I have been trying to get my Mini iPod to work with Linux since April 2004.
I have tried on two systems: an eMachines desktop and a Dell laptop Inspiron 8600.
Both systems and the iPod have the latest BIOS and firmware updates.
The results for the above platforms with various OS's and distros are as follows:
___Can connect to Mini iPod with either 1394 or USB when using Window$.
___Can connect to Mini iPod with 1394 when using Suse 9.0-9.1, Redhat 7.3-9.0. using either 2.4.x or 2.6.x kernels.
___Cannot connect to Mini iPod with USB when using Suse 9.0-9.1, Redhat 7.3-9.0. using either 2.4.x or 2.6.x kernels.
___CAN connect to Mini iPod with USB when using Debian or Knoppix with 2.4.x kernels <<<<<<<<<<<<<<!!!

The failure is always the same: system recognizes the Mini iPod and loads the scsi and usb-storage drivers.
But when mounting is tried it fails and reports "Bad Superblock" or "Unknown File System".
Yes I've tried EVERY combo of mount and file system in the known universe!
Dmesg contains a report from usb-storage about a failure reading the device when it's plugged in and whenever it is read by a mount command or a scsi utility.
I won't bore you with the contents of /var/log/messages since it has already been posted dozens of times by others here and elsewhere.
The device shows up but cannot execute a simple scsi READ command!

I believe the error is in either usb-storage or somewhere in the hotplug infrastructure.
It isn't the hardware since Debian and Window$ CAN connect to the iPOD over USB.

As of now I have given up on Suse and RH and am running Debian/Knoppix because it can mount the Mini iPOD with USB.
I'll try them again if they publish a real fix. I payed $$ for Suse for 9.0 and 9.1 and tried to get support for this problem to no avail.
All I got was useless auto email responses with the usual try-this try-that crap.

So if any of you Suse people are reading this: HOW ABOUT FINALLY FIXING IT!!!! Windows can do it ! Debian can do it ! Why not you??

Hi all, hopefully when I get time I'll write a full howto, in the meantime.

The ipod G4 20Gig, and mini will work on knoppix because it includes most modules which it belives will be required (usb portable drives are commonly used with knoppix).

To get the 4G ipod and ipod mini working on any other linux distro you must compile the required modules and make sure they are loaded.

Firstly do
lsmod

If your lucky usb-storage, usbcore and usb-uhci are listed and you can just mount the ipod on /dev/sda2.
If they aren't don't panic, possibly your kernel has the modules compiled they just aren't loaded try.

modprobe usb-storage
modprobe usbcore
modprobe usb-uhci

type
lsmod and make sure the modules are now loaded.

IF all three aren't loaded then you need to recompile your kernel sorry ;-(

If you have to recompile your kernel, and your not a linux guru don't panic. Your distro may have saved the current configuration in /usr/src/linux/.config. Look at the kernel compile howto and when you run make xconfig load "/usr/src/linux/.config" Then you just need to add in the required modules.
An alternative is to cheat, and use the knoppix kernel config. Just copy it to a disk, and then use it to build a new kernel.

Hope this helps, if you have any questions email at dave@windozexp.com

Note that this is based on the 2.4 kernel, I'm not sure about the 2.6 kernel, but I'd imagine the same modules are required.

I tried your instructions. That is modprobe'ing for the required modules
before hotplugging the Mini iPod.
It didn't work :-(

I tried on Suse 9.0 kernel 2.4:
modprobe usb-storage
modprobe usbcore
modprobe usb-uhci
Then plugging in the iPod. Failed

I tried on Suse 9.1 kernel 2.6:
modprobe usb-storage
modprobe usbcore
modprobe uhci_hcd # was usb-uhci in 2.4

Still no go. Failure was as described in earlier post.
I tried on an eMachine and a Dell Inspiron.

Perhaps having the modules compiled in makes a diff?
I'll try that later.

BTW the problems arise with my Mini iPod 4Gb.
If I use my G3 iPod 20 Gb there's no problem WTF???

Hi All,
I have tried USB, still to no avail. My experience agrees with kburden000. My best guess at this point is that it's an issue with USB+2.6+4th Gen iPod. It seems to work if any of those variables are changed (i.e. firewire, 2.4 kernel, or earlier iPod version). I may try to get some answers from the USB kernel developers. Don't despair, we'll get this fixed yet!

SiliconSurfer, in order to help us, it would be good to know what distrib, and exactly what kernel version, module versions, etc that you're running.

Ok everyone. As I said the Ipod 4G and mini will work on Knoppix without any problems (which is debian based)


I have managed to get it working on both my laptop and desktop using debian woody (unstable). In my systems the ipod has always been mounted from either /dev/sda2 or /dev/sdb2. In both cases I have used usb as opposed to firewire.
Heres my spec's/info

Sony Viao Laptop (FX-401)
USB 1.0
Debian Woody (unstable)
Kernel 2.4.24 (although I found it also worked with 2.4.18 which is on the debian disk).
I made sure that usb-storage, usbcore and usb-uhci or usb-ohci were loaded when the system was booted.
The ipod is mounted from /dev/sda2 (note that the ipod mini uses a differnt partition possibly 3 as opposed to 2).

Desktop Athlon 2800+
nforce 2 chipset.
USB 2.0
Kernel 2.4.27 (although I found it also worked with 2.4.18 which is on the debian disk).
I didn't have to do anything debian seemed to find an load the correct modules for me, although I did recompile my kernel anyway.
This time the ipod was mounted from /dev/sdb2

Both of these systems were clean installs, I only had the basic linux os installed (couple of hundred megs), I tested the ipod on both to make sure it worked before I added the x86server, kde, hotplugging so as far as I'm aware there were no other software dependances.

I will install the 2.6 kernel sometime in the next few weeks, if I get the ipod workinng with 2.6, I'll post my config for it as well. If anyone wants my guide for installing debian email me and I'll send it over.

You can find my kernel config for 2.4 (tested with 2.4.18, 2.4.24 and 2.4.27)
here login with username dave@windozexp.com Password dave

Okay, I've been following this thread and I've been having the same problem. I have a mini iPod. It works really well with my desktop maching running redhat-9 (2.4 kernel). I recently got a new laptop running SUSE 9.1 (2.6 kernel) and on the laptop I have the problem described by others in the thread: when plugged-in the kernel will find the device but quickly have an I/O error and the device is unreadable at that point:

In my case I'm using a mini iPod with USB2, but the same problem (and solution) probably applies to the firewire interface or newer generation large iPods, but I don't have either of these to test.

To make a long story short, you can solve the problem by disabling the feature CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION in your kernel and rebuilding the kernel. This problem could potentially happen with both 2.4 and 2.6 kernels.

A longer story follows and perhaps someone can come up with a more sensible solution for the long run.

The iPod looks like a removable disk drive to the host computer. When it is attached to the computer, the mini iPod reports a capacity of 7999488 512-byte sectors (or about 4GB). This turns out to be wrong for whatever reason. The mini iPod only really has 7999376 sectors and it exaggerates by 112 sectors. The other quality of the iPod is that if the computer attempts to read a sector greater than the actual capacity but less than the reported capacity, the iPod will dutifully report an I/O error, but it won't respond to any future requests until you unplug/plug the iPod.

This creates a fragile situation where the host computer can croak the iPod by reading one of these 112 tacitly illegal sectors. If you ask me, this is an Apple bug (or maybe a bug of their disk supplier or firewire/USB interface supplier), but a bug nonetheless.

So, when a new disk is presented to the linux kernel, linux first goes out and tries to find the partition table for the disk. Usually this is the first sectors of the disk (traditional microsoft partition table we've been using for 20 years), but there are also a number of other types of partition tables. The kernel uses a heuristic to look for different types of partition tables and the kernel configuration specifies which partition types are attempted.

The "EFI" partition table is a new type of partition table that is part of the "extensible firmware initiative", this is a good thing for the future. I don't know anything about EFI partition tables, except that as part of looking for an EFI table linux goes out and reads the last few sectors of the disk (sector 7999480 in the case of a mini iPod). The kernel looks for an EFI partition before looking for an old fashioned MSDOS partition table and this croaks the iPod. If you disable support for EFI partition tables (CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION) the mini iPod will work fine. I don't know of a quick fix short of rebuilding the kernel.

Of course, once it's working, previous advice about setting up hotplug correctly and having the right /etc/fstab entries and such apply, but the iPod is just great under linux and gtkpod is a fantastic program for managing the iPod.

I hope this helps.

jeff

I just tested the above fix of: disabling CONFIG_EFI_PARTION in .config and rebuilding the kernel on a Suse 9.1 with Linux-2.6.4-52-default.

IT WORKED !!!!!!

I have been searching for this for 5 months, ever since I got the iPod

All the other fixes were well intentioned but fruitless variants of mount, insmod, fstab and hotplug fixes that may have worked in some cases. And I tried them all but to no avail.

I don't have any 2.4.x machines here but will try on Redhat 9.0 with 2.4.20 sometime this week and post those results too.

BTW the iPod Mini worked with 1394/SBP2 on the same machine only the USB was hosed.
And I've had no problem with my other older iPods (non-mini) on the same system.

Many thankx Jeff

Keywords: iPod Mini USB Linux Bad Superblock Fix

Can I get a copy of your .config to review?

I'm going through a make xconfig right now, and i haven't see a config_efi_partition section yet.

What section did you find it under?

Rebootkid at nateandamy dot org

Thank you jeffmock for your solution it works perfectly.

RebootKid: You can find this option under File Systems ---> Partition Types ----> Enable Advance .... and there you should see EFI GUID PARTITION SUPPORT option

Thanks for that... I just wish that I could actually successfully compile the new kernel :-(

# If you are using a 2.4.x kernel or a non Suse distro DONT USE THESE INSTRUCTIONS !!
# If you are using Suse 9.1 with 2.6.4-52 (i.e. factory) here's what I did to build:

# Install the kernel source from the distro with YAST, You may already have done this.
# Make a sym link from /usr/src/linux to /usr/src/linux-2.6.4-52
cd /usr/src/linux
cp .config /tmp/ #save it just in case
make mrproper
# copy a known good .config file to /usr/src/linux There is a good one at /boot/
cp /boot/config-2.6.4-52-default /usr/src/linux/.config
make xconfig #make any changes and then save and exit
# If you didn't use the gui, as per earlier posts, to change CONFIG_EFI_PARTION
# then edit .config manaully and change CONFIG_EFI_PARTION=y to
# CONFIG_EFI_PARTION is not set
# don't forget to put a # in the first column in .config for that entry!!
# Now edit Makfile and change EXTRAVERSION to something other than default
# this prevents the install from overwritting the original kernel and
# possibly leaving you with an unloadable kernel and a panic.
# Now build the kernel.
# The instructions say all you need to do is:
make install
# That's supposed to be it.
# But I had to also run !?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
make modules
make modules_install
# Now check /boot/ contents and
# assuming you're using grub also check /boot/grub/menu.lst and if it looks ok
# then cross your fingers and reboot.

Thanks jeffmock! I've being going back and forth on this for some time.

I've tried your solution on SuSE 9.1 Pro and Novell Linux Desktop (in beta internally here at Novell) and it works like a charm.

I also had to do the make modules and make modules_install that kburden000 mentions in his reply but it's working great now.

BTW - I have the CrossoverOffice itunes alpha. It works now too but the iPod doesn't appear as a device as in Windows. Still, with this fix it uses the iPod as the music drive and builds the library.

From no choice to two choices - thanks very much!
Doc

Just wanted to add my Thanks to jeffmock - the solution worked like a charm.

http://jeremy.linuxquestions.org/blo...16/161449.html

--jeremy

This blog post may be of interest to you if you are trying to get FC2 and your iPod to work.

--jeremy