[clug] iPod shuffle issues

[Michael Carden]

The story so far. Apologies to those who have seen this before.

I got an iPod Shuffle. Actually, I got nine of them, but let's leave that 
aside for now.

I wish to use the shuffle with a number of different Linux boxes.

My principle use is to play podcasts that a cron job grabs for me every night 
using bashpodder. 

http://linc.homeunix.org:8080/scripts/bashpodder/
http://abc.net.au/rn/podcast/

iPods have to be initially formatted with a mac for hfs or a winbox for vfat. 
I use a winbox and do it with vfat.

Early on, I found that my iPod had troubles on a Linux machine. On my 2.4.27 
kernel AMDK6 box, it mounts okay, but when you try to copy stuff to it, after 
a random amount of time (usually part way through the copy) it spits the 
dummy. The copy fails with a message about a read-only file system. A look 
at /var/log/messages shows that the iPod has experienced a 'file system 
panic' and has unmounted and remounted as read only.

I tried it on my 2.6 kernelled G3 Powerbook and the same thing happens.

I handed it to Mikal Still and his 2.6 kernelled IBM Thinkpad copied one 
metric buttload of data to it with no trouble at all. Maybe the 'laying on of 
hands' was in effect?

I have since tried it on Ubuntu, Kubuntu (both hoary), Suse 9, RHES3 and 4 and  
Mandrake 10 on mostly Intel hardware from PIII 700s through 2.4 G Xeons to P4 
HT 3.0... the same thing happens. *If* I can mount it (I usually have to read 
the log to find out what the kernel saw then manually mount it), it doesn't 
stay mounted long if I write to it.

Hmmm. A hardware fault, surely. Well I did say that I had nine of them... A 
second one behaves in the same way, so that appears unlikely.

Another data point is that Win2k and XP machines have no trouble with the 
iPod. Also if I connect it to anything via the hub on a Belkin USB kvm 
switch, no host machine can see it, but a generic 128meg USB key on the same 
port is detected by any machine.

Can a clever USB person (Brad?) point me in the right direction?

Oddly, some extended Googling on groups and web hasn't found anyone else 
experiencing the problem and I'm surprised that no one else has been here 
before...

The shuffle is a coolish toy, even if some memory card based players are more 
flexible. I'd like to use my iPod(s) with Linux and right now I'm running 
into a wall.

MC