ipod classic, more than just a waste of GBs?

[Hmarroqu]

I have bee thinking and well...I hate having external harddrives and usb flash drives...I want some opinions on getting a large ipod and using it for more than just my 500 songs and actually using it as storage too? any risks? maybe i can even load ubuntu on it and boot kinda like puppy linux on a small usb stick???? WHATYALL THINK!?!?!?

[jcwmoore]

http://ipodlinux.org/Main_Page

you can actually install a linux version to your ipod, and following if you follow the tutorial, I guess you could easily just make an extra big "linux partrition" and use that as file storage. I did this recently and made a 1 GB space (the space I put the linux OS in) on my ipod, although i don't plan on using it as file storage there is nothing to stop you from makeing a 20 GB (or more) space and using it for file storage or even an ubuntu OS...

[DjBones]

well, while were on that topic,
you should also check out rockbox, which is another thing of jukebox software. Alot of themes out there for it, which is nice..

Although to your actually question, I think that it certainly would be doable,
but the Ipods hard-drive probably doesn't spin very fast .. so I can imagine it being quite slow.
With so much space, I just back up all my document/themes/music/pictures/configuration-files/videos to the ipod..
what else are you gonna do with 30 gigs lol?

[Hmarroqu]

Indeed, I guess booting off a iturd would be slow as sloths but good for backing up i 'spose

[Incense]

Just for the record, IPL, and Rockbox DO NOT support the sixth gen iPod Classic, or the new Nano. 5.5 or older to rockbox your iPod. I have a 5th gen with rockbox, and I love it! The iPod works so much nicer as a mass storage device without the apple firmware, and it's so easy to add and remove music from any computer. Just drag and drop.

[tgalati4]

iPod disk drives are fragile. If you have ever taken one apart, there is not much to the disk drive. The thrashing that an operating system does to a drive would turn an iPod into door stop faster than Gnome-burner makes coasters.

For simple storage of media, music, videos, pictures, etc, they are pretty fast for their size, but they are not known for their reliability, so I wouldn't even use them for backup.

If you have a firewire cord, you can put OS X on there and boot a powerbook or older mac off of it. The speed of firewire makes this a novelty, but again the life of the drives is equivalent to the batteries.

[jcwmoore]

The iPod works so much nicer as a mass storage device without the apple firmware

apple firmware... i.e the iBrick... the ipod is a great piece of hardware, but i will never go back to apple after hearing about that...

[Incense]

If you have a firewire cord, you can put OS X on there and boot a powerbook or older mac off of it. The speed of firewire makes this a novelty, but again the life of the drives is equivalent to the batteries.

The back of the iPod becomes hot enough to fry an egg on if you boot OSX from it.. I booted Yellow Dog (I think that's what it was) off my iPod once just to do it. It ran ok, but that heat really started to freak me out.

[DjBones]

too bad apple had to go and lock the new ipods,
its been since i've checked, but I think the gtkpod people have been working on the newest ipod support, although its not very stable lol
let alone rockbox or ipl for that matter

my favorite part of rockbox isn't necessarily the interface though but how you could just drop music into a folder, and rockbox would compile it into the database without even asking.. so none of that funky encrypting that ipods do (now forcing you to use itunes unfortunately), do normal mp3 players do that too? or is that just an apple ipod thing?

[Spike-X]

My son's Samsung player allows drag-and-drop.