Accessing Ipod with Linux: GtkPod

The first attempt to access my ipod with Linux didn't go very well: I was able to access it with amarok and to upload some files and playlists, only to find out that then the ipod did not see any songs and I had to restore it with itunes under windows.

Then, after upgrading my ubuntu distributions, since I heard that this problem was due to an old version of the libgpod library, I decided to try again, but this time with gtkpod.

The Ipod was soon found upon connection, and I had to set the right model:


Then I was able to access the songs, upload new songs, and delete other songs


Don't forget to save the changes before disconnecting the ipod, otherwise its internal database won't be saved.

Then all the songs were still in the ipod and I could play them.

However, there still seem to be some problems: after this operation, the cover gallery which automatically shows under the menu does not show anymore (you can see only the number of the songs). Thus, I assume that the database is not updated correctly... after a restore with itunes the gallery showed up again.

So, for the moment, I still can't access and modify songs on my ipod in satisfactory way under linux :-(

Videos on Ipod

I finally got an Ipod classic! I was quite skeptical about this music player, but since the price went down, and the giga bytes up, I decided to get an Ipod classic 80 gb, and I'm really enjoying it. However, I cannot say the same about the way I can access it. For the moment, I couldn't access it with Linux (well, I actually accessed it with amarok, added new files, deleted some, changed playlists, only to find out that afterwards the Ipod did not see any music, and I had to restore it; I'll work on this anyway), so I had to resort to Itunes.

I'll talk about some problems about this probably next time. The real sad surprise was that I just couldn't add videos on the Ipod (not even on Itunes), since you need to convert it to the required format. Actually the documentation does not say much, but you need another program for the convertion (actually, I'm not talking about the stuff you might buy on Itunes store).

After the disappointment about the converter I found here http://www.koyotesoft.com/indexEn.html, which basically does not work at all for me, since it crashes after taking quite a long time even for a simply video of about 10 minutes, I tried this other one (which is also free): Videora converter.


This program is actually really full of ads (it contains a browser), but it does what you need, and it's actually quite fast!

But watch out Italians: you will probably get a terrible 10000 error when you start the conversion. It looks like it does not like the way dates are expressed (dd/mm/yyyy), so you need to change your regional setting from the Control Panel, and set it to English (at least when you need to use this program).


After this everything works fine, and after the conversion, you'll be able to import the generated mov file into Itunes and/or into the Ipod.

By the way, videos on Ipod really rock! :-)