iPod - Do you have to use I-tunes

[schnipps]

Not sure where to put this but i want t get a family member one of these for xmas and i have never used one. Do you have to use itunes to transfer music or is it possible to get normal retail cd's and transfer them onto it?

 

[schnipps]

He only listens to quite specific hard to find dance music of which he has lots of cd's of (all legit i might add) He would only want to be able to listen to these and so wouldnt want to faff around on itunes buying songs etc.

What is Itunes though, can you use it to extract music from a cd then put it onto the ipod? i was under the impression it was the software for apples music store and you can only get purchased music through itunes onto your ipod, or am i wrong?