How to manage a iPod in Arch in 2023

Its 2023 and iPods are still rounding around, yes it is retro cool, well I have an old iPod Nano 5gen and decided to use it again, but I don't like to do it through iTunes, so the solution: do it in Linux of course.

Which software to use? 🤔

There is two options that worked for me:

• Rhythmbox
• Strawberry

Both are available in official arch repositories so you could install it via pacman

Library managment 📚

to be able to manage the library you will need libgpod as well you could install it via pacman

Device specific 📱

In my case (iPod nano 5gen) I should #generating Hashinfo file to find your device serial number by typing:

lsusb -v | grep -i Serial

this should print a 16 character long string like 00A1234567891231

for other devices you could found instructions in arch wiki.

Mounting the device 🏂

first create a mounting point with mkdir /mnt/ipod after that you should identify your device uuid with lsblk -f to get the device UUID, follow by adding a new entry to /etc/fstab like:

# iPod
UUID=XXXX-XXX      /mnt/ipod       vfat        user,noauto,owner   0 0

But if your ipod file system is hfsplus you will need to install hfsprogs from Aur and add the corresponding entry to fstab:

#ipod
UUID=XXXX-XX   /mnt/ipod       hfsplus         user,noauto,owner,force,rw  0 0

after this you will be able to mount your device with mount command as mount /mnt/ipod

Voila! 🪄

And now you will be able to see your iPod in Rhythmbox or Strawberry, add songs and feel retro vibes!

Sources

• iPod section in Arch wiki link
• Linux questions post with some info link