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Linux's iPod Generation Gap
An anonymous submittor says "Today's young generation can use Linux on the desktop provided it works with their iPod. Linux on the desktop still hasn't reached that stage and has to be compatible with multimedia applications like iTunes and iPod if it has to beat Microsoft's Windows dominance on the desktop. Open source gurus at LinuxWorld discuss solutions to make Linux more consumer-friendly."
Really. It's not hard.
/dev/sdc6. Don't know why that is, but the dev said he'd put it on his TODO list.
Just emerge gnupod and make sure you compile it with the --with-ffxk-so-opti=3 directive in autoconf. That'll hose you every time. Also I recommend that you use gnutunes out of the gnxms repository; the vanilla Gentoo repos's version is hosed.
Also, my iPod only works if I mount it as
Aside from that it's pretty easy!
For more information, click here.
User: "How do I get my iPod to run in Linux?"
Zealot: "Oh that's easy! If you have Redhat, you have to download quake_3_rh_8_i686_010203_glibc.bin
Wait, I can access an iPod from inside Quake 3 on Linux? Sweet. Does it give you a boost? Like an extra few feet with the rocket jump?
Now all I need is an iPod.
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
Does anyone ever get the feeling that the search for the mecca of desktop linux is being led by an attack-macaque that watches tirelessly over an infinitely large room with an infinite number of monkeys in it, all smooshing keyboards to design that distro that just might work.
and yet they can't. what is going on with that? I think by now, we've kinda grasped the things that make a good desktop. If no-one can bring that simple magic to linux now, they never will.
Promote Charity on Myspace, Show Your Colours!
Linux is *not* user friendly,
Well, it's not friendly to first post trolls perhaps.
In my case I plugged in my MP3 player, it showed up on the desktop, I copied over some MP3s and they worked. Some people might have said this was because I picked an MP3 player that implimented a standard (USB bulk storage) protocol rather than one from a vendor who aims to keep everything locked up tight, but personally I think that it's just trying to make you jealous.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
There is no gap between ITunes and Amarok.
There are only 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who don't.
...with the article summary, which implies that Linux is going to have to "be compatible" with technology X in order to appeal to the masses. In point of fact, if Linux adopts that strategy it will *never* appeal to the masses, because it will always be catching up.
The only way to have significant appeal is to offer something that the masses want, that Windows can't. Hint: rock-solid security is not something the masses *want*. Yet.
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
Ditto here. I plug my Archos Gmini into my laptop, which is running Slackware, and I drag and drop music onto it, no problem.
No goofy drivers, no 3rd party software, no arcane commands. It just works.
Apple puts out a proprietary, defective-by-design consumer electronics product and won't port the required software to platforms other than Mac OS or Windows and it's somehow a Linux shortcoming?
???
I'm confused.
And the circle of life continues to spin, occasionally wobbling on its axis thanks to the weighty presence of dumb.
Well, what do you want? Do you want to be able to throw your music on your iPod? You can do through a number of applications, although I find Amarok's new versions (>= 1.4.1) are the most seamless way to do that. I use my 4th generation 40GB iPod exclusively through Linux, and have had minor issues (had trouble getting rid of that "Do Not Disconnect" message in Mandriva/PCLinuxOS, that's about it), but no show-stoppers. As far as iTunes, I haven't tried to pull down music from the music store. I'm assuming it's not possible right now.
I find the summary deceiving. To pose the question, "does Linux work with my iPod?" and then answer "no, it hasn't reached that stage yet" is not giving a true picture. If someone asked me that question, I would say "yes, mostly" and then get them to clarify what they wanted to do.
"Now gluttony and exploitation serves eight!" - TV's Frank
Funny. I click to install my linux apps. You must be talking about those debian people.
And all I had to do to get my iPod running was click 'Install support for iPod'. It did all the heavy lifting, and even put in gtkPod for me.
Mind you, it doesn't work with iTunes, but lets face it, if you're considering Linux, chances are you've already rejected the DRM-encrusted mess that is iTunes.
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
Why is this modded as a "Troll"? Post makes complete sense to me. I'm back to Windows XP after using Linux on the desktop for several years...heck, I first installed Linux in 1994. And yes, part of the reason is that I don't care anymore and just want to use things like my iPod without trouble.
Pretty much every media player for Linux supports the ipod. Amarok, Rhythmbox, Banshee, etc, etc. Not to mention gtkpod! AFAIK every mainstream distro compiles the proper support into the kernel for usb or firewire support as well as VFAT/HFS file system support. The ipod should be pretty much plug and play on any modern Linux distro.
At the very least the title of the article is misleading BS.
Apple puts out a proprietary, defective-by-design consumer electronics product and won't port the required software to platforms other than Mac OS or Windows and it's somehow a Linux shortcoming?
And the best bit is that I (and probably you soon) got moderated down for saying it.
What do you expect Linux devs to do? Magically support every bit of hardware in existance without decent specs and no access to the closed DRM which makes the bit people are most unhappy to leave behind tick? Yes, I am aware that the actual format is open, thank you very much, but the DRM is not and so purchased large music libraries are non-trivial to convert to something that works on any platform.
And yet the iPod does work on Linux (even the new ones). How about that for good service, and all for free I might add.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
And let's see how that plan works when you have 50,000 songs.
Sure, you can carefully arrange your music into folders if you've got the time, but even then you can only have each song in one "list", unless you're willing to make multiple copies of your music for navigation purposes. Any sufficiently large music player needs an playlist/organization system, or it will be almost useless. It's not a matter of being proprietary, it's a matter of acceptably fast access to large amounts of discrete data elements. It's not as if the iPod uses some fancy data interface -- it's just a USB or FireWire disk -- it's the playlist data that needs special software.
You could argue that the organizer software should all be integrated onto the device itself; that would certainly allow you to have a dumb interface to the computer. However, it would also impose significant limitations on the complexity of the organizer software, as the user interface on the device consists of (maybe) a tiny screen and a handful of buttons instead of a standard desktop GUI.
So have fun with your "standard" device. I'll stick to one that actually lets me find the music I want.
Water also wet. Further bulletins at as warranted.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
Well, yes. The strength of the OSS movement is that, technically, anything can be done. The fact that this has yet to be done points at a larger problem - the people who can, don't.
Say iPod support is created by this time next year. By then, the Next Cool Thing will be around. How long for Linux support for that? And the next one?
The goal posts move quickly. Linux needs more people to erm...kick balls.
Apple puts out a proprietary, defective-by-design consumer electronics product and won't port the required software to platforms other than Mac OS or Windows and it's somehow a Linux shortcoming?
It is when that's the mp3 player people want to use.
Users come first. It's just that simple.
Remember that Apple's iTunes music is encoded with its DRM. So you cannot legally play iTunes-encoded music on the iPod.
Linux will remain behind of commercial OSes in the realm of media, not because it is Linux, but becuase of DRM.
They're Apple's users too (and they're Apple's customers).
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
Why is this modded as a "Troll"? Post makes complete sense to me.
Funny, you must be really comfortable with accessing your iPod from Quake3 then.
The post is an known, old troll where the lazy AC only managed to replace Quake 3 with iPod in the 'questions.' If you really used Linux 'for several years' you'd have spotted the trollness of it easily - iPod access is easy both in KDE and Gnome, what's missing is iTunes (for store+iPod use)
The people who can, have. Then they turned it into a library and now iPod support is available in
- amaroK
- gPodder
- gtkpod
- iPodDisk
- podtool
- and Rhythmbox
you were saying?Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
Alright, I'll bite. When was the last time you used Linux? Every modern distribution has some form of package management. I'm a Ubuntu user. Here are the steps I used to install GTKPod:
Now, please remind me, how is this more difficult than Windows? The same process under Windows is longer and less secure. All packages from Ubuntu's repositories are digitally signed. Can the same be said for the random executable you just downloaded from a web site?
DRM-encrusted mess?
I love music. I buy, on average, an album per week. Back in the day, it was CDs, then I gave up paying money for music and just grabbed what I wanted from Napster. Then it was a mess to find what I wanted on Gnutella or whatever, and I just stuck with what I already had.
Then iTunes came out for Windows, and I started buying my music that way.
My only complaint with the iTunes DRM in the couple of years I've used it is that when I sell/upgrade my computer, I forget to deauthorize it. Other than that, I haven't had a single problem with the songs I've purchased. Apple is as liberal as it can be with the DRM, and it doesn't hurt me in any way. As a consumer, I'm happy.
As a musician, I make far more money from iTunes downloads than I do from CD sales. Apple takes a very small cut, CD Baby takes an even smaller cut, and I end up with about 60 cents per song sold.
I understand the rights issues involved with DRM, and as general practice, I dislike it, but I fail to see how the iTunes DRM could even remotely be considered a mess.
At least on #ubuntu, experienced users/zealots usually tell users asking about how to install a specific software to use apt-get on the command line because, when giving instructions, it is the easiest way. For Ubuntu, there is the Add/Remove Programs app, which end users are supposed to use. But what is easier, telling a user to open a terminal from the menu and type in sudo apt-get install program, or telling the user to open Add/Remove Programs, type the name of the program, check the checkbox next to it, and click Install? While the latter might be the most intuitive, the former is far superior in a support situation, especially since there is little room for confusion, and the instructions are far easier to follow, even if it doesn't make sense.
.deb, double click, type in password, press Install).
Sharpmusique worked well for buying music off of Itunes the last time I tried it, and had a quite intuitive installation in Ubuntu (download
Perhaps you are using the wrong distributions? Most major linux distributions are not like Gentoo.
. . .all you iPod junkies, get a fucking detox.
Does the detox support vorbis?
KFG
I use an iriver H10 20GB (the US version). By default, it is a Plays-for-Sure, WMP supported device, and you can only use WMP to copy songs over to it (there's also a plugin for Winamp, but it's somewhat buggy). However, I can also boot the device into "emergency mode" where it becomes a normal USB mass storage device. I can then copy everything over, and resync the device's database using easyH10, an opensource app that can synchronise an H10 with the content on its harddrive, and even convert .pls and .m3u playlists to the internal format used by the device.
Now, this way of copying files is not supported by iriver, and easyH10 was built using information gathered from reverse engineering the H10 database structure. IIRC, a similar model can be used with some of the other iriver devices out of the box. Either way, it's a perfect way of synching files - you copy them over, and then you let a program sort the music out. EasyH10 is available for a variety of platforms, and I use it with both my Windows desktop and Ubuntu laptop. Playlist/database syncing shouldn't be an excuse for using a closed syncing protocol that's bound to get some people locked out.
This is a sig. It is appended to the end of comments I post.
Like iTunes? :P
We've always been at war with Eurasia.
Bring me games to Linux and Vista will go away. Unless you do that I am buying Vista and MSFT.
BTW, don't they just plug in and appear as a drive? Anyway...
It's all the peripherals. Your ipod, palm, nokia, cameras etc syncing with the calendar, todo, email, files etc. The problem isn't actually with Linux, it's with closed proprietary protocols. Saying the problem is with Linux is naive, the problem is with standardisation and with peripheral manufacturers writing software which works on several platforms. Its really an economic problem rather than a technical one.
Deleted
I don't think anyone is really asking for support for M4P (those would be the encrypted, DRMed files purchased from the iTunes Media Store) files on Linux. Everyone realizes, I think, that there's no way to do DRM with open-source software, and frankly I think this is a Good Thing.
However, people use iTunes and iPods for a lot more than DRMed music. There is this tendency here on Slashdot to assume that everyone who uses iTunes or owns an iPod has purchased lots of music for it from the iTMS. This is not true, and in fact is provably wrong. The vast majority of music on most people's portable devices and in their music libraries, comes from ripped CDs (or from peer to peer).
Linux would be doing well if it could just come up with a library management program that was as good as iTunes is, and it would be doing better than iTunes if it made it as easy to download music OFF of the iPod as it is to put it on. (That is, to do the magical and frightening-to-media-companies "reverse syncronization.")
iTunes had a large userbase long before the Music Store existed: it gained popularity (back when it was a Mac-only program) because it has a good interface for managing a lot of songs and playlists. I have yet to see (although if someone wants to point one out I'd be interested) a Linux application that is the equal of it. All the Linux programs seem to assume that the OS' file browser is the best way to manage music, and that small single-purpose tools should be used to do syncronization or updating.
I remember what managing a large MP3 collection was like before nice library management programs were developed to automatically sort files into folders by Artist/Album, and it sucked. The file browser--even a good general-purpose browser (like Konqueror)--is not the tool for this job.
While this is very true to the "UNIX way," it's not what people want. People want big, monolithic, do-everything applications. They want something that's a media player, a library manager, a file uploader, an ID3 tag editor, and a portable-device-syncronization manager. If you could build a BitTorrent client and P2P browser into that at the same time, that would be great, too.
iTunes isn't good because of the Music Store, it's good despite it. There is a huge, gaping hole that the Linux community could fill if people desired to, for a program that's BETTER than iTunes: one that works seamlessly with the iPod but also works with other music stores (non-DRMed ones: AllOfMp3.com, eMusic, etc., plus free sources), and doesn't shy away from features because it would piss off music companies (sharing/streaming of music, true bidirectional syncronization).
Apple's software is hobbled by the company's relationship with the media companies and the necessity of flogging their own music store, not strengthened by it. It means that they have to produce crippled software, which doesn't do everything that it could otherwise. The FOSS community could run circles around iTunes; heck, they could make the closest thing that Linux has to a 'killer app' for home users. Going on about DRM is just a red herring; only a very few people can afford to buy large quantities of music from iTMS anyway, the great majority wouldn't be stopped by that from moving to a clearly superior piece of software, if one existed. To my knowledge, it does not. And that's why iTunes reigns supreme.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Hey, iTunes is a bloated piece of shit! Just having the application playing in the background playing uses lots of resources on my Power Mac G4, not to mention tagging files or searching through the library (I had to give up on searching and browse instead, because the iTunes was almost like freezing after every character I typed in). I quite recently bought a laptop and installed Ubuntu on it, and now I refuse to use anything but Quod Libet for listening to music! It is the ultimate music application!
The basic idea of itunes is just flawed (from my perpective at least)..
... you just connect it and an scsi device(on most systems) show up, you just have to mount it ....
.....
Most players, even my stupid Panasonic car radio can read-in an MP3 list on the fly, and then play it, so why not that super-intelligent-wonderful device?
As on any normal MP3 player I have seen, you could just drop the files onto the device, and then it would create a playlist from it....
That way you could use any system, not just that retarded Itunes. That way you could use m3u files as well.
But wait: this way you would not need a windows or a mac running that bloated crap, that is nothing but a "buy more from itunes" adware pile.
And here is what really bothers me: you cannot use iTunes store from where i live, and now they even stopped selling prepaid cards at the apple stores. Still I have to download a new version of their crap almost every 3 weeks, with bigger and bigger file sizes, while i could just drop files on an USB drive's filesystem, and then press play...
I think I am one of the very few people who is sick of his ipod in every single sense, except it's physical strength (i use it at the gym every day and get it wet, and hit it with weights and run with it... then usually steam it for a few hours in my gym-bag's front with my wet heartrate monitor)
Other than that: sound:ok i guess, earphones:garbage, interface awkward, functions:bloat, control:complicated (always those menus with the idiotic scrolling)......
Oh if that little function existed, you could use it with linux just fine, as far as usb drives are enabled
mounting something too complicated? I guess do not use linux, that is my advice
Yeah, it's the peripherals. It was the constant fussing with Linux patches just to watch DVDs, or to do USB that drove me to give OSX a try when it first appeared, back in the day.
But virtualization can change that. The ability to run Linux or Mac OS X or Windows as a virtual machine on top of Linux, or OS X, or Windows is a huge win. It means that you can have your cake and eat it, too - you can use what ever OS you need to run the app or connect to the peripheral, then switch back to the OS you'd rather use for whatever it is you need to do next.
Clear, Dark Skies
Why does Linux have to appeal to anyone but the people who use it? I thought that was the whole point. If you don't feel like paying for software then you've either got to write it yourself or wait for someone to give it to you (or steal it, but that's another topic). And this is exactly what the Linux community has done; as many people here have pointed out you can use an iPod in Linux (to say nothing of using Linux on an iPod). So the majority of people find using Linux to be too difficult? So what? They can just pay for a simpler OS that does work for them. It's like paying someone to clean your house, wash your car, make you food, or any number of services, and if you're someone who's not willing to pay for those services then you either have to do them yourself, or find someone who will do it voluntarily (or to enslave).
couldn't do something so simple as using a file manager.
Believe it or not, iTunes hides the Shuffle from Windows. If you plug a shuffle into a machine that doesn't have iTunes installed, it will appear as a drive.
At least, mine did when I first got it. Maybe newer ones are different?
Clear, Dark Skies
On my OpenSUSE 10.1:
- Open Amarok
- Attach iPod Nano
- Amarok pops up a box that asks if I want to use it to manage a new iPod
- Click affirmative
- Transfer, delete, manage music and podcasts at will
I have not read the article so I don't understand the issue. Are the using a two-year-old version of some odd distro?
I can't stand iTunes. Nobody I know uses it, and most of them have iPods. I would use Amarok whether or not I had an iPod (I don't, actually), but I know *nobody* that uses iTunes for any reason other than to work with their iPod. Amarok has strengths iTunes never will have, and that makes you, sir, very wrong.
The only functionality that you listed that Amarok is missing is buying music - a pretty nonvital and trivial to implement feature. I'd be ready to wake you up when it's implemented, but I think you enjoy your nap more than reality. Sweet dreams.
Well you can wake me up when iTunes displays song lyrics on the fly, pulls up Wikipedia entries on the artist, sorts music in a sane manner, does not phone home on your music collection for an "enhanced" buying experience, is fully skinable so you can get rid of that 1900 Ford mentality of "They can have it look however they want as long as it is this shitty minimalist skin", and supports ALL the music file formats i want to use like .ogg
And I wouldn't brag about iTunes music store as a feature considering they don't even really sell YOU a song...With their permission you are granted the right to listen to their music on a limited number of computers.
Oh and did I mention that it's memory footprint is about 1/4 of iTunes?
Oh and did I mention that it KICKS the llamas ass?
"All those moments, will be lost in time...like tears in rain..."
Do not feed the trolls :)
You are so suckered by the music industry. iTunes gives you DRM garbage without long term credibility. It's a step backward from analog, except for convenience of play. Free media is technically superior and easier to use than non free.
Burn? Why? CDs are an input and an archive. I save my wavs as gziped tar archives and play them as oggs.
Amazingly enough, I can buy CDs and listen to my music with Amarok. Reasonable services will sell you FLAC without DRM. Reasonable bands let you trade their concerts without charge. iTunes does not live up to the Amarok + Wikipedia + Lyrics experience, nor is it's database as good. As time goes by, the gap in quality will widen.
As usual, non free is getting it's ass kicked and people are routing around it. Artist and users are getting a better deal elsewhere. When they fold and leave you without a key to what you purchased, you will understand why the deal was raw to begin with. I've digitized my parents and my grandparents music collections and will be able to give them to my kids. I'm not buying into something that will prevent that. Your player won't last forever, but the music and the culture it represents should.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Except what they're talking about here is not another piece of "every bit of hardware in existance", it's the single most popular music player on the market, and probably the most ubiquitous peripheral out there right now.
It's like the day I tried to install Linux and it wouldn't write to my data disc which was formatted in NTFS. No, it's not Linux's fault, but it made me go, "oh well, it would've been nice, but it's too much bother". A reaction that I promise you is more common than any other.
- ------- There are ten kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who... Huh?
I have concluded that "Linux isn't ready for the desktop" rants like TFA and "This is the Year of Linux on the Desktop" raves are both equally irrelevant, because they both miss the point.
If an attractive, usable desktop environment with excellent multimedia capabilities were what it took to make a desktop computing platform dominant, I wouldn't be typing this comment from my Windows box at work. We'd all be using Amigas. The /. Macolytes will argue that we all would have been (and still should be) using Apple Macintoshes of one description or other. Let's review, though: the Amiga is on the dustbin of history. The Mac soldiers along, but for all its "Volkskomputer" propaganda, only a relatively small proportion of relatively affluent Macolytes ever use them.
What dominated the desktop? What made the Personal Computer a commodity item? Bring yourself to say it: IBM-Compatibles running MS-DOS. They were ugly and primitive. It were single-user/single-task systems. Keeping one running initiated a user or administrator into the secret world of cryptic command lines and oracular error messages (ABORT, RETRY, FAIL?). It certainly wasn't an attractive platform by any standard now applied....and yet it completely trounced all its competitors. Why?
Because it was extremely attractive to the sort of person we don't like here on /.--procurement types. It was "good enough," they were "smart enough," and, goshdarnit, the IBM-compatibles ran Lotus 1-2-3! Industry kicked off the massive adoption feedback loop, and, flash forward to the present day, we're all in a Microsoft universe.
We will leave that universe NOT because the competition offers a compelling, beautiful, secure product that is compatible with the latest Apple blobject. We will leave it when the same hated procurement types start to calculate that the costs of staying in proprietary software outweigh those of running Free software. Once the argument is framed in those terms, the adoption loop will turn again, and people will be forced to use the platform they use at work, at school, or wherever.
If Linux is or isn't ready for YOU, that's really your decision. But it's pointless to evaluate desktop Linux's chances of mass adoption assuming that the masses will all flock to a better, more secure, and more usable platform without being compelled to do so by some external force.
That's funny... I installed ubuntu like this:
Then I was online. I clicked on "Syntaptic Package Manager" and checked the box for "Banshee". I clicked "Apply". After it downloaded, I plugged in my iPod nano, pulled my music off of it, and began to listen.
You're right, that was really hard. Fuck. I mean, it's a good think I'm a software developer, or I wouldn't have made it through that.
Don't even get me started on video cards. Mine burned out, so I bought a new one. I booted into Linux - didn't have to change a thing. I booted into Windows... whoops! Driver incompatibility - no GUI for you. What? You can't get to a command line without first booting into the GUI or entering some arcane key combination on boot? And who knows how to install graphics drivers from the command line in Windows, anyway? Well damn, I guess reinstallation is the only option. Or buy a card identical to the one that burned out.
What makes iPods complicated to use on GNU/Linux desktops, is the iTunesDB file that has to be parsed and written for the iPod firmware to be happy. If it wasn't for that, you could just mount it as a regular USB drive, and copy the files over.
A friend of mine recently bought an iPod video, and had a few fights with his media player while trying to compile an iPod plugin for it, but with no luck. When he came over to my place, I suggested that he could switch firmware to Rockbox. The installation might not have been the easiest, using dd to extract the firmware from the iPod's HDD, compile a tool which was then used to patch the original firmware with a bootloader, and then copy onto it the Rockbox binaries afterwards.
However, it is now possible to just copy music into the mounted iPod using any file browser, and it'll show up in Rockbox immidiately. Rockbox also offers many new features to iPod owners. Does the Apple firmware play OGG Vorbis or FLAC files? WavPack? AC3, then? Rockbox still can't play video files, though, but the Rockbox bootloader actually sets up a dual boot environment, so that you're able to switch over for watching videos, or playback DRM'ed files, if you have to.
The uneducated consumer may decide that rental and subscription services works for him. That a one click download of a Rhapsody playlist is a better use of his time than spending hours trolling BT and the P2P nets,
I read this summary and simply *had* to poke my iPod, which is sitting infront of me, plugged into this Fedora Core 5 machine, to make sure it was still there. I agree with other posters, iTunes is bloated and crappy, and linux has great support for the iPod. FC5 instantly recognizes it, and I use (and prefer) GTKpod which is slim, simple and fast for importing/editing my iPod songs.
How is it the article so elegantly avoided the obvious answer to it's intro question, 'will <Linux> work with my iPod?' Shouldn't somebody be writing an article about how Linux is keeping up with the times so well, as it has multiple free programs that offer great ipod support?
Our wealth breeds emptiness
Mine's even easier.
I just plug it into its dock and Amarok recognises it, mounts it and makes it available for transfers automatically. Then I press "Disconnect" and it unmounts AND ejects it, ready to take cycling.
And Amarok is actually nice to use. gtkpod is *horrible*.
Nobody else has this sig.
..in various posts, let me summarize how the article's implication of poor ipod support is total bullshit and ipod works with linux just fine (in fact, better than with windows).
libipod ( http://libipod.sourceforge.net/ ) is the library that interacts with the database on the ipod that stores your music.
Several music players on linux like amarok ( http://amarok.kde.org/ ), rhythmbox ( http://www.gnome.org/projects/rhythmbox/ ), gtkpod ( http://www.gtkpod.org/about.html ),( http://developer.kde.org/~wheeler/juk.html ) etc have plugins/embeddings that can interact with the library seamlessly
Ipods are detected just fine by the USB mass storage driver with no probems in any modern linux distro.
Itunes can be run thru wine (though I've never tried it), and Sharpmusique
( http://nanocrew.net/software/sharpmusique/ ) can connect with itunes, buy music, download and strip off the DRM so that the files can be played anywhere.
CD-ripping and transfer to ipod can be done seamlessly in amarok (if you have lame etc installed). It's easier than in windoze thru third party rippers and itunes where there are all sorts of restrictions and issues.
Both "pc-compatible" (fat filesystem) as well as "mac-compatible" (HFS filesystem) will work equally well on any linux box coz linux has drivers for both filesystems.
Last but not least, there is ipodlinux ( http://ipodlinux.org/Main_Page ), where you can install linux firmware in your ipod itself. Advantage is that you can play videos in your nano, music management is thru filesystem rather than database so just treat it as a mass storage device in any OS, and a host of other linux stuff will work on it, and you can play any music format that can be played on linux, not just mp3's (ogm,wma etc). You can even play quake on it if you want.
My nano ran just fine with my Mandrake box with no probs. Anecdotally, I had more problems with it on windoze (usb connection to it acted wierdly, though the usb bus was fine; I didn't care enough to analyze what was up).
l'Homme n'est Rien l'Oeuvre Tout: Gustave Flaubert to George Sand
And disappointingly, its always still current. Linux has a seriously split personality and I don't think its ever been the right way to be. On one hand we have this excellent well documented, stable server platform. Here I love it. Couldn't ask for anything more (don't hate me BSD users!).
Of course the flip is the 'ready to dominate the desktop' thing. I've been using Linux for about 8 years and the one thing I haven't seen is a distro thats ready to take the place of a real, dedicated user environment.
Now I'm guessing that making it ugly and cludgy by trying to keep both the archaic (but server friendly) aspects together with the newer (and definitely still immature) GUI pieces is a big part of the problem.
I've got a box that can do everything, but only half as well. Its silly really. Top it off with the nuts and their struggle against *any* real change and you get exactly what you should expect to get: a system thats terminally mired in a wealth of old-school ideas (filesystem layout, lack of consistent driver API, DE abstraction, application fragmentation, etc).
For a lot of people these things are all very good, but for the 'average' user it make Linux the subtle nightmare that it really is.
I've been practically begging, for years, for someone to break the rules. Piss RMS off. I don't care really. Just give me an operating system that works like its 2006, proprietary drives and ALL.
I'm using XP Pro now. I'll probably end up moving to Apple at some point because I respect them for focusing on the front end and still giving their users the power on the back end (exactly where Linux distro's get it all cocked up).
Anyway, basically, I think its fear of rocking the boat and if there is *anything* more constricting then proprietary code thats definitely it.
Quack, quack.
I've got more important things to do than fuck around with my iPod. I want to plug it in, and have it work. Period. I know how to work on my car, but I don't have time to, even though I enjoy it.
Don't assume that because someone doesn't want to do something, that they can't do it. People aren't babies just beacuse they don't feel the need to make things unnecessarily difficult as part of some bizarre alpha-male chest-beating ritual.
DRM-locked music is inherently inferior to free music. I've got flac or ogg versions of all the music I like, and can get flac or ogg versions of all the music I want. And you know what? I'd PAY for that, if anyone had the temerity to sell such service. I just won't pay for DRM-corrupted art of any kind. I don't need it and I don't miss it. I'm not a college-kid either. My friends and associates have musical tastes that run the gamut from classical and world music to jazz, and any flavor of rock or pop you could think of. Oh, and country. Know what? None of us will use DRM-fouled products. That's just the way it is, and we're not the poorer for it. But the music industry will be poorer for not having us as customers. The world is full of music of all kinds. You can hear absolutely everything and anything without resorting to DRM-damaged products. And if the music industry collapsed and died tomorrow, musicians would still find a way to be heard - at least the good ones would. Now kiss my ass you miserable clerk for some avaricious entertainment lawyer.
You are welcome on my lawn.
In addition to that a quick search for ipod on Gnome Files turns up Banshee , Rhythmbox , Listen and Yamipod>{not open source} , all of these look like nice options for iPod and music library management under linux but Banshee and Listen really stand out. No DRM of course but there is an entry on codeweavers' site for iTunes though i've no idea how compatible it is at this stage.http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/bro wse/name?app_id=134
Software Freedom Day!.
If you can't find a way to sync your iPod with your Linux machine you haven't really been looking!
When will we get to mod articles "-1, Troll"?
0 1 - just my two bits
As I pointed out to someone else already, Apple went well out of their way to ensure that the iPod only works on platforms they want it to.
My Archos MP3 player is about as cross-platform as anything I've seen... did they design it to work with Linux? No.
But they didn't go out of their way to prevent its use with Linux. Apple didn't HAVE to make it so you can't load songs on it with ONLY iTunes.
But for their own very good reasons, they did.
That is not a shortcoming of Linux.
People have pointed out numerous times in the discussion on this article that there are multiple ways to get iPods to work on Linux and even iTMS to work from a Linux workstation. Despite Apple's efforts, it is still possible to do it... not always the most user-friendly of methods, but it is still possible.
It would be easier if they didn't put so many obstacles in the path of users just wanting to use a product with their operating system of choice... as I mentioned above, my MP3 player manufactured by Archos works just fine. It's dirt simple to use. Plug it in, put whatever I want on it, songs, videos, playlists, photos, whatever. And it all just works. Even on Slackware.
By contrast, in order to get an iPod to work on the same laptop, I'd have to do some pretty stupid shit, and even then there's no guarantee.
I would think that a company as adept in the consumer electronics business as Apple would be a bit better at making something easy to use, and you know damned well they can. They simply chose not to.
Again I ask, how on earth is that a shortcoming of Linux?
Other MP3 players work just fine on it with no "workarounds" or hacks. Sounds to me like it's the iPod that has shortcomings.
My wife discovered one just today when she was trying to copy the songs off her iPod to her laptop so she could listen to music while she was working in a different room of the house and didn't want headphones on so she could hear if the phone rang. Apparently there's no way to copy music off of it without either downloading some 3rd party freeware utilities or digging around the device's file structure to find some hidden folder.
That utterly baffles me. People keep talking about how "easy to use" these things are, but at every turn Apple has placed barriers to do what I would consider to be very simple, intuitive things.
The more time goes by, the more glad I am I didn't buy one when I was contemplating doing so... the one my wife has is maddeningly frustrating on a number of levels, and all of it seems to be by design.
And the circle of life continues to spin, occasionally wobbling on its axis thanks to the weighty presence of dumb.
Where the hell are the mods, and why aren't they bitchslapping the people who post incorrect informatnion like this?
Linux supports iPods just fine. In fact, modern distros support them out of the box, whereas with PCs you have to install iTunes.
What isn't available for Linux is iTunes, and, hence, Apple won't sell you any music. If you want that, take it up with Apple.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
>Time to wake up. Audio on Linux is just as bad as gaming.
Wrong.
>No major distro supports mp3s by default.
Wrong. Mandriva/Mandrake does and always has. If, by "suppport", you mean PLAYING mp3 files. Now CREATING mp3 files is not included. That takes all of about 1 min to download and load the lame rpm from PLF.
>They crash. A Lot
I have never had Amarok "crash", but I do tend to use xmms the most.
>Not only that but they rely almost completely on id3 tags, which sucks if your music collection happens to be anything other than ripped from personal CDs or very good quality rips.
Um, yes, they rely on id3, just like most "jukebox" programs do. So what you are REALLY complaining about is that your illegally downloaded, illegally distributed mp3 files have bad/poor id3 tags? Boo hoo!
Linux is for when you take the task based approach, where the requirement is for example - "to edit text", but if you take the application based approach "must run MS Word as fast as it can" the requirements really obviously limit your choices. Personally I don't want to shell out for photoshop because I am not a graphics arts professional and a wide variety of other applications can be used to crop and resize images.
Linux is ready for the desktop, right now. [...] What it isn't ready for is the MS/Mac zealots, but then, it never will be because they have no desire to change, nor to admit there even is a viable alternative to their favorite OS.
I would say that Linux was ready for the desktop ten years ago, and has become LESS useable since then. I am currently running SuSE 10.1, and while it was slightly easier to install than Slack 2, it's a complete mess as far as user interface goes. The old Unix desktop paradigms have fallen by the wayside, and we are left with a dog's breakfast of Windows conventions slowly strangling the older Unix conventions. Ctrl-C for copy?!? Fucking brilliant. Just killed the the app I was copying from. Should have tried Ctrl-Alt-C in that window. Or not, if it's from an office app that uses it's own clipboard, since you won't actually be copying anything to the clipboard you think you're copying to, and you'll end up pasting some random 5K block of text that you copied from somewhere else an hour before.
Yup, Linux has been ruined by legions of disgruntled Windows users trying to replace their Microsoft shite with something stable. Thanks to their tireless efforts, we've now got Winux. All the badly designed shite that drives you crazy on Windows, but hey at least now it's stable and secure. Fortunately you can still get yourself back to a somewhat consistent Unixy environment after a couple of days of abolishing the atrocities of KDE, Gnome, Firefox, and assorted other crap, but since all the developer effort is going into making that crap even crappier to appeal to the next wave of disgruntled Windows refugees, I don't hold much hope for real advancement in the Linux UI realm.
Fortunately Apple stepped up to the plate, and provided a genuinely revolutionary step forward in Unix UIs. A lot of us have quietly walked away from Linux desktops in the last 5 years because of Apple. Linux servers are still the shit, so I'm still a fan, but the Linux desktop is hopelessly lost, and IMO has been since Redhat 4 shipped with fvwm95 as the default window manager.
I plugged in my iPod to my iBook running Ubuntu Dapper 6.06 to change the batter -- guess what? Rhythmbox came up, with the iPod there. I doubled clicked on a song, and it played.
fak3r.com
These settings have worked well for me.
fullscreen video:
ffmpeg -vcodec xvid -b 300 -bufsize 4096 -g 300 -acodec aac -ab 96 -i input.mpeg -s 320x240 -aspect 4:3 output.mp4
Widescreen (such as a DVD source):
ffmpeg -vcodec xvid -b 300 -bufsize 4096 -g 300 -acodec aac -ab 96 -i input.mpeg -s 320x190 -aspect 4:3 output.mp4
===========
I use gtkpod for my music management, and GPixPod when I want to throw some photos on my pod. Rythmbox for the occasional podcast.
I like Rockbox. The quality of playback and the crossfading is nice. Volume can go higher than apple will allow using Rockbox. Themes are nice too. I don't like how it alphabetizes the track listings of an album. There's no simple way to make playback follow the ID3 track order. No video support either, so I dual boot my ipod between standard firmware and Rockbox quite a bit.
Fuck the Zune.
Well, it's not friendly to first post trolls perhaps.
Not friendly to anyone who can't do a Google search. My kids got a genuine I-Pod. The machine I provided them has Ubuntu Daper Drake. I gathered from Google that the Banchee Music player supports the I-Pod except for the DRM stuff. In addition to sending music to the player, it can upload from the player. It that respect it's better than I-Tunes for my kids. Installing it was a snap. On the menu bar I selected Applications. On the pull down I selected Add/Remove. This brought up a list of installed applications and a list of applications that can be installed. Under Audio I selected the Banchee Music Player and let it install after providing the administrator password.
My kids do not have software install privilages which keeps the cruft and malware at bay.
Instead of having to go to each vendor's website to get and install applications, it is nice to simply to have an Add/Remove item with everyting there. Nice! It is kind of like using Microsoft Updates, but for your applications instead of just security updates.
The truth shall set you free!
I don't want my Linux "consumer" friendly. I want it hacker friendly. And it is. So *whack* hands off! There are some great usability things in the works that, when implemented, probably will make things more consumer friendly. Fine. Just please don't let that be the goal.
i ng-drm-money-maker-thought-stealer running either. Such things are for consumers.
The tipping point for Linux was when Oracle decided to support it? That was enough to stop reading, but unfortunatly I continued on.
The more windows consumer users are attracted to Linux the more they will expect it to function like windows. I want new users. I want fresh thinkers. I don't want cube fodder bugging my OS. I don't want a dancing paper clip in the corner. I don't want a mega-media-super-duper-everything-all-in-one-amaz
I am a happy consumer. I consume quite a bit actually. Linux is my escape from consumerism. Yet again we see a counter-culture wanting to be mainstream.
I am not a zealot at all, I just would like to propose the question: What do you want Linux to be? The everything OS? Best Desktop/Server/Embedded/Big Iron system?
I don't mind using Windows for some things, but the second that Windows and Linux start working and acting the same - forget it.
I'm young(ish), and I got my iPod to work on amarok. I download my podcasts through amarok and sync it up daily. No, it's not as easy as Windows or Mac, but amarok does default to syncing without deleting tracks that aren't on the hard drive. Amarok can 'rip' tracks off my iPod and add them to my HD's library. And amarok is free (not shareware or nagware or crackware like all of the Windows/Mac rippers I've been able to find). It was worth the two extra minutes of setup, and I can't imagine that the setup process would beguile any relatively computer-literate person, many of which happen to be: young iPod owners.
I started using linux six months ago. There are a couple things that keep a windows kernel in my boot menu at home (ok, just age of empires and Traktor DJ studio), but ipod compatibility is not one of them. Grandma (or her young, equally non-technical equivalent, whoever that is) doesn't need to be able to install and sync ipods to every single OS candidate on the market. The market comprises more than just Grandma.
I've been an Amarok developer for 3 years, and I'd like to comment.
;)
Amarok beats iTunes in quite a few ways; eg. wikipedia artist-lookup, lyrics lookup, suggesting music from you collection for you to play next, last.fm integration, cover downloads, playback formats supported, etc. Certainly we have every feature iTunes has except a music store. And we have patches to allow purchases from Magnatune sitting on the mailing list.
We aren't as simple as iTunes. Out interface shines in some areas, like our drag and drop focus, simple toolbars and browser metaphor, but is hacked together and complex in other areas. In many ways this is a symptom of open source development, but we do have a focus on making our interface easy to learn and uncluttered, and I'm sure this has helped us to become popular on Linux.
At the end of the day iTunes is targeted at different people. Can a music player that supports multiple audio backends and multiple database backends ever be as simple as one that comes with them built in and mostly unconfigurable? Yes, you can hide that stuff in an options dialog. But no you'll still have a system that is more difficult to make bug-free, and that has more potential for strange behaviour.
If you put the time in, Amarok beats everything else out there; we've put the time in to ensure that. But it isn't there yet, in terms of catering to the iTunes demographic. And I'm not sure we really want to do that anyway.
If anything our focus for Amarok 2 makes us even less like iTunes, and perhaps not in a general appeal kind of way. But if you like music, and have a lot of it, you'll love Amarok 2. It's not ready yet though..
Moron. Repeat after me. here's how you install linux. Insert CD. Hit enter till it loads. For 95% of all modern instalations, that's it. Installing windows is more complicated than this, I swear. It's just that most people never install windows. Also, here's how integrating my ipod worked in ubuntu: connect iPod. ta-da.
that if you're going to attempt to be a Linux apologist, you should try and actually help the folks who are having problems, rather than insisting that they are the problem. The GP is right, I come across this attitude all the time. Indeed, when I first installed Linux a couple years ago, I did it despite the general community of obnoxious "you are so not the haxor"-geeks, not because of them.
There are two side to this: the clueless noobs who want Linux to be just like Windows (which means, essentially, self-configuring or trivially configurable) and the self-proclaimed Linux Uber-geeks, who insist that everyone should be able to figure out obscure, undocumented command-line configurations by trial and error. This is a problem both with Linux itself and with many applications written for Linux.
I really like Linux. I have a Fedora box running at work, a Ubuntu box at home, and another box at home waiting to be converted to some other distro. Nevertheless, the truth is that Linux is not (generally speaking) as easy to use as Windows in terms of either hardware or software configuration. Until we admit that this is a problem for widespread adoption, it's going to continue to be difficult to convince people that Linux is just as good as Windows even though we know that in many ways it is actually even better. One way to make this better (aside from actually coding things to be easier to work with) is to offer support to people who are interested in using Linux.
New users are turned off when they attempt to dip a toe into the waters of Linux and discover that not only is the water much colder than they are used to, but there are obnoxious children splashing everyone, insisting that the water is warm and it's the new user that's the wrong temp.
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