[SGVLUG] Ipod on Linux

[Emerson, Tom (*IC)]

Since my laptop was marginal, I didn't talk too much about the client
side of podcasting at the last meeting, but if I had (and perhaps will
next month now that I have a new laptop) I would have mentioned Amarok
and yamipod.  Amarok gives you the closest thing to the "iTunes
experience" as anything else -- it catalogs all your existing music,
manages playlists, actually /plays/ music, and manages portable devices.
(don't recall offhand if it rips 'n burns, but there are plenty of other
apps out there if that's what you're into...)

As for dislikes, it seems nobody "plays well together" in the iPod
sandbox -- (or perhaps, it's just Apple that doesn't play well with
anyone else, but they are the biggest player in that box)  using your
ipod with anyone else's manager will likely purge all your existing
music (or at least your playlists) and the next time you plug it in to
iTunes, everything you loaded via whatever-else gets nuked and replaced
by what that instance of itunes thinks should be on there (and rather
than physically delete, all these files end up in the "lost" music
folder, which the ipod itself doesn't have direct access to.  If you
have 10gb of "music", switching it three times between programs will
"fill up" a 30gb ipod...)

Amarok, however, is a little nicer in this regard -- it won't wipe out
your music, but it will clobber your playlists.  It WILL, however, let
you drag-n-drop music FROM your ipod to your PC, however you end up with
the INTERNAL filename as it's known on your ipod, which is not anything
remotely related to the name of the song, artist, or ablum...  (I think
it is 4 chars, in fact -- it is like "tinyurl" for your music
collection...)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: sgvlug-bounces at sgvlug.net 
> [mailto:sgvlug-bounces at sgvlug.net] On Behalf Of Matt Wette
> Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 5:41 AM
> To: SGVLUG Discussion List.
> Subject: Re: [SGVLUG] Ipod on Linux
> 
> 
> There is also gtkpod: http://www.gtkpod.org/
> 
> Alex Roston wrote:
> > My daughter just got an IPOD, and I'd really prefer not to set up a
> > Windows machine just so she can use it. What's available to 
> link Linux 
> > to an Ipod, and how does everyone like what they're using.?
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > 
> > Alex
> > 
>