Jarrod Trainque

8Aug

Installing Linux on an ipod

Posted 3 years, 3 months ago - One comment

This past weekend I came across an article in the most recent issue of Make Magazine that talked about the possibility of installing Linux on an ipod .

I read through some of the documentation on the ipodlinux website, and using the ipodlinux installer I was able to successfully boot my ipod into Linux.

Unfortunately, there’s one problem: my ipod doesn’t recognize the iTunes database. I’ve searched the forums pretty extensively, and can’t find anything that’ll get it to work. Apparently a lot of folks are running into this problem.

I’m using:

  • Mac OSX (Tiger)
  • 3rd generation ipod
  • Itunes 4.9
  • installing IpodLinux via IPod-Linux Installer.app , which grabs the latest version of the Linux build

My symptoms are:

  • installation is successful
  • everything (except music) works on IPL. I can play games, view Extras, etc. all as expected.
  • browsing to Music brings up Playlists/Artists/Albums/Songs. Selecting any of these causes the ipod to freeze with only the word Music (and the battery icon) on the screen.
  • By going to File Browser --> Ipod_Control --> Music --> F00 -->JDFH.mp3 I can play music, but the tracks are not identified or tagged. They look like JDHF.mp3.

I’ve heard some people suggest that its a ITunesDB configuration problem, perhaps specific to 4.9, but I have been unable to find any solutions. I’ve tried rebuilding my iTunes library, to no success.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

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1 Comment

  1. Comment by Jarrod — August 17, 2005 @ 9:22 pm

    Update: I figured it out. Turns out iPodlinux Linux doesn’t play well with podcasts.

    If your ipodlinux freezes from the music menu, take the following steps to resolve:

    1. change your itunes preferences so that it does not update your ipod with podcasts automatically.
    2. remove all podcasts (and podcast-related playlists) from your ipod via itunes
    3. reboot your ipod in Linux mode, and try to play music. It may take a moment for your artists/albums/songs to display at first, but it should work.

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