iTunes or similar in Linux

dulpit

Hey all, I'm quite attracted to using Linux, I've played with it on quite a number of occasions, sometimes with Ubuntu, sometimes Mint, sometimes openSuse, I use Kubuntu at work.

I don't really mind using KDE or GNOME (still haven't decided which I prefer) but the one thing that is keeping me from switching to Linux full time is my ipod. I use itunes in windows to download my podcasts (a mixture of video & audio, quite a few daily ones) and sync them to my ipod. I've tried using Rhythmbox on Ubuntu, it works to an extent with downloading podcasts (although it can take ages upon ages before a new episode becomes available there) but it won't sync properly with my ipod. (to clarify I have an ipod touch).

I know about WINE, but itunes doesn't play nice with it. Is there another way around this problem? Seen as how popular ipods/iphones are, I'm sure this is a fairly common problem. I don't have any ties to a particular distro right now, so if there's one particular one that helps best I have no problem switching to that...

dulpit

I have not. I had thought it was Windows only, but a bit of googling has told me otherwise...

I'll try it later, unless there are other suggestions?

Mycroft H

As far as i know songbird stopped their linux version quite a while ago.


There is a fork called nightengale which is continuing it i think.

Personally i still use windows for the ipod support.

cian1500ww

I use Banshee media player but I don't know if it supports syncing to ipods, it can import your itunes music though.

BopNiblets

Have you tried gtkpod or YamiPod? Might suit ya, although I don't know if they have the features you need.

http://www.gtkpod.org
http://www.yamipod.com

pickarooney

Guayadeque added iPod support in the SVN version recently:

http://guayadeque.wikidot.com/forum/t-280426/a-few-questions-re:features

There are daily builds with improvements to it but as I don't have an iPod I can't say if the features you need are yet in place.

aquascrotum

I persisted with Banshee for quite a while. Worked well mostly - has the benefits of having an itunes-like system for managing and organising the music file directory, Podcasts worked well, and it can sync music/podcasts/videos - but had a lot of glitches in terms of assigning the wrong album artwork etc on the ipod, and it won't allow 2-way syncing of song ratings.

After a while I did a complete wipe of the ipod to try and sort out the album artwork - but then hit a brick wall with it uploading any artwork, and generally uploading any songs at all. So I chucked it and went back to iTunes on a dual boot Windows system. Am keeping track of the Banshee changelogs though - as a piece of kit it had a lot of potential.

I was going to try gauyadeque some time for the craic - it seems to be one of the main applications making a big push development-wise. One of the main problems I find with linux though is that various packages go through fads of making huge strides forward, then get dropped and pretty much left to rot with only minor tweaks. Which is a pain in the ass when each time you change media library package it takes time to backup/reorganise a 10,000+file media library, lose song ratings, have to manually reassign artwork etc etc.

Mathiasb

AFAIK Ubuntu 10.04 and later support itunes syncing out of the box?

Kind of: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PortableDevices/iPod

Just use Wine instead of crossover.

lillil

Depending on your needs you might find FeedFlipper http://picklemonkey.net/flipper/ handy.

Feed Flipper is a free alternative to iTunes which converts an audio iTunes podcast into an RSS XML feed.
The resulting URL (the Feed Flipper URL + your iTunes podcast URL) is then available to be subscribed to
directly into your RSS feed reader of choice for ongoing podcast delivery.

aquascrotum

Mathiasb wrote: »

AFAIK Ubuntu 10.04 and later support itunes syncing out of the box?

Kind of: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PortableDevices/iPod

Just use Wine instead of crossover.

Dunno about anyone else but I've never once been able to get iTunes to work on Wine. Despite many attempts and many versions of iTunes.

Dorsanty

aquascrotum wrote: »

Dunno about anyone else but I've never once been able to get iTunes to work on Wine. Despite many attempts and many versions of iTunes.

Same here, tried with current Wine version and itunes 8, 9, 10. None worked.
If anyone has got wine and itunes to play together I'd be interested to know how.

jackrussell007

maybe this isnt quite what you are after but; I have an old ipod mini that i use with ubuntu. I put rockbox on the ipod mini and it works great.

for me, the one thing i hated about ipods was itunes...i was delighted to move on from it. rockbox opens it up for use like a external drive. drag and drop baby.

http://www.rockbox.org/

Khannie

I use gtkpod for syncing with my iphone. Works a treat. I'll be buying android next time.

evercloserunion

I've never used iTunes so frankkly I don't know what kind of functionality you're looking for, but when I had an iPod shuffle Amarok and gtkpod worked perfectly for me. Again, I don't know what precise functionality you're after, but there are several solutions out there that are very good at transfering data to the iPod, and anything more complicated than that could probably be hadled using fairly simple scripts (as a last resort, though I imagine there are more convenient solutions anyway).

Oracle

Says iPod Touch works out of the box on Ubuntu 10.04 here. Maybe upgrade?: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PortableDevices/iPhone