Sync your iPhone Music Libary With Rhythmbox in Ubuntu Karmic (No Jailbreaking Required)

In Mac and Windows, you can easily sync your iPhone/iPod Touch with iTunes, but in Linux, there is no easy way to sync your iDevice’s music library with any of the media player. Even if you are willing to jailbreak your phone, there are still plenty of complicated steps that you need to do to get the syncing to work. With the release of iFuse (and a bunch of other library), things have changed. Not only can you mount your iPhone as an external drive in Ubuntu, you can also use it to sync your music library with Rhythmbox.

The following tutorial only works in Ubuntu Karmic (and other karmic-derivative distro) and iPhone firmware 3.0 and above.

Remove all iFuse related files

If you have previously installed ifuse in your system, you need to remove it and its related files. If you did not install ifuse before, you can ignore this part and skip to the next section.

sudo apt-get remove gvfs-backends ifuse limobiledevice-dev libplist0 libplist-dev libiphone0 libiphone0-dev limobiledevice0 libgpod4 libusbmux0 libusbmux-dev gtkpod gtkpod-common

You also need to remove the jonabeck repository from your apt list.

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Delete the jonabeck PPA from the sources.list file. Save and close.

Refresh your system.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

Installing iFuse (for Ubuntu Karmic only)

Add the iFuse PPA to your repository:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pmcenery/ppa

Update your system

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

If there is a need, restart your computer.

Install the relevant packages

sudo apt-get install gvfs gvfs-backends gvfs-bin gvfs-fuse libgvfscommon0 ifuse libgpod-dev libgpod-common libimobiledevice-utils libimobiledevice0 libimobiledevice-dev libplist++1 libplist-utils python-plist libusb-1.0-0 libusb-1.0-0-dev libusbmuxd1 usbmuxd

Update: I have removed libiphone0 libiphone-dev from the above packages since they are not longer needed.

When the installation is done, go to System -> Users and Groups

Click on the key icon to unlock.

Click the Manage Groups button. Scroll down till you see the fuse entry. Select it and click the Properties button.

Check the box beside your username and click OK.

Close all windows and restart your computer.

You can now plug in your iPhone/iPod Touch and see it appears in your Rhythmbox and Nautilus.

That’s it. Let us know in the comments if this works for you.

Image credit: pennacook