Transfer Music to a Classic iPod on Linux

Here's a way to transfer music to a classic iPod on Linux.

You know the story: your son wants new music on that classic iPod Nano that we haven't touched in months. You forgot how we did it last time. There's a new computer in play. It didn't work. Linux -- that'll do anything, if you only you can figure it out. Here's one way.

Ipod Program

There's a nice little gui program to interface with iPods on Linux. Install it:

sudo apt install gtkpod

Mount the iPod Filesystem

gtkpod looks for iPods at /media/ipod. Create that directory:

mkdir /media/ipod

And prep to mount the fancy filesystem. Get the tools:

sudo apt install hfsprogs

You have to mount the iPod yourself, separately, outside of gtkpod.

Find the drive partition with:

lsblk

Then mount:

sudo mount -t hfsplus -o force,rw /dev/sdb3 /media/ipod

Use gtkpod

Now start up gtkpod:

gtkpod

It'll come up with a model select dialog to chose the iPod model. Once you select that, you should see the iPod load, and you'll be able to browse current contents.

Delete the old songs by selecting them, right clicking, and choosing delete. Press Save to push these changes to the iPod.

Now put the new songs on with File > Add folder. It'll sync immediately. I didn't have to press Save.

Quit gtkpod, and unmount the iPod:

sudo umount /media/ipod

Disconnect the USB, and your iPod should be read to rock with 1000 songs in your pocket.

Optional: Repair the Disk

I tried a few things to get the iPod to mount. I may have messed something up. At one point, in order to get it to read correctly, I had to repair it:

sudo fsck.hfsplus -r /dev/sdb3