[clug] using an ipod under linux...

[Robert Edwards]

Nemo wrote:
>> Nemo <clug at nemo.house.cx> wrote:
>>> * gnupod is commandline and I'm wanting to avoid that at the moment... 
>> Soft!
>>
>> (Sorry)
> 
> LOL. I've been managing my music collection on commandline for too long,
> but I'm also wanting smart playlists, etc. No point doing it half-arsed :)
> 
> 
>>> * The mp3's are renamed to obfuscated names on the ipod
>> Welcome to the world of iPods. They seem to treat the filesystem names
>> as a database index. Maybe Apple caught the Microsoft disease and aren't
>> capable of separating a file or it's contents from it's name.
> 
> It vaguelly annoys me cos the only technical reason I can see for renaming
> the files is to ensure filename compatability to the fs on the iPod (which
> on the shuffle is fat32 only)
> 

I think the main reason that iPod (and many other personal music
players) "obfuscate" the filename is to ensure that there are no
name clashes in the flat namespace (ie. single directory) that they
use.

When I started "ripping" my CD collection to MP3 on Linux about 10 years
ago (before Ogg/Vorbis and before support for ID3 etc.) I adopted a
hierarchical file arrangement of Genre/Artist/Album/track, so I end up
with several files with the same name (artists naming their songs the
same).

So the "database-centric" file naming on the iPod sort of makes sense to
me and works OK. But it is a little annoying to have to rebuild the
database each time tracks are added or deleted.

btw. I use gtkpod and find it is just the ticket for what I want to do
with my iPod Video (even supports the video files now).

If you have a disk based iPod, you can run ROCKBox (rockbox.org) and get
all the good stuff, like hierarchical file structure, Ogg/Vorbis etc.

Cheers,

Bob Edwards.

>> I'd go with "Don't get an iPod", but I guess that advice is too late for
>> someone who already has one.
> 
> But at least it was free :)
> 
> .../Nemo
>