Member Avatar for lewashby

For a while now I've been wishing I could replace iTunes with something on Linux and reduce my need for Windows. It would be nice if Apple would just release iTunes for Linux but I'M pretty sure that's not going to happen. The thing is, nothing handles an iPod as good as iTunes. I can't even play my audio books(.aax) from audible.com on a Linux machine at all. Last time I had Banchee as my Linux media player and had it running my iPod, a lot of really bad things happened. For starters, it started re-naming all of my songs to 4 random capital letters, something like this, TAGK, or XAZU, and also deleting songs from my computer completely. I didn't notice it removing songs because it wasn't removing them from my iPod. So when I transferred my music back to my Windows iTunes, my iPod was wiped out and re-loaded without all the songs that Banchee had been removing behind my back. Those songs weren't anywhere, not in my music folder and not in the recycle bin. Anyway, wouldn't it be easier if media players attempting to work with an iPod would just remove everything from an iPod and load one with it's own music software? I would think that that would be a lot less buggy than the media player(s) trying to work with the Apple software already loaded onto the iPod. Any thoughts or suggestions?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by petzoldt01

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Short, practical primer grounded in what happened in this thread: older iPods store music inside a hidden iPod_Control/Music tree and iTunes gives each file a cryptic four-letter filename while the readable titles live in the device database (iTunesDB). That renaming is normal; it’s the database that tells the player which file is which, so if a non‑Apple tool writes the database incorrectly the visible titles (or the library) can appear broken or missing. Macworld — copy music off an iPod. (macworld.com)

Why things went wrong with Banshee: Linux support relies on two pieces — a library that understands and writes the iPod/iTunesDB format (libgpod) and, for iOS/iPod Touch devices, a protocol stack (libimobiledevice). If those libraries (or their distro packages) are out of sync with the pod’s model/DB version, writes can corrupt the DB or produce unexpected renames/deletions. Installing/updating the libgpod/libimobiledevice stack is the usual fix. See the libgpod and libimobiledevice projects for details. (github.com)

Safe, repeatable workflow (avoids losing music): always back up the iPod first by copying the hidden iPod_Control/Music tree to local storage; keep an independent copy of the main library. If the goal is to keep using iTunes on Windows (recommended for risk‑free sync), enable “manually manage” before testing Linux tools. If the goal is Linux-only management, either accept wiping the device and letting one Linux player own it, or use specialist tools (gtkpod/libgpod-backed apps) that are intended to edit iTunesDB. For older hardware, Rockbox (suggested by ) is an option but it only applies to certain legacy iPods and requires following the Rockbox docs and installing carefully. (Mentions: on Clementine; on Banshee/Amarok — both can work but depend on libgpod support.)

About Audible (.aax): those files are DRM‑protected; they won’t play in a generic Linux player unless converted or played in an authorized Audible client. Tools like OpenAudible can manage and convert AAX to M4B/MP3 (using the user’s Audible credentials), which is the practical route on Linux if official clients aren’t available. OpenAudible documentation and background on AAX/DRM. (openaudible.org)

Bottom line: the safest next step is a full backup of the iPod contents, then either restore the missing files from that backup or reformat and let one tested tool (gtkpod/libgpod-backed player or iTunes in a VM) be the single authoritative manager going forward. (macworld.com)

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Member Avatar for zeroliken

First make sure you've installed the restricted extras package that supports popular audio and video formats such as flash and mp3, this can be found on the software center

now if you already have this, the media player I'd suggest you try is clementime, they have supposrt for external device storage such as mobile phones though I'm not sure about iPods, apologies if it doesn't work after all iTunes was born for this:)

Member Avatar for kevinbenko

Might I suggest that you take at Rockbox?
I have been using for 2 years, now.

Member Avatar for petzoldt01

Banshee and Amarok to name some others.

There are many great media players similar to iTunes, but plug-and-play ipod support is not always so great.

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