Finally, an Update

Wow, it's been so long. ^ ^
My daughter has been a joy. I have some pictures up on my msn live spaces account.

What else is new in my life? An iPod video, that's what! a 5.5th generation 30Gb iPod. I have recently bought a pair Sennheiser PX 100 headphones to go along with it because the stock buds gave out on me. It's been great so far. I ripped some of my CDs and also use it to listen to podcasts like CNet's Buzz Out Loud. The new headphones are great. I'm a pretty casual listener and they really give me good sound reproduction.

Anyway, it didn't take long before I started looking at iPodLinux. This is linux for iPods, a modified version of ucLinux. I decided to try the easiest option, IPodLinux Manager. This will install iPodLinux on supported iPods in a non-destructive manner. So I tried this last night, and was surprised that installation was really fast and easy.

For those who don't know, iPodLinux will traditionally requires that another linux partition be created on the iPod, and a boot loader will allow you to boot either iPodLinux installed on a new Linux ext3 partition, or the original OS installed by Apple. Using IPodLinux Manager, iPodLinux is installed as an image of an ext3 partition on the existing partition, thus reformatting is not required.

I was quite excited to see the nice new boot loader on my iPod. But I was not as pleased with the linux itself. It takes some time to load, and once loaded, it did not seem very responsive to me. Also, when I tried playing music, the volume was extremely loud, louder than normal. Adjusting the volume with the wheel was not only unresponsive, but it totally did not work. So this was a sore point for me. Of course, it could be due to the fact that IPodLinux Manager is still new. I will try the traditional method of install sometime in the future to see if there is a difference.

Some of you would be asking, why would I even bother with Linux on my iPod? Well, I believe in getting the most out of your purchases. It would be cool to play games and install other modules on my iPod, which iPodLinux will allow me to do. I would also be able to play music formats which the normal iPod would not. Quality and battery life might be an issue, but those are not questions I can answer yet. I hope to have the answers in a future post. :)