Yep, I can confirm this works - I've been using it since I got my 20GB Win iPod. I only used the bundled crapola software once: to "christen" my iPod.
EphPod is a cool program, and I'm glad to have it. However, using EphPod under linux still has some glitches:
(1) The "Add Directory..." feature doesn't work, you just get an empty selection browser. I suspect this is a wine limitation (I'm using the Crossover plugin version). You have to use "Add Files" instead, and just select all the files you want to add. That doesn't sound like too bad a workaround, but it's quite painful if you're adding a few thousand.
(2) Sometimes EphPod screws up the iPod database: choose a Fleetwood Mac tune, get Elvis Costello song instead. *sigh* Using the EphPod's "Rebuild Database" function cures that problem, but it almost always loses the playlists. Solution: always keep linux-side copies of the playlists. I use xmms to build the playlists, then use Emacs to clean the xmms-specific lines out of them. Xmms can still use them, and they can be re-loaded into the iPod after rebuilding the database.
(3) The 1394 drivers are immature. They frequently fail to recognize the iPod; unloading then reloading sbp2 usually fixes this. The drivers sometimes cause kernel oopses, at least with 2.4.19 and the latest 1394 drivers as of the time I got my iPod - I haven't tried 2.4.20 yet.
(4) EphPod doesn't seem to recognize mp3 genre tags; I haven't looked deeply into this problem yet, but I suspect it may be an id3v2 vs v1 problem.
That sums up my experience. I would say that using an iPod under linux is not for the faint of heart.
--
(Because linux sees the iPod as a generic block device, there are some interesting things you can do with it. When I first hooked up my iPod, I used a 'dd if=/dev/sdb | gzip -9' to grab an image of the hard disk - which could later be used to restore the entire iPod back to "virgin" state. I also dd'ed off a copy of/dev/sdb1 to have a copy of the firmware. The entire 20GB image compressed down to less than 10MG - must be mostly zeroes.)
Re:What the hey? (Grammar flaming)
on
Turn-Key Linux Audio
·
· Score: 1, Flamebait
Before you get modded into a flaming heap of -1 Offtopic, let me advise you not to waste your keystrokes next time. The Slashdot "editors" don't care. They couldn't care less about grammar. They take a perverse sense of pride in getting it wrong all the time. Furthermore, most of the Slashdot readers don't care either and they will soon descend upon you, flaming you into oblivion with remarks like "get a life", "who cares", and "you're a 'bot, aren't you?"
Me, I sympathize with you. I wish someone at/. would wake up one morning and say over their Wheaties, "We've been pretty sloppy around here; it's time to get professional." It'll never happen, though. These guys think of themselves as an alternative to "mainstream" press and the incessant torture of their mother tongue is all part of the image, part of the affectation. So pedants like you and me just have either get over it or stop reading Slashdot.
I get very little spam through my office e-mail. I don't know whether our admins use spam filters, but I have always attributed the low spam rate to the way I use the e-mail address. I use it mostly for internal e-mail, and I seldom give it to anybody outside the company. It doesn't show up in postings to Usenet (in a Reply-to field, for example), I don't use it to register at sites like nytimes.com, and I don't give it to people I don't know. That's not because I intentionally keep it a big secret, it's just a side effect of the way I work - I don't have much reason to give out my e-mail address. I believe that my lack of spam at the office can be credited to limited exposure.
Contrariwise, I wouldn't be surprised if there are people who get tons of e-mail at the office.
Huh? Car business? You've really lost me there, man. "Hat trick" is from hockey - three goals in a game, and "Day ain't over..." is from one of those dumb Billy Crystal movies (and countless real cowpoke types). Where in that do you get "Car business"? Clue me in, dude...
I couldn't agree more. I read a lot of Tintin when I was young - in English translations - and I just loved them. I can't imagine any actor acting quite like I imagined the characters did, nor will their voices sound like I imagined them sounding. I don't want Mr. Spielberg messing around with Herge's creations, and I won't go to see the movies. There are some things you don't want to see "live-action".
Fortunately, if anything goes wrong with the robot, the human surgeons can jump right in and pick up where the robot has stopped.
Yeah... assuming the doctors notice that anything is wrong. As pointed out in the Risks Digest recently, a surgeon-controlled robotic surgery in Tampa went terribly wrong in October; while attempting to remove a patient's cancerous kidney, the surgeon (or robot - the root cause hasn't been identified) cut the patient's aorta, an accident which went unnoticed until an hour and a half later! The man died two days later from complications related to the surgery; no mention of whether the complications are a result of the accident. But if they were, would the hospital or doctor admit it?
I know it's tasteful because my wife told me it is! But seriously - this is one of those combinations that sounds like it wouldn't work, but when you see it, you say "Yeah, that looks pretty good." The table is wood with a reddish-natural finish and an inlaid glass top. My sense of style is definitely eclectic, but please don't tell me I have no taste... at least let me pretend!
Aha, I see I forgot to mention the beer fridge. Seriously - an old mini dorm fridge that, just for grins, I painted bright red. (OK, it's really not full of beer... it's full of Dr Pepper.)
A room full of computers and related stuff is a lot of fun... for a while. I got tired of the clutter, the boxes of CDs, the old disk drives, tape drives, power supplies, all the crap lying around all the time. All the junk just got in the way. But above and beyond all that, I got tired of my room looking like a geek's room - I wanted something a little bit more... tasteful.
(When did I get a sense of "taste"? I don't know it just happened to me - I didn't mean for it to... honest.)
So last year, when we bought a new house, I claimed the large upstairs bedroom and turned it into my study/library/computer room. I put up shelves to neatly store all my books - not just the computer manuals, but also the sci-fi novels, the old textbooks, the old albums, the artsy-fartsy books, the Edward Gorey books, and all the other books in my "collection".
I put a black leather couch by the windows, with a nice wood-and-glass coffee table set in front. I bought a bunch of Ikea bookshelf modules with internal lighting, some glass doors, some opaque doors, and built a wall of cubbies to hold the stuff I need near me. I set out a bunch of knick-knacks, plants, vases, even a couple of antique radios. I painted the walls a warm brown color. I bought and set out a couple of nice lamps. I even bought an on-stage stand for my Ibanez six-string.
Best of all: the room has a big walk-in closet. In there I put the nasty old bookshelves that used to sit out in the room. On them are all the computer manuals, the archive CDs, the stuff I don't need on a daily basis. On the other shelves are all the office supplies: printer paper, spare ink cartridges, backup tapes, and all that kind of stuff. In there I keep the crappy old stuff I don't use any more, but can't bring myself to throw away: old video cards, old disk drives, old cables, wires, etc., etc. The closet contains the ancient 233-MHz pentium system that serves as my Internet gateway. It also has the two filing cabinets that keep all the family papers. In short: all the ugly stuff is hidden away in the closet.
I still have some computer stuff in the room, but it's just what I need and as neatly arranged as I can get it. The full tower PC sits pretty much hidden behind the antique library table that serves as my desk. My trusty old HP 5L printer sits by it on the Ikea modules. On the desk are just the monitor, mouse, keyboard, and telephone. I have enough room to open up a couple of books without having to move a bunch of computer crap out of the way.
The clutter and crap that I do need on a daily basis is hidden behind the opaque doors of the Ikea modules, so I can close the doors and hide it most of the time. I have to make an effort not to let the Dr Pepper cans stack up, but aside from that it's pretty easy to keep my room neat and clutter-free. I know this is the opposite of the geek ideal, but I like it much better than piles of computer crap and clutter. My study is a pleasant, even peaceful, place to sit and hack, watch TV, listen to music, strum the guitar, or just sit and read. Highly recommended, if you've got the room for it.
But I'm not saying that McNealy invented the expression - just that he's made it his own. Just like Barry Switzer didn't invent the wishbone offense; he just borrowed it and used to run over Nebraska and Texas for fifteen years or so.
Or maybe it was URTH, which I think stood for University of Rochester forTH. I seem to remember using this language once upon a time as a co-op back in about 1982, but the net, even Google, seems to retain little memory of it. I say "seem" to remember because I can't recall which exact FORTH or FORTH-like language we used, but I'd like to know because I'd like to find a similar version.
Ever read the essay by (I think it was) Larry Niven called (I think it was) "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex". It examines, among other things, the physics of passion and explains why Superman and Lois would never be able to consummate their relationship. Worth a read.
It's got a rather funky three cylinder shape that would not fit in a PC and vise versa...
That sounds like the power cord that connects to the transformer on my Dell laptop, and several other small appliances I've seen. It's not the typical power cord that PCs and monitors typically use, but it's still fairly common in other uses.
During the feed, it looked like the ejection of the solid rocket boosters damaged or obscured the camera...
That can be a problem for the crew too, or used to be. Each SRB has rocket motors that separate it from the external tank at around two minutes MET. Debris from these motors can get on the forward orbiter windows. Not too many years ago the shuttle flight software was changed - a "window washer" mod - to fire the FU RCS jets for a few seconds at SRB seperation to keep the windscreen clear of debris.
1. Build a kernel to support IEEE1394 2. Mount the iPod as a vfat filesystem 3. Use Wine to run EphPod.
This is how I update my iPod, and it works, but it has some problems:
* The linux ieee1394 drives sometimes don't recognize the iPod, and sometimes generate kernel Oopsies.
* Some functions of EphPod don't work, must notably the "Add Directory" function. This is probably a Wine limitation, but it's still irritating. EphPod doesn't check the id3v2 Composer tags, so your iPod's Browse->Composer menu is empty. EphPod has the feel of an app with a lot of maturing left to do -- but it's better than nothing.
* In general, the process is pretty klunky and needs lots of by-hand coaxing and prodding. I expect this to improve as the ieee1394 drives and Wine both improve.
That said, it's really cool to see that someone's making native linux support for the iPod. If you check around, you can find that there are several efforts to do this underway, some more half-assed than others... a guy here who's written a perl script to dump the database, a guy there who's got a python script for the same. But it's pretty obvious that there's a lot of interest in seeing real linux support for the iPod, so I expect to see those disparate efforts coalesce pretty quickly. It'll be nice to have.
By the way, I just love my 20GB iPod. 150 albums downloaded so far, and still 8.5GB left. You've just gotta get one of these things!
Slashdot Mirror
Yep, I can confirm this works - I've been using it since I got my 20GB Win iPod. I only used the bundled crapola software once: to "christen" my iPod.
/dev/sdb1 to have a copy of the firmware. The entire 20GB image compressed down to less than 10MG - must be mostly zeroes.)
EphPod is a cool program, and I'm glad to have it. However, using EphPod under linux still has some glitches:
(1) The "Add Directory..." feature doesn't work, you just get an empty selection browser. I suspect this is a wine limitation (I'm using the Crossover plugin version). You have to use "Add Files" instead, and just select all the files you want to add. That doesn't sound like too bad a workaround, but it's quite painful if you're adding a few thousand.
(2) Sometimes EphPod screws up the iPod database: choose a Fleetwood Mac tune, get Elvis Costello song instead. *sigh* Using the EphPod's "Rebuild Database" function cures that problem, but it almost always loses the playlists. Solution: always keep linux-side copies of the playlists. I use xmms to build the playlists, then use Emacs to clean the xmms-specific lines out of them. Xmms can still use them, and they can be re-loaded into the iPod after rebuilding the database.
(3) The 1394 drivers are immature. They frequently fail to recognize the iPod; unloading then reloading sbp2 usually fixes this. The drivers sometimes cause kernel oopses, at least with 2.4.19 and the latest 1394 drivers as of the time I got my iPod - I haven't tried 2.4.20 yet.
(4) EphPod doesn't seem to recognize mp3 genre tags; I haven't looked deeply into this problem yet, but I suspect it may be an id3v2 vs v1 problem.
That sums up my experience. I would say that using an iPod under linux is not for the faint of heart.
--
(Because linux sees the iPod as a generic block device, there are some interesting things you can do with it. When I first hooked up my iPod, I used a 'dd if=/dev/sdb | gzip -9' to grab an image of the hard disk - which could later be used to restore the entire iPod back to "virgin" state. I also dd'ed off a copy of
--Jim
Kibo?
I am not Kibo.
Kibo was James "Kibo" Parry, who can still be found at http://www.kibo.com/.
KIBO == Knowledge In, Bullshit Out.
--Jim
Before you get modded into a flaming heap of -1 Offtopic, let me advise you not to waste your keystrokes next time. The Slashdot "editors" don't care. They couldn't care less about grammar. They take a perverse sense of pride in getting it wrong all the time. Furthermore, most of the Slashdot readers don't care either and they will soon descend upon you, flaming you into oblivion with remarks like "get a life", "who cares", and "you're a 'bot, aren't you?"
/. would wake up one morning and say over their Wheaties, "We've been pretty sloppy around here; it's time to get professional." It'll never happen, though. These guys think of themselves as an alternative to "mainstream" press and the incessant torture of their mother tongue is all part of the image, part of the affectation. So pedants like you and me just have either get over it or stop reading Slashdot.
Me, I sympathize with you. I wish someone at
--Jim
I get very little spam through my office e-mail. I don't know whether our admins use spam filters, but I have always attributed the low spam rate to the way I use the e-mail address. I use it mostly for internal e-mail, and I seldom give it to anybody outside the company. It doesn't show up in postings to Usenet (in a Reply-to field, for example), I don't use it to register at sites like nytimes.com, and I don't give it to people I don't know. That's not because I intentionally keep it a big secret, it's just a side effect of the way I work - I don't have much reason to give out my e-mail address. I believe that my lack of spam at the office can be credited to limited exposure.
Contrariwise, I wouldn't be surprised if there are people who get tons of e-mail at the office.
--Jim
Huh? Car business? You've really lost me there, man. "Hat trick" is from hockey - three goals in a game, and "Day ain't over..." is from one of those dumb Billy Crystal movies (and countless real cowpoke types). Where in that do you get "Car business"? Clue me in, dude...
--Jim
-1, Offtopic
It's the third today... and the day ain't over yet.
Tank! I need an exit! QUICK!
You can't! No! They're sacred, damn it!
I couldn't agree more. I read a lot of Tintin when I was young - in English translations - and I just loved them. I can't imagine any actor acting quite like I imagined the characters did, nor will their voices sound like I imagined them sounding. I don't want Mr. Spielberg messing around with Herge's creations, and I won't go to see the movies. There are some things you don't want to see "live-action".
--Jim (Thompson, not Thomson)
Radio Shack: You've got questions, we've got blank stares!
--Jim
Fortunately, if anything goes wrong with the robot, the human surgeons can jump right in and pick up where the robot has stopped.
Yeah... assuming the doctors notice that anything is wrong. As pointed out in the Risks Digest recently, a surgeon-controlled robotic surgery in Tampa went terribly wrong in October; while attempting to remove a patient's cancerous kidney, the surgeon (or robot - the root cause hasn't been identified) cut the patient's aorta, an accident which went unnoticed until an hour and a half later! The man died two days later from complications related to the surgery; no mention of whether the complications are a result of the accident. But if they were, would the hospital or doctor admit it?
--Jim
I know it's tasteful because my wife told me it is! But seriously - this is one of those combinations that sounds like it wouldn't work, but when you see it, you say "Yeah, that looks pretty good." The table is wood with a reddish-natural finish and an inlaid glass top. My sense of style is definitely eclectic, but please don't tell me I have no taste... at least let me pretend!
--Jim
ROFL!
Aha, I see I forgot to mention the beer fridge. Seriously - an old mini dorm fridge that, just for grins, I painted bright red. (OK, it's really not full of beer... it's full of Dr Pepper.)
--Jim
A room full of computers and related stuff is a lot of fun... for a while. I got tired of the clutter, the boxes of CDs, the old disk drives, tape drives, power supplies, all the crap lying around all the time. All the junk just got in the way. But above and beyond all that, I got tired of my room looking like a geek's room - I wanted something a little bit more... tasteful.
(When did I get a sense of "taste"? I don't know it just happened to me - I didn't mean for it to... honest.)
So last year, when we bought a new house, I claimed the large upstairs bedroom and turned it into my study/library/computer room. I put up shelves to neatly store all my books - not just the computer manuals, but also the sci-fi novels, the old textbooks, the old albums, the artsy-fartsy books, the Edward Gorey books, and all the other books in my "collection".
I put a black leather couch by the windows, with a nice wood-and-glass coffee table set in front. I bought a bunch of Ikea bookshelf modules with internal lighting, some glass doors, some opaque doors, and built a wall of cubbies to hold the stuff I need near me. I set out a bunch of knick-knacks, plants, vases, even a couple of antique radios. I painted the walls a warm brown color. I bought and set out a couple of nice lamps. I even bought an on-stage stand for my Ibanez six-string.
Best of all: the room has a big walk-in closet. In there I put the nasty old bookshelves that used to sit out in the room. On them are all the computer manuals, the archive CDs, the stuff I don't need on a daily basis. On the other shelves are all the office supplies: printer paper, spare ink cartridges, backup tapes, and all that kind of stuff. In there I keep the crappy old stuff I don't use any more, but can't bring myself to throw away: old video cards, old disk drives, old cables, wires, etc., etc. The closet contains the ancient 233-MHz pentium system that serves as my Internet gateway. It also has the two filing cabinets that keep all the family papers. In short: all the ugly stuff is hidden away in the closet.
I still have some computer stuff in the room, but it's just what I need and as neatly arranged as I can get it. The full tower PC sits pretty much hidden behind the antique library table that serves as my desk. My trusty old HP 5L printer sits by it on the Ikea modules. On the desk are just the monitor, mouse, keyboard, and telephone. I have enough room to open up a couple of books without having to move a bunch of computer crap out of the way.
The clutter and crap that I do need on a daily basis is hidden behind the opaque doors of the Ikea modules, so I can close the doors and hide it most of the time. I have to make an effort not to let the Dr Pepper cans stack up, but aside from that it's pretty easy to keep my room neat and clutter-free. I know this is the opposite of the geek ideal, but I like it much better than piles of computer crap and clutter. My study is a pleasant, even peaceful, place to sit and hack, watch TV, listen to music, strum the guitar, or just sit and read. Highly recommended, if you've got the room for it.
--Jim
Actually, McNealy's use predates McGee's.
But I'm not saying that McNealy invented the expression - just that he's made it his own. Just like Barry Switzer didn't invent the wishbone offense; he just borrowed it and used to run over Nebraska and Texas for fifteen years or so.
--Jim
The "Itanic"...
I think that's borrowing a page from Scott McNealy's playbook...
Or maybe it was URTH, which I think stood for University of Rochester forTH. I seem to remember using this language once upon a time as a co-op back in about 1982, but the net, even Google, seems to retain little memory of it. I say "seem" to remember because I can't recall which exact FORTH or FORTH-like language we used, but I'd like to know because I'd like to find a similar version.
--Jim
Ever read the essay by (I think it was) Larry Niven called (I think it was) "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex". It examines, among other things, the physics of passion and explains why Superman and Lois would never be able to consummate their relationship. Worth a read.
--Jim
It's got a rather funky three cylinder shape that would not fit in a PC and vise versa...
That sounds like the power cord that connects to the transformer on my Dell laptop, and several other small appliances I've seen. It's not the typical power cord that PCs and monitors typically use, but it's still fairly common in other uses.
--Jim
Maybe that's something in the SRB ejection system (beats me how that works)
Small rocket motors in the boosters - "separation motors".
My 1990 Nissan says, quite plainly, "Nissan" on the back.
If I'm not mistaken you could find "Nissan" on my old Datsun 240Z too... but you had to look under the hood.
--Jim
During the feed, it looked like the ejection of the solid rocket boosters damaged or obscured the camera...
That can be a problem for the crew too, or used to be. Each SRB has rocket motors that separate it from the external tank at around two minutes MET. Debris from these motors can get on the forward orbiter windows. Not too many years ago the shuttle flight software was changed - a "window washer" mod - to fire the FU RCS jets for a few seconds at SRB seperation to keep the windscreen clear of debris.
Just thought you'd be interested to know...
--JIm
Witness PCMCIA which, since People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms...
Sneaky...
1,$ s/drives/drivers/g
Check out this HOWTO for using a Win-iPod under linux:
http://www.cs.duke.edu/~geha/ipod/
Executive summary:
1. Build a kernel to support IEEE1394
2. Mount the iPod as a vfat filesystem
3. Use Wine to run EphPod.
This is how I update my iPod, and it works, but it has some problems:
* The linux ieee1394 drives sometimes don't recognize the iPod, and sometimes generate kernel Oopsies.
* Some functions of EphPod don't work, must notably the "Add Directory" function. This is probably a Wine limitation, but it's still irritating. EphPod doesn't check the id3v2 Composer tags, so your iPod's Browse->Composer menu is empty. EphPod has the feel of an app with a lot of maturing left to do -- but it's better than nothing.
* In general, the process is pretty klunky and needs lots of by-hand coaxing and prodding. I expect this to improve as the ieee1394 drives and Wine both improve.
That said, it's really cool to see that someone's making native linux support for the iPod. If you check around, you can find that there are several efforts to do this underway, some more half-assed than others... a guy here who's written a perl script to dump the database, a guy there who's got a python script for the same. But it's pretty obvious that there's a lot of interest in seeing real linux support for the iPod, so I expect to see those disparate efforts coalesce pretty quickly. It'll be nice to have.
By the way, I just love my 20GB iPod. 150 albums downloaded so far, and still 8.5GB left. You've just gotta get one of these things!
--Jim
Gee... back in the day, we went to see "Debbie Does Dallas in Sensurround" (tm). Talk about making the Earth move!
--JIm