Accessing 6th generation iPod nano on linux

Question

I've been trying to access a 6th generation iPod nano on linux. I tried the gtkpod that comes with Debian Squeeze and it seems it doesn't support the 6th generation nano. So I tried iTunes under wine and it barely installed and wasn't very functional. Then I tried foobar2000 under wine, which did install but didn't seem to detect my ipod.

I've now tried to compile gtkpod 2.0.2, but I'm getting issues with libtool trying to compile libgpod, and I don't even know if gtkpod 2.0.2 supports the 6th generation nano, although I did see a few references to the 6th generation nano in gtkpod's changelog.

Anyone know the best approach here?

Answer 1

Warning: the following solution should ONLY be used for iPod nano 6th gen.

The following is said on the gtkpod homepage:

The ipod nano 6th generation CANNOT be written to unless a binary-only blob is used

The binary (originally written for Ubuntu 12.04) can be downloaded and extracted from here or here and should work on Ubuntu (I tested it on Ubuntu 18.04) and Slackware.

You can find out if your system is 64-bit or 32-bit with the command uname -i. It will return i386 for 32-bit and x86_64 for 64-bit.

• Extract the archive file.

• Read the readme.md.

For 64-bit Ubuntu run:

sudo ./install_64bit.sh

For 32-bit Ubuntu run:

sudo ./install_32bit.sh

After that libgpod-based software like gtkpod, Banshee, Rhythmbox, Amarok, Clementine (and its new fork Strawberry), gPodder and a few others should work with iPod nano 6th gen.