I’m not proud of what I’ve done. Not proud at all…
I bought an iPod *sob*
Forgive me! I was tempted by value for money! No seriously it was! 80Gb Black iPod Classic for £160 from OverclockersUK.
The only snag is that it’s 6th Generation and 6G is where Apple altered the iPod’s to only work with iTunes. But fear not! The latest update to libgpod (0.6.0) allows the iPod and Amarok to share some mp3 looooove.
Only problem is: you have to *gulp* compile libgpod!
And with the release of Hardy, there’s no need to compile libgpod! Yaaayyy!
Using a few threads from Ubuntu Forums I was able to get my iPod working fantastic with Amarok. Here’s how I did it:
Previously, you had to download, compile and install libgpod. Not now. The Hardy repositories now have the latest libgpod ready to install.
Just one small snag: the version installed with Hardy does not support album covers, so make sure you install the other version of libgpod from the repo’s. See my post about it here:
http://ronnietucker.co.uk/blog/2008/05/05/when-ipod-art-goes-awry/
That’s basically it!
When you first plug the iPod in, you’ll get no response from Amarok, you need to mount your iPod, this is easily done by opening a window to view the contents of the iPod, don’t alter anything!. Amarok should now recognise it and automatically connect to the iPod, if not, check the Devices tab there’s an iPod button, click that and from the menu I’d choose my Black 80Gb iPod Classic. From my Collection tab (in Amarok) I select a few albums to transfer. Click back to devices and transfer them to the iPod.
Still in the Devices tab I select to disconnect the iPod and I get an error message which says it’s not disconnected but it’s ok, it has been safely ejected. Now unplug the iPod.
*drumroll*
YESSSsss!!!
All good! Got my songs playing, flipping through my album artwork all good.
Still don’t like Apple though… giving me all that hard work to do, hmf!
Enjoy!
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January 25th, 2008 at 12:36 am
What are you on?
Where can I get some?
Fancy a drink?
I’ll try this tomorrow when I sober up. If it works, I definately owe you a drink or two.
Cheers!
January 25th, 2008 at 12:58 am
Just don’t do what I did the other day: accidentally delete the compiled libgpod directory…
Had to recompile it again then re-sync the iPod.
January 25th, 2008 at 2:22 am
hi mate i have a cect 599 can you tell me how you change the purple floral theme to something a bit more manly as its beggining to bug me now man thanks sam
January 25th, 2008 at 3:18 am
Hi Sam,
In short: no idea
I think it’s manly looking hardware but with a bit of a girly theme. I don’t think there are any other themes pre-installed but I’ll have a root about on the Interwebs over the weekend to see if I can find any CECT 599 themes.
I’ll keep you informed…
January 29th, 2008 at 2:14 am
thanks mate, still trying it but FYI checkinstaller should be checkinstall on apt-get list
January 29th, 2008 at 2:54 am
Thanks for the correction Ed.
I’ve added an update to the end of this article regarding a potential bug in Amarok 1.4.8.
June 6th, 2008 at 6:08 am
Thanks a lot Ronnie.
your blog did helped me a lot setting my ipod.
June 9th, 2008 at 2:29 am
I should add that you don’t have to compile the libgpod in Hardy Heron, you just need to make sure you have the right version of libgpod installed. See one of the issues of Full Circle magazine for my article on it: http://www.fullcirclemagazine.org
July 16th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
I like the sound of this a lot, as my iPod classic not only disagrees with my Ubuntu right now, but won’t even sync with iTunes in my windows partition.
Will Amarok on the iPod get along with Rhythmbox in Ubuntu? I really like Rhythmbox, and was not a fan of Amarok when I tried it before.
Your update at the bottom scares me. Will I really need to have to do that every time?
Your comment makes me hopeful, as I have Hardy. But I cannot find your article on this in FCM (which I just subscribed to).
July 16th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
I’ve just updated this article to bring it bang up to date with Hardy.
July 19th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
artwork doesnt load in amarok which kind sucks. ive tried songbird too and that doesnt work either!
i wish itunes would just work on linux!!!!!
July 19th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
I’m quite happy without iTunes!
To get artwork in Amarok you right click on the album name and choose ‘Fetch cover from Amazon’. If you have a jpg of the cover then you can go to Tools > Cover Manager and choose ‘Set Custom Cover’
Amarok + iPod = non-iTunes goodness.
All hail Amarok!