I didnt pay much attention to the iPod artwork issue until I found the coverflow became extremely slow and out of response occasionally.

I’m using Amarok via libgpod-0.6.0 to manage my iPod library, there’re approximately 1,000 songs of 68 albums in my iPod. As I checked the iPod_Control/Artwork directory of my iPod, it took up unexpectedly +300mb for the cover images.

punkid@Genbox /media/MUGELLO/iPod_Control $ du -h Artwork/
314M    Artwork/


Then I tried iTunes to rebuild my music library, the artwork database shrinks to 53mb.

punkid@Genbox /media/MUGELLO/iPod_Control $ du -h Artwork/
53M     Artwork/

As someone in that post pointed out:

it turns out that iTunes isn’t actually storing one piece of artwork per track or even one per album – in my case at least, it stored one cover for only 2 of the tracks on the 12-track album …

Fortunately this issue has been fixed in the libgpod svn version, and the new artwork database size looks quite impressive. It’s even smaller than the iTunes’ one.

punkid@Genbox /media/MUGELLO/iPod_Control $ du -h Artwork/
18M     Artwork/

The latest libgpod svn build has already supported the new iPod Nano 4G, and the photo issue also seems to be fixed. If you dont have the patience for a “never-landed” new stable release, grab the latest libgpod svn snapshot.

For Gentoo users, you may put the media-libs/libgpod-9999.ebuild into your personal ebuild repo.

Note : I removed the doc USE flag from the ebuild due to the latest libgpod somehow needs gtk-doc to make distcheck to work correctly. Bad news, KDE fan boys :(

3 Reponses So Far ↓

  1. First, I have to say Sorry , this comment doesn’t concern you topic.
    cntinue……
    What do you think about Archlinux ?
    compared with gentoo?

  2. As you see, I wrote some articles concerning Archlinux. IMHO, I prefer Archlinux to Ubuntu, becuz Archlinux makes me feel like working under Gentoo.

    Archlinux is flexible and customizable. You can either use pacman to install the binary package instantly, or would rather compile the source package via abs (you cant miss the yaourt tool!).

    However, the shortcoming of pkgbuild is lack of USE flag control compared with Gentoo. You’d have to modify the pkgbuild file to meet your own needs.

    In aggregate, I would highly recommend Archlinux for these reasons below:

    1. You’re lazy but squeamish, need a clean system rather than finding a lot of things you dont need already installed in your system
    2. Sometimes you’d like to build the package from source without getting your system dirty
    3. Your comp is too old to compile everything, but you need a linux environment as soon as possible.

  3. clear , thank you for your professional advice:)

Leave a Reply ↓