Play video on your iPod

To install iPodLinux, which comes bundled with some games and applications, on your iPod, you'll need the following items.

• A first-generation, second-generation, or third-generation iPod. Again, fourth-generation iPods, iPod Minis, and iPod Shuffles are not supported by a stable version of iPodLinux.
• Download the iPod Linux installer from SourceForge.net
• A zip utility, such as WinZip.
  
  

To watch movies on your iPod, you'll need a few extra pieces of free software.

To format your own movies to play on your iPod, you'll need Cygwin, Mplayer for Windows, and the 2bppconv file we'll mention below. Be sure to follow the instructions carefully regarding where to install each file.

Download and install Cygwin
Cygwin is a Unix/Linux terminal emulator for Windows. Using it in conjunction with Mplayer (see below) lets you configure videos to play on your iPod.

First, download and install Cygwin on your Windows PC. Install it directly to your C: drive so that the directory is C:\cygwin.

Download Mplayer and put it in the Cygwin folder
Download and install the Mplayer for Windows ZIP file. Mplayer is an open-source video player that we'll use to convert videos to play on your iPod. Extract the Mplayer files from the ZIP package and save them to the following directory: C:\cygwin.

Place 2bppconv in your Mplayer folder
If your iPod has a grayscale screen (and since we're working with older iPods, it almost certainly does), you'll also need to download and install a color-to-grayscale conversion program called 2bppconv. Follow these directions for installation.

• Right-click the following link: 2bppconv.
• Select Save Target As, then remove the .txt extension from the 2bppconv.txt filename.
• Save the file to the following directory: C:\cygwin\mplayer
  
  

Now that all the prep work is done (we'll put it to good use later), it's time to back up your iPod in case anything goes wrong. We'll do that in the next step.