I got my iPod Classic to work with Amarok

Posted on December 26, 2007 by probabilityZero

It was a bit harder than I expected it to be (the new iPods are apparently encrypted somehow to prevent anything but iTunes from syncing with it), but now it’s working perfectly. It even downloaded all of my cover art.

Basically, all I had to do was compile a new version of libgpod and run a few commands. The one in the Ubuntu repositories that was automatically installed by apt-get is outdated, so I had to download the source here and compile it.
Here are the commands I used:

sudo apt-get install build-essential libglib2.0-dev libgtk2.0-dev libsgutils1-dev checkinstall
tar -zxvf libgpod-0.6.0.tar.gz
cd libgpod-0.6.0
./configure
make
sudo checkinstall

I entered some random description and set the name to “libgpod2.” Only a few more steps after that:

sudo ln -s /usr/local/lib/libgpod.so.3 /usr/lib/libgpod.so.2
sudo ln -s /usr/local/lib/libgpod.so.3 /usr/lib/libgpod.so.3
ipod-read-sysinfo-extended /dev/[ipod device address] /media/[your ipod device name]

After that I reinstalled amarok, though I’m not sure if it was necessary. Amarok now has more options for iPod models to choose from, and I just picked iPod Classic and it connected perfectly. Yay!

Thanks to the guys at the Ubuntu Forums.

About probabilityZero

I'm a rather boring, geeky college student. Most of my time is spent at a computer, reading a book, or sitting in (mostly uninteresting) classes. My hobbies include reading, blogging, creating and running websites, creating amateur video games, arguing incessantly on discussion forums, and buying books on amazon.com because I'm too lazy to go to the library.
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5 Responses to I got my iPod Classic to work with Amarok

  1. Anonymous says:
    January 3, 2008 at 9:34 pm

    i tried to copy songs over with amarok and now my ipod classic reports no songs… I tried following your guide but i dont know what my “ipod-read-sysinfo-extended /dev/[ipod device address] /media/[your ipod device name]” should be…

  2. probabilityZero says:
    January 3, 2008 at 9:38 pm

    You can use the “df” command to find your ipod’s device address and name. And don’t worry about it reporting no songs. That happened to me too. The above commands will fix it.

  3. DragonJoker says:
    January 23, 2008 at 6:18 am

    hi, I’ve done all you said and it worked…great! I thought but I’ve been no longer happy cause when I download on my ipod classic black 80gb many songs amarok send out an error: transfer of X failed and says it to all the songs with a lot of messages…
    please help…thanks bye

  4. DragonJoker says:
    January 23, 2008 at 6:20 am

    and when I disconnect ipod from amarok “writing media database failed”
    but when i do it from the desktop ipod resets strangely…

  5. probabilityZero says:
    January 23, 2008 at 4:31 pm

    Are you ejecting the iPod before disconnecting it?

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