iPod Cheat Sheet

Using Apple iPod with Linux.

First, see:

http://www.freedos.org/jhall/ipod/ http://pag.csail.mit.edu/~adonovan/hacks/ipod.html

Getting iPod to mount properly, and with the right permissions

Install the following in /usr/share/hal/fd/95userpolicy:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <!-- -*- SGML -*- -->
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
  <device>
    <match key="storage.vendor" string="Apple">
      <match key="storage.model" string="iPod">
        <merge key="storage.requires_eject" type="bool">true</merge>
        <merge key="storage.removable" type="bool">false</merge>
        <merge key="storage.media_check_enabled" type="bool">false</merge>
      </match>
    </match>
    <match key="@block.storage_device:storage.vendor" string="Apple">
      <match key="@block.storage_device:storage.model" string="iPod">
        <match key="block.is_volume" bool="true">
          <match key="volume.fsusage" string="filesystem">
            <match key="volume.partition.number" int="1">
              <merge key="volume.policy.should_mount" type="bool">false</merge>
            </match>
            <match key="volume.partition.number" int="2">
              <merge key="volume.policy.desired_mount_point" type="string">iPod</merge>
              <merge key="volume.policy.mount_option.sync" type="bool">true</merge>
              <merge key="volume.policy.mount_option.uid=bmc" type="bool">true</merge>
            </match>
          </match>
	</match>
      </match>
    </match>
  </device>
</deviceinfo>

See http://www.kgarner.com/blog/archives/2005/01/11/fc3-hal-ipod/

Accessing iPod

Use gtkpod.

Disconnecting recalcitrant iPod

If iPod doesn’t want to disconnect properly, use this quick hack solution:

Disable automount option in gtkpod, and create two scripts:

mount-ipod:

mount /media/iPod

umount-ipod:

sudo umount /media/iPod
exec sudo eject -s /dev/sda2

Then modify gtkpod front end so it looks like this:

mount-ipod
env LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/local/lib /usr/local/bin/gtkpod
umount-ipod