Hey Linux community. I have an ipod and I’m trying to put music on it. Itunes simply will not run and it won’t recognise stuff I put on it through files. Is there any thing I can try/use? Information: Linux type: Linux Mint Cinnamon Ipod type: 1.1.2 PC, Ipod Nano, 7th Gen
Just curious why the ipod? Is it for retro chic? Are you trying to load songs you purchased or “backups”? I play my backups with vlc on my phone to save data.
Ipods have a proprietary handshake that must happen between the device and the computer trying to manage it. The open source community was able to reverse engineer it on the older models but not the later ones.
I totally get that! Everyone here is suggesting complicated virtualization options. Maybe they know something I don’t. But if it were me, I’d try setting up plain old WINE and seeing if I can install an old version of iTunes from here:
Unfortunately Apple seems to be actively working to make sure that the only way an iPod can be loaded with music is by using iTunes which is only supported on Mac or Windows.
You have a few of options on how to move forward:
1: Make a Windows virtual machine, install iTunes onto it and pass the iPod though to the VM.
2: Install Rockbox (if able) onto the device to enable it to act as a USB mass storage device allowing drag n drop loading of music.
3: Sell the iPod and get one of the many different digital audio players available on the market as most are OS agnostic (they show up as a USB mass storage device) and most use MicroSD cards to store the music meaning you can move the card to a new player as you upgrade later (so you are not locked to one vendor).
Wanted to say that I’ve used Rockbox on an old ipod classic with much success. Would recommend. You can even install user created apple-ipod-like themes to get closer to the original look N feel
I have Nano 7 as well and I tried many things over the years. However there isn’t a good solution to this. I have a Windows 7 VM just for my iPod and installed an old iTunes just to put music on it. You can use Gnome Boxes for this job.
Click on + to select the ISO from file. It will start the installation process. Install Windows 7 with its steps. 20 GB space and 4 GB RAM would suffice for virtual machine.
Once you installed it, start the VM and plug in your iPod. For VM to see it, on right top there is a … menu, go preferences from there. Switch to Devices & Shares tab. It should see your iPod now, just enable it. Also set a shared directory from below so you can put your music files there before uploading them to your iPod. This is the iTunes version I use: www.filehorse.com/download-itunes-64/35820/
Even if you cannot connect to internet (normally that shouldn’t be a problem since VM use the internet through host machine), you can still download the said iTunes outside of the VM and install it via shared folder. In the end you don’t need internet to put iPod some music.
This thread makes me so happy. Following along watching good people on the internet help each other solve problems with each other for no other reason than to be kind. Thanks for being a kind person.
Other than the way you installed the packages there’s nothing intrinsically arch on that wiki. I recommend you read the page and see if it helps before assuming it doesn’t because you’re using a different distro, arch wiki is great even if you don’t use arch.
Ah, sorry, your reply was 8 min after I sent the link which seemed awfully short to test the different approaches listed there, I assumed you hadn’t read it and just discarded for being a different distro. Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.
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