iTunes replacement?

English Applications
1

I have an iTunes folder on my iBook with my whole CD library burned in m4a format. I’d like to transfer it to my Linux desktop, transform all the m4a into mp3s, keep the information related to each file (album, artist, etc…), and be able to synchronize my iPod as I used to do with my Mac.

I wonder if there’s a recommended procedure or tool for that. I did some searches and it looks like Amarok should work for playing the music and synchronizing with my iPod. Thanks for any pointers on how to do that data migration in the most efficient way! I just want to make sure I do it the ‘right’ way :).

2

In openSUSE 11.2 amarok will not sync your ipod, unless you do a workaround and get some old kde3 stuff to replace the new amarok with the old one.

Converting your files will depend if they are subject to vendor lockin.
In Linux I think ffmpeg will convert them, I have never had a m4a file.

Let me go and find one online and I’ll see, because you might find ffmpeg a bit intimidating. Obviously you need ffmpeg installed.

ffmpeg -i filename.m4a filename.mp3
3

Some fresh news :

I am finally able to plug my iPod and copy music to it :). Didn’t need to convert the m4a files after all. I thought it was some kind of proprietary Apple format but it seems to be a standard, and several players (Amarok for instance) have no problem playing such files.

Here’s what I did - it might be of interest to other newbies like me if they run into the same kinds of problems.

First, my iPod was automatically mounted, but I kept getting all kinds of error messages from gtkpod about not being able to write on it.
What needed to be done :

  1. Activate the ‘Enable disk use’ option in iTunes so that the device can be seen as a hard drive
  2. Disable the journaling (used Disk utility on my mac) because it seems HFS+ mounts are read-only
  3. The iPod files all belonged to the root user. Changed the permissions so as to become the owner (chown -R ben /media/iPod/)

I was then able to create a new repository in gtkpod pointing to the right directory, and the Load Files command finally worked lol!. I was able to play the music files that are on the iPod, and also to add some new files from my hard disk onto the iPod.

I still need to master gtkpod, which is not very intuitive to say the least, but things have progressed quite a bit since last week :).

4

Thanks for that informative reply.