While Apple made a Windows version of iTunes years ago, they still haven’t seen fit to roll out any official syncing solution for our Linux friends. That leaves unofficial solutions, which according to Marcan’s Abort, Retry, Hack? blog, are finally on their way:
libusb-1.0 provides an advanced API to access USB devices under Linux, replacing the old libusb-0.1 API
usbmuxd coordinates application access to the device and talks the specific iPhone/iTouch USB protocol
libiphone implements the Apple-specific protocols that are tunneled through usbmuxd: it can launch services through lockdown, retrieve device info, send notifications, and access the filesystem via AFC.
iFuse and gvfs-backend-afc both provide access to AFC to regular Linux apps. iFuse does this by mounting via FUSE, while gvfs-backend-afc is obviously a backend for gVFS.
libgpod (the library that traditionally has managed music databases for iPods) is being extended to support the new SQLite format, the new hash, and also to talk to libiphone to properly put the device in to and out of sync mode.
Theoretically, actual music players such as Amarok and Rhythmbox will need none or very few modifications to work.
If you’ve got your FOSS-on, and you’re eager to check out this solution, head on over for the details, and then let us know what you think!
[I've mentioned about my crazy Ubuntu using IT friend Anthony Casella a few times before. Several months ago he made the switch from Treo to the iPhone 3G and -- surprise surprise -- he's loving it! Well, almost all of it. Problem is, Apple doesn't make an iTunes for Linux. So what's an open source geek to do? Tinker, of course! Here's Antony's first article on (trying to) use the iPhone with Linux. Are you trying to do the same? If so, let us know what you're doing in the comments! - Rene]
It’s a fabulously well-known fact that Apple has no interest in bringing support for it’s highly popular iPhone to Linux. Perhaps I can go as far as to say is that Linux is to Apple as curd is to eyeball. None the less I have an affinity for the iPhone in spite of the abhorrent treatment I receive being a Linux user. Here are a few ways that you can try to live with this Shakespeareanesque tragedy until such time that Apple sees the error in its ways (ya, right)… after the jump!
Remember that story about the iPhone almost having run Linux as its OS? Well, some enterprising young hackers have now gotten it doing just that — the Linux Kernel at least, via tether.
No touch control yet, no writing to the actual device, but first steps are first steps, and no doubt other hackers everywhere are already drooling at the possibility…
Or shaking their heads and wondering about Linux’s near obsessive need to notch its bedpost with every device on the planet.
Daring Fireball has been digging into the saga of Tony Fadell, the “Father of the iPod” who’s left Apple, potentially to be replaced by Mark Papermaster (if they can get around IBM’s lawyers, that is).
What’s been turned up?
The iPhone’s software is overseen by Scott Forstall (Senior Vice President, iPhone Software), and, at a technical level, Bertrand Serlet (Senior Vice President, Software Engineering). There is no such division between hardware and software with the traditional (pre-Touch) iPods. The story I’ve heard is that at the outset of Apple’s iPhone initiative, there was a heated debate within Apple as to what OS should be used. Forstall and Serlet pushed for using OS X. Fadell (and, according to one source, former Apple executive Steve Sakoman) pushed for using something else.1 Obviously, Forstall and Serlet won this debate, and, hyperbolic though it may sound, it may prove to be the single best early design decision in the entire history of the company. It seems hard to imagine the iPhone any other way now, but at the outset it was not a foregone conclusion that a stripped down and revamped version of OS X would work for a mobile phone.
And the OS Fadell is rumored to have wanted to use instead?
Linux.
Needless to say, harnessing the already tremendous effort and technology behind OS X for their mobile wireless platform seems wicked-obvious in hindsight, as is avoiding the fragmentation of resources and focus that introducing a third OS (counting the already embedded iPod OS) would entail. However, the choice to go with OS X seems to have marginalized Fadell, taking him from the man behind Apple’s music success, to the man behind the times on Apple’s next great success, the iPhone.
And, hey, Linux eventually found a home on Android anyway!
After a week of using the Treo 680, I have to say that it’s pretty much the same as I remember it. I used the 680 as my primary phone for about half a year, and I’ve reviewed it twicealready. I won’t claim to be the most knowledgeable 680 user out there; that honor would certainly be bestowed to many, many users in our forum before I would even enter consideration for it. I’ve had a lot to say about Palm OS, generally favorable I suppose, but there are caveats. I’ve said as much in the TreoCentral TreoCast, but I’ve never had an opportunity like this one to really distill thirty podcasts and a few dozen hours of listening into a manifesto of what’s good and what’s bad about Palm OS, and what I really think about their Linux venture, and why Palm is on their current path.
When I say the King is dead, I don’t mean that the 680 is a bad device, or that there’s no reason to use Palm OS, or that anyone that uses it is dumb. Far from it, I think the 680 is pretty high up on my list. It’s still a good phone. If I thought Palm OS was dumb or not relevant, I wouldn’t do the TreoCentral TreoCast. It boils down to two things with Palm OS: the hardware and the software. The hardware will see updates. There will probably be more Palm OS GSM phones to come out. Better cameras, 3G, smaller form factors, the whole shebang. When it comes out, it will probably be a compelling upgrade for Palm OS users. But I don’t think we’ll see a significant software update for Palm OS in the next two years. While some may accuse that it’s unfair to say “the king is dead” alluding to Palm OS, it’s not accurate to say the king is alive, either. But still, there are always these persistent rumors about faked deaths and random sightings…
There have been a lot of snarky comments about Apple in the press lately, usually from big media companies or other smartphone competitors. There are so many CEOs fiddling while Apple burns down their little walled cities, there’s enough of them for an orchestra. Or at least a hoedown.
Google has announced Android, an open source Linux operating system designed to be very customizable by programmers. This isn’t the GPhone, the long-rumored Google Phone. Google is not making any of the actual phones, just the software. Android joins the ranks of myriad Linux development attempts: the new pro-sumer Palm OS, Access Linux Platform, Trolltech’s QTopia, OpenMoko, and others in Asia that are unknown to me.
I don’t know if this one will be more successful than the others, and they haven’t announced what it looks like, or what it will do. They just announced the software license and that it exists, or that it should in late 2008… but expect a bunch of publicity all over the place anyway. What I do know is that this effort will have a lot of money behind it.
