Hey everyone.
Back when I graduated middle school (AKA junior high) my parents got me an iPod Classic 3rd Gen 160 GB. It still works after all this time! However, now that I am only Linux, I had a little problem. I have gotten a bit tired of the music that was on my iPod and I wanted to add some more songs.
I did some research and it seems there are a few Linux-based music players that have the capability to add songs to an iPod correctly, however, these did not work for me. Also, adding the songs to the iPod directly does not work, if you do this then the iPod will treat it as if you have no songs at all on the device (even though those files still take up space).
My first thought would be running iTunes in a VM or having a computer with Windows on it just so I could add songs to my iPod would be tedious, so I looked for alternatives. It turns out there is a software called Rockbox. The software has been ported to various music players. It just so happens my iPod was on the list with a stable port! Yes!
Rockbox does not modify the iPod bootloader at all, and in fact dual-boots with the original software. Which means if you desire to switch between the original iPod software and Rockbox you are able to do so. I have no need for the iPod software anymore, but just in case something bad happens it is good that I can still do that.
Rockbox has a software called Rockbox Utility, which comes as a AppImage for Linux. This tool is supposed to fully install the software for you, however I did have some trouble. Basically, in order to install the Rockbox bootloader you need to put it into a state called DFU mode (Device Firmware Update). The installation of the bootloader was starting, but then Rockbox Utility was saying that it could no longer find a device in DFU mode, even though using lsusb showed that my iPod was still connected in DFU mode.
First, I reformatted my iPod on a Windows VM. The iPod must formatted in FAT32 and it needs to have iPod software on it for it to work.
- Use Rockbox Utility to install all software except the bootloader (including any themes and plugins you would like)
- Download the Rockbox bootloader in .ipod format from Rockbox’s webiste
- Download the mks5lboot tool from here*
- Run:
./mks5lboot –dfuscan -l - Put your device into DFU mode. This is done on my iPod by holding Select + Menu for approximately 12 seconds. You will feel a little click when the iPod enters DFU mode, also mks5lboot will show the DFU device in your terminal when this happens.
- CTRL+C on the terminal to stop mks5lboot
- Run
/mks5lboot –bl-inst path/to/bootloader-ipod6g.ipodBe sure to replace the fake path in this command with the path to the bootloader you downloaded - Wait a few moments, then you should hear a beep from your iPod.
- Mine automatically started up in Rockbox, but if yours doesn’t then restart your iPod
I put a * up there with the mks5lboot tool because this is actually a different link than provided in the Rockbox documentation. The link there sends you back to Rockbox’s main page, which is unhelpful. I have written a documentation bug for Rockbox to fix this, but in the meantime, please be careful about downloading tools like this from strange links. I felt safe doing this because the URL points to the same source for the Rockbox bootloader, but it was definitely a bit of a risky move on my part.
What’s really cool with Rockbox is that you can download different themes and actually switch between them while using the device, and even make some changes - for example a lot of themes allow you to change some of the colors. You can save these changes as a new theme so you can use it again easily in the future. I will say, the themes overall do not look as slick as the original iPod theme, but they work quite well all the same. Also, there are at least 200 of them, so you will probably find at least one you like.
Additionally, Rockbox supports pretty much every music file format (whereas iPods only support AAC / mp4), except for songs that have DRM (e.g. if you bought songs from iTunes in the past you may face this problem as I have). The way Rockbox works for adding new music is that you just place your files inside of a folder on the root of your device, so now your music player is just a flash drive essentially. I do make a bit more organized (I put each album in its own folder inside of the master MUSIC folder). If you want the ability to search for songs by author, album, or via text input, then you need to build the database. This can be done both manually or automatically. Although as a warning, the first time you do this, it can take a while (around ~10 minutes for me).
I have been using Rockbox for about a week now and I am very happy with it. It feels nice to have control of my device so that I can use it as I see fit. Also, a happy accident while doing all this research - I learned all models of the iPod classic are actually quite mod-able and so it is easy to extend their lives by changing the battery, adding hard drives, changing from the horrid 30-pin connector to USB-C or even add bluetooth. I do feel sorry for those Apple Engineers who probably got several beatings for making an Apple device that you can actually change the hardware on though. Haha, I kid.