Rockbox: Open Data for your iPod

For the last year or so, I’ve been trying out various different methods for working with my iPod nano without relying on iTunes. (iTunes is slow and bloated, at least running under Windows, doesn’t run on Linux, and relies on proprietary DRM so it makes it very difficult for me to move music files between my laptop at work and my desktop at home or play them on other devices).

I recently went back to a project called Rockbox, which I used to run on an Archos Jukebox.

But now Rockbox runs on many iPod models, including my Nano.

It’s well worth checking out if you have lots of mp3 files and you move between machines. It can be installed from a Windows, Mac OS, or Linux host computer, and it relies on just treating the ipod as a drive when connected to PCs – you can move files on and off, with no need to rebuild any iTunesDB on the device, or having iTunes obfuscate all the file names and bury them in random directories.

1 Comment

  1. Hi everyone.
    What's a good alternative to the IPOD?
    I'm wondering if any of you can recommend a good MP3 player that is comparable to the IPod but WITHOUT they hype and price tabe to go with it.
    I was at the apple store a few days ago, and really liked the new 40GB or 80GB IPods that also show video, but was wondering if I could get the same kind of funcationality without that heftly price tag.

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