iPod mini + ASUS P3B-F motherboard + FreeBSD 5.4-STABLE

[Toomas Aas]

I wrote:

> Is anyone successfully using this mix of old and new technology? I'm 
> trying to, but I'm not succeeding.
> 
> The on-board USB ports on this machine are USB1.1, which, while not 
> "officially" supported by Apple, should work with iPod according to many 
> reports on the Net. I do understand that it would be very slow, though.
> 
> The very first time I took the iPod out of the package and connected it 
> to my PC, it was recognized successfully:
> 
> May 30 20:08:32 premium kernel: umass0: Apple iPod mini, rev 2.00/0.01, 
> addr 2
> May 30 20:12:52 premium kernel: da0 at umass-sim0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0
> May 30 20:12:52 premium kernel: da0: <Apple iPod 1.62> Removable Direct 
> Access SCSI-0 device
> 
> Note, however, that there's a 4 minute time gap between umass0 and da0 
> lines.
> 
> Since my machine doesn't have any support for reading the HFS (or is it 
> HFS+?) file system which is what the iPod has out of the box, I couldn't 
> however mount any slices from da0. I tried disconnecting and 
> re-connecting the iPod a few times and now the umass0 line appears but 
> the da0 line doesn't appear at all, even after waiting for 40 minutes.
> 
> I went to a Windows PC with USB2 ports and connected the iPod to that. 
> It was recognized immediately and re-formatted as FAT32. Back to my 
> FreeBSD PC and there's no change - when plugging in the iPod, the umass0 
> line appears in dmesg, but the da0 line doesn't.
> 
> What would be the best course of action to get the iPod talking to my 
> FreeBSD box?
> - install an add-on USB 2.0 card ?
> - update the PC-s BIOS to latest version (there is a newer version than
>   the one I'm running now)?
> - update to latest -STABLE (current checkout is from May 10)?
> - wipe FreeBSD and install Windows? (just kidding!!!)
> - something else?

I have now tried all the suggestions above, except installing Windows or 
doing "something else", and I still haven't gotten any further.

The most irritating thing is that if I boot my PC with Knoppix 3.7 CD, I 
can successfully mount the iPod as /dev/sda2.

Some more googling has revealed that similar problems have been reported 
with  OpenBSD and NetBSD, but no solution seems to exist:

http://www.monkey.org/openbsd/archive2/misc/200501/msg00149.html
http://mail-index.netbsd.org/tech-kern/2004/09/14/0000.html

One last resort I can think of is FireWire. But for that I would need to 
get a FireWire adapter (any recommendations?) and iPod dock connector to 
FireWire cable. Both ca 20 EUR. And I'm still not sure it would work.

I'm planning to file a PR on this. The kernel with USB_DEBUG is being 
built as I type. But for now it looks like FreeBSD users would do well 
to steer clear of the 2nd generation iPod mini.

---
... Work is for people who don't know how to fish.