Making the iPad Sync with Linux

Granted, syncing the iPad with a Linux PC isn’t for purists: at some point you must update the iPad’s firmware from either a Mac or Windows OS. Paul Ferrill reports.

The Apple iPad is without question a wildly successful
product in a market space that’s seen many false starts. It seems like the iPad
was at the right place at the right time to scratch an itch we didn’t know we
had. Many wrote it off early on as just an expensive ebook reader with too many
limitations to replace your netbook, much less a full-fledged business laptop.

Inquiring Linux minds want to know if they can make an iPad
work without a Mac or Windows box. The answer is a qualified yes. You’ll need a
copy of iTunes to do some functions like firmware updating and transferring
files to a specific application like Apple’s iBooks ebook reader. You’ll also
need it if you want to get content from sources such as Apple’s iTunes
University. We’ll look at how you could do this using Oracle’s Virtualbox.

Syncing

Syncing music and videos to the iPad is probably one of the
highest priority functions you’ll want to accomplish. For this task we chose
Banshee, although we did update to the latest version. Banshee 1.8.0 recognized
the iPad straight away and showed all the music and videos currently on the
device. Importing music from the iPad is drop-dead, one-click simple. Once
that’s done you can drag music from your desktop / laptop to the iPad or set
Banshee to keep the two in sync.

Read the rest at Linux Planet.