iPod Support for Songbird 1.4

If you are upgrading to songbird 1.4 it may be tough to find out where to go for iPod support as the old add-on doesn't work and it doesn't point you in the right direction.

So here you go
http://developer.songbirdnest.com/builds/Songbird1.4/latest/addons/
go there and click on:
"ipod-3.0.15.1438-linux-i686.xpi"

if you have 64bit linux then click on the one below that.

That is it.

Awe, cool or Things doing what you want without you asking them

If you rank music on your ipod Songbird transfers these rankings to your computer when you dock it.

Nifty.

Having Songbird watch for new music

Edit > Preferences
Media Importer > Watched Folders

Check the box next to "Automatically watch..."
Click on "Browse" and navigate to your music folder
or if you are keeping your music in your music folder, type :

/home/YourName/Music

where "YourName" would be your name...

Installing Songbird 1

Songbird v 1.0 -It looks like iTunes, and plays nice with the iPod. Strap on a pair, this is the hardest install (shout out to ubuntu geek for doing a lot of the work)

Go to this website (http://getsongbird.com/download/) and click on the giant download button for linux i686
When the box pops up click “save”
Important: Firefox will probably save this to the desktop (check your desktop and see)
Click “places” in your toolbar then “Home Folder”
When this opens up drag and drop the newly downloaded file into your home folder(from your desktop).
Open terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal)
Type the following to move the file to the opt folder (this folder has security in place so we access it from terminal):

sudo mv Songbird_1.0.0-860_linux-i686.tar.gz /opt

Enter your password if it asks you (duh!)
Type the following (hit enter after each line, and caps DO matter, copy and paste via right click):
Change over to the directory we just moved this bad boy to

cd /opt

Uncompress this with the tar command (z indicates our filetype .tar.gz, x means extraxt, v means verbose or display what is happening in terminal which is useful if something doesn't run right, f means filename to follow)

sudo tar xzvf Songbird_1.0.0-860_linux-i686.tar.gz

Type the following to change ownership of the file and replace username with (drum roll) your username (note: the second one is actually group... but you don't really need to know that)

sudo chown -R username:username Songbird

Change directory

cd /opt/Songbird

Start the program and make sure it works (close it when you are done)

./songbird

Voila (keep reading)! Run through their little menus and your program is up and running!
Well, almost Voila. Since you probably do not want to use terminal to start the program, let's install a shortcut with a pretty picture. You can either follow along with the steps below or you can go to this website (http://mat-u.deviantart.com/art/Songbird-Icons-30962307) and download what I think is a much nicer icon image and then try to follow along (you'll have to save to desktop, double click open, drag and drop the .png file you like into the home folder... starting to feel like a familiar action?)

Kill terminal and reopen (this will close songbird)
Open terminal
Okay we will now change the directory we are in

cd /opt/Songbird/chrome/icons/default

Now we are going to rename the icon file using the move command

mv default.xpm songbird.xpm

Now we are going to copy the icon to a folder where all the icons live ,)

sudo cp songbird.xpm /usr/share/pixmaps

Okay we are done with terminal, so close that bad boy
Right click on Applications
Select “Edit Menus”
A window will pop up, in the left pane select Applications > Sound & Video
Click on “New Item” on the right side of the window
Enter in fields as such
Name: Songbird
Command: /opt/Songbird/songbird
Comment: musicplayer
Now click on the choose icon, and click on “browse” of the window that pops up.
Navigate to usr > share >pixmaps and hit enter
Now you can scroll down to songbird (it looks like an egg)
Hit OK, and OK, and Close

Way to kick butt! You are all done, fire up Songbird (Applications > Sound & Video > Songbird) and let's listen to some music as we continue.