Learn how to make your iPod work with your penguin.
Saturday, February 12th, 2005
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Q. I am using Fedora Core 2 and can’t connect to my new iPod. Can you help?
A. While Linux isn’t officially supported by Apple, the iPod works well with Linux nonetheless, albeit with a minor caveat.
If you’re running a pre- 2.6 kernel, using the iPod can be as easy as plugging it in, mounting it, and downloading an application such as gtkpod( http://gtkpod.sourceforge.net/) to upload songs and playlists, and edit ID3 tags, among other tasks. In fact, if you really like Apple’s iTunes, you can also try the latest beta release of CodeWeavers’ CrossOver Office( http://www.codeweavers.com), which may allow you to run the Microsoft Windows version of iTunes on Linux.
However — and this is the caveat — if you run Fedora Core 2 or another 2.6.x- based Linux distribution, you’ll notice that your system recognizes the iPod when you plug it in, but otherwise fails to mount the device. Specifically, you should notice something similar to the following in /var/log/messages when you plug the iPod in:
sda:end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 39063016 Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 4882877 end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 39063016 Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 4882877
So what’s the problem? To Linux, the iPod looks like a removable disk drive. Regardless of whether you use USB or Firewire to connect the iPod to your computer, Linux uses SCSI emulation to…
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