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Some people think the iPod and iTunes are podcasting and portable, digital music.

Others chafe at the restrictions placed upon the user by Apple.

Count me among the latter.

I do have an iPod. It cost some $300 about seven years go. I don't know if I ever wrote my post about how I used to use it as a backup drive, barely as a music/podcast player, until I removed its protective rubber cover, let it get suitably scratched and then used the hell out of it for a subsequent year.

But ... I couldn't load it with files from any of my computers. No, it was and still can only be updated from the iBook G4 on which we run iTunes. I can't drop a music file or podcast onto it from my iTunes installation on my Windows PC, from which I manage the iTunes portion of the Daily News' growing number of podcasts.

I can't manage the iPod in Linux. Aside from the iTunes way of attempting to force users to use one computer and one computer only to manage any given iPod (and my situation is even more complicated due to my iPod being initialized on a Mac and having the HFS+ filesystem, as opposed to the more-easily dealt-with FAT filesystem on Windows-initialized iPods), I just want to use my device the way I want, on the OSes I want, and with the files delivered the way I want.

So I bought a $20 player — the 4 GB Centron Craze MP3 Player — that, to be frank, sounds great but has a shit user interface.

But it only cost $20, has a small but useful LCD screen and allows me to drag/drop files of any sort onto it from any PC and OS that reads FAT filesystems (and that's EVERY OS out there, pretty much).

Right now I'm pretty much only using it for podcasts, and I've followed the lead of Fab and Dan of Linux Outlaws in using gPodder.

GPodder is fast, cross-platform (Linux, FreeBSD, even Windows), supports both iPods and "regular" MP3 players, and provides a most excellent way to "catch," listen to and load up podcasts on your favorite audio device.

The way I have it set up in Debian Lenny, with the now-ancient version 0.12.1 (Debian Sid has version 2.1), it can download a dozen podcasts simultaneously and automatically drops them on my cheap MP3 player.

While I bought the Centon player (navigation is horrible; did I mention that?) on impulse, there are better MP3 players that aren't the iPod, don't sell for iPod prices, and unlike the iPod and my Centon play the Ogg and FLAC open/free file formats.

Among these are the Sansa Clip, which I've heard of but never heard. I'll be on the lookout for one of these, and I'm more than a little eager to start ripping CDs to the lossless FLAC format. I even have the Ogg codec installed on my Windows PC, and I use the Windows Media Player to listen to Ogg-encoded music.

I guess that means my geek credentials are pretty much being revoked, using WMP to listen to Ogg ... but I don't put a lot of stock into said credentials, and I'm OK with them being pulled by the rest of the geek theocracy.

Before that happens, I encourage all of you to give gPodder a try.

According to WorksWithU (where I'm checking daily for Ubuntu developments, by the way), a Ubuntu One Music Store is in the works for the 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" release. Though nothing is confirmed in the slightest, speculation is that Ubuntu parent Canonical is working with Amazon to meld its own Apple-fighting music service into Ubuntu proper in order to fill one of the more cavernous gaps in the Linux app stack.

WorksWithU's Joe Panettieri writes:

I am reaching out to Canonical for a briefing on the Ubuntu One Music Store. But in the meantime I can tell you this: When my kids run Ubuntu on a range of netbooks and desktops at home there's only one "consumer" application they miss: Apple's iTunes. If the Ubuntu One Music Store fills that void, Canonical could successfully push Ubuntu deeper into the consumer market.

Moving your iTunes library from one computer to another sounds like a pain in the ass.

The guy who wrote this article said it's not all that hard. Looks hard to me.

That said, iLounge, focusing on iPhone, iTunes, iPod and probably lots of other stuff that begins with a small "i," looks like a great resource for anybody who uses any of these products.

Google didn't get where it is today by charging end users for software and charging them again and again for endless upgrades.

Back in the early Macintosh days (i.e. the mid- to late '80s), Apple used the OS to sell hardware. Upgrades were free.

Today, Apple sells music at 99 cents a track, but what they're really selling is iPods, iPhones, iMacs, and any other damn thing they can slap an "i" in front of. And while the music is available in 99-cent increments, the iTunes software -- which runs in Windows and OS X -- has always been free. iPods would've never gotten to be such a huge business in any other way.

It's no different for the OS.

With that in mind, Apple wins on the desktop -- and crushes Microsoft -- in one way:

Make OS X free -- or very cheap. And make it run on Windows-compatible PCs.

Everybody wants that new MacBook Air. They'll still want it, even if they can also run OS X on a crappy PC. While not getting $129 for each OS X upgrade, Apple would get market share, still move a whole lot of hardaware. And they would gain that all-important "mindshare."

Most people have heard of Linux, but few have seen it on the desktop, even though they "use" it every day when they browse the Web. Most have seen OS X, a significant portion have used it a bit, and a few are rabid fans.

And while I'd like to see OS X go free and open-source, I won't hold my breath on that one. As I said above, I'd prefer -- at a minimum -- that Apple port OS X to Windows PCs, i.e. make a native version that installs from CD and runs on non-Apple hardware.

But even making new versions of OS X free for Apple hardware would prompt more users to upgrade the software. When running the latest and greatest gets slow, they'd be more inclined to buy new hardware, most likely from Apple.

Right now I'm still running my 2003-era iBook on OS X 10.3. I saved $129 twice by not upgrading to 10.4 and 10.5. I can't even use Apple's newest Safari browser because it doesn't run on 10.3. Firefox does, so that's what I use. As a result, Apple misses out on any browser-generated ad revenue. Would 10.5 run well on my laptop? Who knows? I sure don't want to spend $129 to find out.

By flooding the market with a free or very cheap OS X, Apple could blunt the effects of Microsoft Windows, which customers pay for but don't really feel they're paying for because the cost is bundled into just about every PC sold.

Even if a free OS wouldn't fly at Apple HQ, if the company still ported OS X to Windows-compatible PCs, they could -- and should -- compete with Microsoft when it comes to pre-installed operating systems on non-Apple hardware.

Imagine if you could order a PC from Dell with Windows, Linux or OS X ... there would be real competition for the hearts and minds of computer users everywhere from the home to the enterprise.

And since Apple's hardware is so ultra-cool (and ultra-pricey), they'd probably sell even more of it if OS X had a much larger of the overall worldwide OS pie.

Here's a great tutorial on how to configure Wine to run iTunes in Linux.

Wine -- the Linux emulation program that allows you to run Windows apps without running the Windows OS itself is notoriously difficult to run successfully, and tutorials like this are a great help. While there are other ways to manage music on the iPod under Linux (Amarok comes to mind), it makes sense to have iTunes as a choice.

And for those who really don't want to get their hands dirty with Wine, Codeweavers' Crossover Linux automates the nasty bits of the Wine experience and costs only $39.99. Well worth it. And there's a trial version so you don't have to fork over the money until you know it works.

But if you do want to learn the ways of Wine (and not pay anything, ever). the tutorial above is a great way to get started.

Other Windows apps that generally run under Wine: Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer and Photoshop. So if you're somehow wedded to the commercial apps over the free alternatives (OpenOffice, KOffice, Firefox, the GIMP), you can have your free OS cake and eat it, too, with Wine.