How to use Amarok to manage your iPod

Sometimes it can be difficult to manage your iPod in Linux without hacking iTunes on your Ubuntu machine. Today we take a look at using the popular music player Amarok to mange your iPod on Ubuntu.

Install Amarok

In case you don’t have Amarok, you can install it by dropping down to terminal. To open a terminal window click ALT+F2 and type “gnome-terminal” (without quotes).

Or from the menu Applications \ Terminal.

In the terminal window, type the following command and wait a couple of moments while Amarok is installed.

sudo apt-get install amarok

In order to enable support for mp3 format, type the following commands on your terminal window one by one.

sudo apt-get install libxine1-ffmpeg

sudo apt-get install kubuntu-restricted-extras

Managing Your iPod

Before we can start using an iPod with Amarok, let’s make it’s the default player to manage your iPod. When you plug in your iPod, the following window will pop up.

By default Rythmbox Music Player selected. From the drop down menu select “Open with other Application” and from the Add Application window and select Amarok.

If you want to make Amarok the default application to open your iPod in future, check the box “Always perform this action” and Click Ok.

Managing iPod in Amarok

Now that we have made Amarok as the default application to launch your iPod we can easily transfer files to iPod. Go to Collection in Amarok, Right-click the file you want to transfer to iPod and click copy to collection and select iPod.

That’s it! The song is now copied to iPod. You can also select multiple tracks to transfer them simultaneously.

This should get you started with managing your iPod with Amarok on your Ubuntu machine.

http://amarok.kde.org/