Hacking the iPod for Linux
I've faced a difficult task of late -- finding a replacement for my much-loved fourth-generation iPod, which is on its last legs after three years of solid use. Most people would just go buy a new iPod, but Apple doesn't seem to want my money, and I've decided that I'm happy to oblige them.
Traditionally, iPod support under Linux has been great, thanks to the hackers that reverse engineered the iPod's database and developed tools like gtkpod to work with it. This means if you use a Linux PC, you can plug in an iPod and transfer your music. On the other side, you could also run Linux on the iPod in order to play other formats like Ogg and FLAC.
However, with the new Classic and Nano models, Apple added a checksum to the database that locked out existing Linux tools. Even worse, the iPod Touch is totally unusable with a Linux PC without installing a jailbreak on the device.
gtkpod now supports these models, with various levels of fiddling, but it's clear that Apple doesn't want its iPod owners running anything but iTunes, and we shouldn't expect current or future models to keep working with non-Apple tools.
Thankfully, alternative players from vendors like Creative, iriver, Sandisk, Cowon, Samsung, and Sony all work with Linux, because they adhere to standards, rather than using proprietary databases. These players work as standard USB disks that you can copy files to directly, or they support the Microsoft-developed Media Transfer Protocol (MTP), which is set to become an official USB standard. Some of them even support open file formats like FLAC and Ogg Vorbis. With so many options, I'm having trouble finding the perfect player, but when I do, I'm sure it'll suit me much better than my iPod did.
The only real gap in the market is in large-capacity players, which the iPod Classic has sewn up. The Zune 80 could be an option when it launches here, but in an odd twist, Microsoft has pulled an "embrace-and-extend" on its own protocol with the Zune, adding undocumented extensions that make it incompatible with standard MTP tools.
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