linux newbie and ipod help

[filter2000]

hi i have just tried Linuxmint 7 and love it so i will be dumping windows vista altogether, now i will be using open office and firefox so thats my stuff covered but the wife has a ipod nano which i got her a christmas is it possible to still use this on linux as she is always adding music, so any suggestions on what software to use? also which is the best email client.

many thanks

 

[Bob Wya Jnr]

hi i have just tried Linuxmint 7 and love it so i will be dumping windows vista altogether, now i will be using open office and firefox so thats my stuff covered but the wife has a ipod nano which i got her a christmas is it possible to still use this on linux as she is always adding music, so any suggestions on what software to use? also which is the best email client.

many thanks

Don't (/would never buy an) iPod but there was a bit of feature on this in the Going Linux #37 & Going Linux #35 podcasts. It's very enthusiastic but a bit of a "noobyish" podcast series.

As for email clients I am still searching for a replacement for "The Bat!" which I generally run under WINE in Linux-Mint 7. This link about installing Ubuntu 9.04 has some useful basics on GNU package equivalents to Windows software. Plus this one.
The Claws email client (formly known as "Sylpheed-Claws") client is definitely worth checking out from the repositories as well.

Sorry I couldn't be more helpful - but the final choice will be down to personal preferences and requirements of course!

Bob

OT: 32-bit Minty vs 64-bit Minty!

BTW do you find Linux-Mint 7 (32-bit) to be stable visa-a-vie memory usage? I have found the Linux-Mint 7 (64-bit) RC to be a bit bug ridden. On a laptop w/ 4Gb I find all the RAM gets sucked up almost as soon as I have a few apps open (we are just talking Firefox, "The Bat!" via WINE, OpenOffice writer, etc i.e. very basic stuff)... Very strange and I couldn't pin down where the problem was... For example I also found a specific (reported) memory bug in Linux-Mint 6 (64-bit) (an Ubuntu 8.10 64-bit bug) which could not be worked around and the bug was not to be backported to that version 8.10 - arggg!! Bloody 64-bit versions!!

 

[.walls]

hi i have just tried Linuxmint 7 and love it so i will be dumping windows vista altogether, now i will be using open office and firefox so thats my stuff covered but the wife has a ipod nano which i got her a christmas is it possible to still use this on linux as she is always adding music, so any suggestions on what software to use? also which is the best email client.

many thanks

Depends on what version of ipod you have. Apple - being the proprietary whores that they are - like to change the database hash every so often to force everyone to use iTunes, which has the effect of everyone in the OSS community hate iPods.

I - however - have an iPhone 3g (yes, yes... I know) and have no native way of updating it as I don't have any physical Windows boxes, so I run XP in VirtualBox. Previous versions of the ipod and iphone have been compatible with various media players through the use of libgpod - my personal favourite is Amarok, but until someone breaks the new db hash, I'm stuck with VB. Check the libgpod (or even amarok) wikis to see if her nano is supported.

Also... kmail is probably the best mail client for a KDE based environment (I run fluxbox with a KDE back-end so I can have a very minimal desktop and also the good stuff that comes with a DE). Can't really help for Gnome though - although I remember the Gnome default one in Debian being quite good.