My experience connecting iPod Nano (3rd generation) to Linux
This past Monday, I had the fortune of winning a new silver, 4GB, 3rd generation iPod nano in a raffle at my school. Up to that point, I had never owned one, for a handful of reasons. When I took it home, I had to jump over a few hurdles to get it working with my Linux system, and I'm sharing what I learned in case it can save someone else a little time.
(Note that some of these procedures assume knowledge of the Linux command line. If you don't know it, you should track down your local Linux guru and ask for an introduction. It doesn't bite, and it can make you more productive!)
*Basic connectivity*: The iPod shows up as a USB storage device. You can just plug it in and it will show up like a disk drive, if your distribution automatically mounts disks when you plug them in.
*Adding music*: There are many applications that support iPods under Linux, but very few of them support the iPod Nano 3G, because of changes to the database format. The one that I found was GtkPod, which you can download at www.gtkpod.org. You'll need version 0.6.0, which is the latest version, to get support for this iPod model. GtkPod is not a full-blown music manager like iTunes, Amarok, or Banshee, but has enough functionality to get music on to your iPod.
GtkPod will automatically convert most audio formats to 128k MP3, which the iPod will happily play.
*Adding photos*: GtkPod handles photos as well -- just click on the Photos item underneath your iPod's entry on the left side of the screen. You can create albums and add images to them.
*Adding video*: This was a struggle. GtkPod doesn't convert video to the formats supported by the iPod (it doesn't convert video at all, in fact), so you need to use another tool. My favorite is a command-line tool called FFmpeg. After a long while searching the Internet, I finally found some settings for FFmpeg that will properly encode video for the iPod in H.264, which is the best codec supported by the iPod, and allows you to use smaller video files for the same quality level. I found the settings at Robert Swain's site at http://rob.opendot.cl/index.php/useful-stuff/ipod-video-guide/. There's one extra option that you need to add, which is "-r 30", to set the frame rate of the video. If you don't, it will encode the video at something like 0.13 FPS, which is about one frame every 7 seconds.
*Upgrading firmware*: Unfortunately, I haven't figured out a way to upgrade the iPod's firmware using Linux. I simply borrowed a friend's laptop that had iTunes, and used it to upgrade the firmware. I did attempt to install iTunes using WINE, which did not work, but I didn't expect it to work, as WINE can be fragile and iTunes is a fairly complex program.
I hope this can help some other Linux users get their iPods working. If you've got any questions, feel free to reply to this message.
(Note that some of these procedures assume knowledge of the Linux command line. If you don't know it, you should track down your local Linux guru and ask for an introduction. It doesn't bite, and it can make you more productive!)
*Basic connectivity*: The iPod shows up as a USB storage device. You can just plug it in and it will show up like a disk drive, if your distribution automatically mounts disks when you plug them in.
*Adding music*: There are many applications that support iPods under Linux, but very few of them support the iPod Nano 3G, because of changes to the database format. The one that I found was GtkPod, which you can download at www.gtkpod.org. You'll need version 0.6.0, which is the latest version, to get support for this iPod model. GtkPod is not a full-blown music manager like iTunes, Amarok, or Banshee, but has enough functionality to get music on to your iPod.
GtkPod will automatically convert most audio formats to 128k MP3, which the iPod will happily play.
*Adding photos*: GtkPod handles photos as well -- just click on the Photos item underneath your iPod's entry on the left side of the screen. You can create albums and add images to them.
*Adding video*: This was a struggle. GtkPod doesn't convert video to the formats supported by the iPod (it doesn't convert video at all, in fact), so you need to use another tool. My favorite is a command-line tool called FFmpeg. After a long while searching the Internet, I finally found some settings for FFmpeg that will properly encode video for the iPod in H.264, which is the best codec supported by the iPod, and allows you to use smaller video files for the same quality level. I found the settings at Robert Swain's site at http://rob.opendot.cl/index.php/useful-stuff/ipod-video-guide/. There's one extra option that you need to add, which is "-r 30", to set the frame rate of the video. If you don't, it will encode the video at something like 0.13 FPS, which is about one frame every 7 seconds.
*Upgrading firmware*: Unfortunately, I haven't figured out a way to upgrade the iPod's firmware using Linux. I simply borrowed a friend's laptop that had iTunes, and used it to upgrade the firmware. I did attempt to install iTunes using WINE, which did not work, but I didn't expect it to work, as WINE can be fragile and iTunes is a fairly complex program.
I hope this can help some other Linux users get their iPods working. If you've got any questions, feel free to reply to this message.