Updating libgpod September 26, 2007

Updating libgpod to the latest SVN version should give you partial compatibility with the new 3G Nanos, 6G Classics and read-only Touch.

UPDATE (Oct 14): Cover art support as of SVN revision 1725.  It works in Cover Flow and the half-menu, half-cover view.

Be warned that it might be unstable.

1) Install SVN.

sudo apt-get install subversion

2) Pull  the latest trunk version. (it will make a subdirectory in the folder where your Terminal is)

svn co https://gtkpod.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/gtkpod gtkpod/trunk

3)  Run this command, and this should work, unless you moved the files SVN pulled into another directory or you cd’ed into another directory.

cd gtkpod/libgpod/trunk && ./autogen.sh && sudo make && sudo make install

4) Go to this Pastebin link, read the note and do what it says, otherwise libgpod will not work with your new iPod.

If you are lazy to go there, here it is:

Starting with the iPod Classics and the Video Nanos, libgpod needs an
additional configuration step to correctly modify the iPod content. libgpod
needs to know the so-called iPod “firewire id”, otherwise the iPod won’t
recognize what libgpod wrote to it and will behave as if it’s empty.

There are two ways to set up the iPod to make libgpod able to find its firewire
id.

The 1st one is mostly automated, but it requires that libgpod configure script
can find libsgutils. If this library was found, a tool named
ipod-read-sysinfo-extended will be built and installed, and you simply need to
run it (possibly requires root privs) with iPod device path name (eg /dev/sda)
and the iPod mount point (eg /mnt/ipod) as arguments. It will read an XML
file from the iPod and write it as
/mnt/ipod/iPod_Control/Device/SysInfoExtended. See
http://ipodlinux.org/Device_Information for more details about the method used.
Having that file is enough for libgpod to figure out the iPod firewire id.

The 2nd method requires more manual intervention. First, you need to get your
firewire id manually. To do that, run “sudo lsusb -v | grep -i Serial” (without
the “”) with your iPod plugged in, this should print a 16 character long string
like 00A1234567891231. Once you have that number, create/edit
/mnt/ipod/iPod_Control/Device/SysInfo (if your iPod is mounted at /mnt/ipod).
Add to that file the line below:
FirewireGuid: 0xffffffffffffffff
(replace ffffffffffffffff with the string you obtained at the previous step)
Save that file, and you should be all set. Be careful when using apps which
lets you manually specify which iPod model you own, they may overwrite that
file when you do that. So if after doing that libgpod still seems to write
invalid content to the iPod, double-check the content of that SysInfo file to
make sure the FirewireGuid line you added isn’t gone. If that happens, readd it
to the end of the file, and make sure libgpod rewrite the iPod content.

Restart Amarok or whatever your audio program is.

5) To update libgpod, cd into gtkpod/libgpod/trunk (or equivalent).  Afterwards, run this command:

svn up

It will update your files to the latest version.  After that, re-run:

./autogen.sh && sudo make && sudo make install

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