't frivolously wielding the DMCA against the makers of such software; the company has only requested that third-party software publishers not infringe Apple trademarks"
Instead they have other methods of legal oppression they were using years before the DMCA ever was a twinkle in Big Brother's eye. From suing other companies for stealing GUI from the same source Apple stole it from to harassing companies on what their machine case looked like.
The Apple legal department's creativity rivals the creativity of their developers.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
you are doomed to repeat it. Very few people remember that in the 80s (or was it early 90s) Apple sued MS over the Windows interface, among other things, because it too closely resembled mac. Then there were the suits over the Lotus 123 interface ripping off (I think) SuperCalc.
The courts decided back then that a UI is not something that can be copyrighted. They claimed it'd be like copyrighting the interface to a car, and thus would be bad for the industry.
But, then again, that was eons ago.
(I'd have to go digging to find links for this, but I'm sure there are duly motivated people who will research this and/or correct my flawed memory.)
The heart of the iPod is its small form-factor Toshiba hard drive which is also available in the GigaBeat MP3 player from Toshiba itself.
Check it out here
Probably, it froze with bluescreen about 3 minutes into the session. You choose not to pull the plug, so it stayed up.
If there is ONE part of the M$ os that is stable, it is a total bluescreen crash.
They can get a nice gui for the ipaq, but my palm m125 still can't be sync'd under linux.
I'm turning green w/ envy here.
The iPod is a FireWire disk. Windows needs software for it because it's formatted in HFS+ (I believe). But Linux has native HFS+ support (and UFS, for that matter). You should just be able to plug it in and use something like "rsync" to synchronize your music. Other than that, iPod uses MP3 tags.
Yes, it is. And at very least I demand the option to do just that in my OS.
Here's an example: I have a SOHO fileserver I built that is up 24/7 (77 days, 18-something hours as I write this). It's like those Snap NAS devices you see in Fry's, but mine didn't cost $1600 and it's based on Red Hat 7.3. It has 80GB of RAID1 disk space, acts as a printing daemon, runs Apache and ssh for remote access, X in case I want to remote display an aplication, VNC in case I want a remote desktop from my wife's Windows box, Samba for sharing to her machine anmd NFS for remote mounts to my other Linux boxes. It has MP3 ripping and encoding software, and a MySQL database that has everything from a list of ID3 tags for those MP3s to my personal finances to the household event calendar for the year. It has Java, C, Perl and PHP on it for when I write/test software. Long story short: I rely on that machine for a lot of things, and it's very inconvenient when it's down (as it was when I upgraded to RH7.3 and added the RAID pair). In fact, one could argue that the very nature of the machine requires that it be up 24/7. So it fits your definition of a server (and I also use it as my remote access machine, so it often functions as a "workstation").
However, I used the same CDs to install my desktop OS as I did for the fileserver's "server" OS. This came naturally to me and I didn't give it a second thought until now. The line between workstation and server is -- to me and in my situation -- almost completely blurred. As a consequence of using my server OS on my desktop, my desktop machine stays up as long as I need it to. And I sometimes want it to be up for a long time. I often have remote consoles to a bunch of different work machines open, an editor going with files everywhere, half-baked GIMP projects on my fourth desktop, etc. I do personal side projects at night, "regular" work in the day. By keeping all my apps/files open to where I had them the night before, I can come home, sit down, power on my monitor and pick up instantly where I left off. It's very handy and provides a sense of continuity. I couldn't live without that "feature", probably, to say nothing of the supreme inconvenience of having your workstation decide all on its own to force you to reboot it...
Rebooting is for when you add hardware and upgrade a kernel, nothing more. I admit that I might be slightly unusual as far as PC users go, but why wouldn't I demand the option to have any machine be up as long as I need it to be up?
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Actually I have never had QT make my OS shit the bed. Then again I don't run win98. I run win2k. However it has a terrible UI, doesn't go full screen, likes to screw with file associations and browser settings, and worst of all loves to put up nag screens to upgrade to pro. For the record, I have the pro version too, it is no better.
I wish someone else would license the Sorensen codec, so I could use something than quicktime.
Has anyone actually found the xtunes software useful? I tried it out a few weeks ago in my never ending search for a good Linux mp3 player. I had major problems with the latest (0.30) version. By default, xtunes wants to move all of your mp3's into its own "database", which is just ~/.xtunes/library - a real pain in the ass when you have 60 gigs of well-sorted mp3's (I did figure out how to change this though). I can create playlists, but I can not find any way to add songs to them. There is no documentation, and drag/drop does not work. Strangely, the screenshots show playlists with songs in them, how do you do it? And finally, the whole thing is rather unstable. I can't count the number of times it crashed or became unresponsive while I was trying to figure out my two previous problems.
I've been badly wanting an ipod since they were released, but didn't feel like installing windows or buying a mac. If this ipod solution is usable I will probably buy one, but I have to question the choice of software. Why not a stand-alone application? Or a plugin for an mp3 player that actually works? I hope there are some major improvements to xtunes on the way.
LOL! Pure genius!
Jesse! Nah nah, Jerome! Bring me ma hat!
... take a pill and get OVER it, already! The guy was TROLLING you, you dumb son of a bitch! Jesus Christ, do you stylish, oh-so-hip Macintosh lemmings ALWAYS take yourselves so seriously? I guess so, since you've got Steve Jobs reality distortion field going on all around you.
Let me say this slowly, so even a true believer like yourself can understand it, slick: Steve Jobs STOLE OS X from *BSD, just like he did with NeXT. He's a snake oil salesman who's made you feel like you're one of the body, Landrew, because you've done The Intelligent Thing, you've bought his brand of snake oil. Well, la-tee-fucking-dah!
Dip shit.
Since their signup script seems to be croaking on their site, I wanted to see if anyone had actually been accepted for the beta? Is it posted for download anywhere?
You ain't never seen a clit boy... you only know /.