Replacing ITunes

Before reading this post, there are few things you should know…

1. You can run a working ITunes installation under Wine; provided, it’s installed properly (i.e. Wine maps your IPod and CD drives correctly and you installed QuickTime before installing ITunes).
2. Apple will most likely not create a native version of ITunes for Linux.
3. Using P2P networks to exchange copyrighted material is not okay. You should pay for multimedia content, including books, films, and music.

Why I Don’t Like ITunes

ITunes is a wonderful concept for purchasing content. Unfortunately, it locks the users into Apple’s approved file formats and to Apple devices. Both of these are problematic. By forcing users to use a particular file format, Apple is supporting one technology over another. Because of their market share, this is an anti-competitive business practice. It means that file formats, such as ogg and flac, are less supported and less competitive with other formats such as mp3. Please note, some computer companies may have financial stakes in file formats. Supporting a particular format through their online retailer is one way of obtaining market dominance for their file format. (And yes, Apple appears to be one of the companies that uses this business model. They do have a vested financial interest in .aac, .mp4, and .m4a.) As a consumer, you should be concerned by this. This company is selling you music in formats that may or may not have a higher quality than other formats. You should control the quality of your music files. Not Apple!

My ITunes/IPod Solution

I do have an IPod, and I have made purchases from ITunes. (Most of those were made before Amazon.com began selling MP3s.) My IPod is a first generation nano. It runs Rockbox. Rockbox adds support for other file formats including .ogg and .flac. Unfortunately, Apple changed their firmware. The newer IPods, IPhones, and IPod Touches all use encrypted firmware. There are ways around it, but they aren’t for the faint hearted and rockbox doesn’t work on most newer models. Here’s the trick. ITunes writes all its music into a hidden file directories with meaningless file names. Rockbox turns my IPod into a generic mp3 player. The file directories are now human readable. Adding files is a simple drag and drop. Alternatively, I can sync my music using either Amarok or Banshee. To date, I’ve tried ten different music managers, including RhythmBox, gtkpod, and SongBird. Amarok and Banshee are the only two I’ve liked. All the others were either too difficult to use, didn’t recognize my IPod as a generic MP3 player, or were too immature.

About All That Music I Bought From ITunes

When I purchase music online, the first thing I do is burn it to a playable music CD. Then, I backup the files for good measure. I simply took my ITunes music CD collection and put them in my Ubuntu box’s cd player. Then, I used Audio CD Extractor to convert my CD collection into .ogg files. Unfortunately, my pretty little .ogg files are tagless, but not for long. Using Jaikoz, I tagged most of my files. I also created a master record of my ITunes song tags. Then, I listened to the songs without tags, found them on my master list, and typed the tags in. Note: Jaikoz had no problems finding tags for popular songs. My obscure classical collection was a different matter. Overall, I’m very happy with the transition away from ITunes dependency. So far, it hasn’t been as painful as I thought it would be. There are programs available that strip DRM from ITunes purchases. I’ve tested these. In my opinion, using real CDs instead of a virtual CD burner or recording music from the sound card produces a better quality file. Plus, using real CDs is more legit. If you like any of the open source software mentioned in this post, please consider contributing to the project. There are many ways to contribute including coding, testing, documenting, and sending money.

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Recovering ITunes Purchases in Linux

Tools Used for the Below Example:

• Working Ubuntu 8.10 Installation
• HFS Plus (i.e. formatted on a Mac) IPod (also tested with NTFS (Windows formatted) IPod)

Note: Yes, you can do all of the below quickly and easily with the command line. However, many Linux users, particularly newbies, are unfamiliar with the command line. Learning the command line is a major barrier for most newbies and does turn them off Linux. For that reason, all of my guides will rely on the Synaptic Package Manager and pre-packaged installs as much as possible.(Under the Synaptic Package Manager, click Settings > Repositories. Under the Ubuntu Software tab, check all the boxes.)

Step 1: Backup the IPod.

Connect your IPod to your computer. If your IPod is formatted for Windows, it should automatically show up as a usb device. If your IPod is formatted for Mac, like mine was, your computer may or may not recognize it. The latest version of Ubuntu recognizes HFS and HFS plus formatted drives. It loaded my IPod without any problems.

Open the file manager and navigate to your IPod. Click View > Show Hidden Files. Now, open iPod_Control. Select the folders Accessories, Artwork, Device, iTunes, and Music and the file iPodPrefs. Copy these and paste them to another folder.

Congratulations! You now have backups. If, or perhaps I should say when, something goes wrong, you can restore your music.

Step 2: Install Wine and configure drives.

Follow the instructions on Wine’s website to install and configure Wine. When you configure Wine, select Windows XP under the applications tab. Then, go to the Drives tab and click autodetect. Disconnect your IPod.

Step 3: Install User Agent Switcher Firefox Plugin

Install User Agent Switcher in Firefox. Why? Apple’s website registers Linux users as Mac users. Use the plugin to trick their site into thinking you’re a PC.

Step 4: Install Quicktime (without ITunes)

Download Quicktime without ITunes for Windows XP from Apple’s website. Install it.

Step 5: Install ITunes and authorize computer.

Download an old version of ITunes for Windows XP. I use ITunes 7.0 available from CNet’s Download.com. Do not download the latest version of ITunes unless you know how to hack the install! Open ITunes and click Edit. Select Preferences. Click IPod. Under IPod, click the Music tab. Then, turn off Auto Updating.

Now, click Store and authorize the computer using your old ITunes login id and password.

Step 6: Plugin IPod.

Plug your IPod back in. ITunes should detect it.

Step 7: Consolidate Library in ITunes.

Click File > Add Folder to Library. Open iTunes_Control on your IPod. If your IPod doesn’t show up in ITunes, you can use your IPod backup for this, but you should make a spare backup first. Select the Music file and click okay. Click Advanced > Consolidate. This copies all of your music from your IPod to your computer.

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Hello, I’m a Linux

For the past eight years, I’ve used Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX. Due to recent experiences with Apple (specifically Apple Care), I no longer recommend their products and am swapping to Linux as my primary OS. I replaced my Window’s machine a few years ago with Linux. I am very happy with my stable little Linux box and have reached a decision.

I have a list of programs and files, including nearly 1000 ITunes music downloads. When I am finished, all functionality and files from my Powerbook G4 12″ (sadly discontinued) will run on the Linux box. The programs will all be open source programs. The files types will be independent of the operating system. I seek simplicity and interoperability. I will find it.

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