Tux Training

Itunes may be for Windows and Mac’s only but don’t let that stop you from using your ipod with linux. There are many options (more than listed here) that aid you in updating your ipod from your linux desktop computer. There are drawbacks of course. Occasionally a new model ipod will come out and these applications may not support your model immediately due to the fact that their ipod support is all reverse engineered. But they are quality applications for ipod management.  So here’s a few options to manage your ipod, my personal favorite is gtkPod, but pick what’s best for you.

Amarok

Where to get it: Most KDE distributions come with Amarok pre-installed. If you are not using KDE it is probably in your distribution’s repo’s. The site’s homepage is here http://amarok.kde.org/

About: Amarok includes the following features: Album cover detection and downloads, lyrics support, wikipedia integration, contextual information (a quick view on your currently played music, and suggest similar track which you might like), statistics, Last.fm integration, multiple media devices support (Apple iPod, iRiver iFP and T players, Creative Zen and Nomad players, Generic USB players, Generic MTP players).

Banshee

Where to get it: Banshee is more than likely in your distribution’s repo’s. The site’s homepage is here http://banshee-project.org/Main_Page

About: Banshee includes the following features: Rips music, burn CDs, share your music, displays cover art, tons of plugins, controllable via keyboard shortcuts, smart playlists and the ability to rate your music.

Floola
Where to get it: This is probably not in your distribution’s repo’s but you can obtain it from here http://www.floola.com/modules/wiwimod/

About: Floola includes the following features: Cross platform (works on any Windows (98 and above), any Mac and any linux distribution with GTK installed), Portable (put the application on iPod and launch it on any PC), add and extract songs to and from your iPod, integrated with Last.fm, add artwork to your songs easily, lyric support even on older iPods (3G and above), Videos can be added to iPod, Growl support (Mac only),

gtkpod
Where to get it: gtkpod is more than likely in your distribution’s repo’s. The site’s homepage is herehttp://www.gtkpod.org/about.html

About: gtkpod is a platform independent Graphical User Interface for Apple’s iPod using GTK2. It supports the first to fifth Generation including the iPod mini, iPod Photo, iPod Shuffle, iPod nano, and iPod Video. gtkpod includes the following features: Read your existing iTunesDB, add MP3, WAV, M4A (non-protected AAC), M4B (audio book), podcasts, and various video files, view, add and modify cover art, sync directories, detect duplicates when adding songs, and much more.

Rhythmbox
Where to get it: Rhythmbox is more than likely in your distribution’s repo’s. The site’s homepage is here http://www.gnome.org/projects/rhythmbox/

About: Rhythmbox is an integrated music management application, originally inspired by Apple’s iTunes. It is free software, designed to work well under the GNOME Desktop, and based on the powerful GStreamer media framework. Rhythmbox includes the following features: an easy to use music browser, searching and sorting, comprehensive audio format support through GStreamer, Internet Radio support and Playlists.

Songbird
Where to get it: This is most likely not in your repo’s, but you can obtain the tarball from here: http://www.songbirdnest.com/

About: Songbird is a desktop Web player, a digital jukebox and Web browser mash-up. Like Winamp, it supports extensions and feathers. Like Firefox, it is built from Mozilla, cross-platform and open source. Songbird includes the following features: Plays MP3/AAC/OGG/FLAC/WMA and more, Multi-Language Support, Integrated Web Search, Smart Mixes, Play In Place (Songbird plays MP3s without leaving the page) and Add-ons (plugins).

YamiPod

Where to get it: Like Floola, this is probably not in the repo’s for any major distribution as well, but you can get this portable application here: http://www.yamipod.com/main/modules/home/

About: YamiPod is a freeware portable application to efficiently manage your iPod under Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. It can be run directly from your iPod and needs no installation. YamiPod includes the following features: it’s stand alone program - no installation is required, your iPod is automatically recognized, mp3 and AAC files can be copied to/from iPod, playlist support, auto-download new versions, built in music player, News RSS and podcasts to iPod upload, multiple iPods support
and Last.fm support.

Of course, if you really want to put your ipod to good use, you could always just install linux on it

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