"I wanted to set up a friend's iPod on Linux. The iPod was supplied in Mac format and must be re-formatted. This is typically done using a suitable Mac or Windows computer but I don't have either of these, just Linux. There are published instructions for setting up an iPod using Linux but they don't seem to apply to this model as they refer to a firmware file which, as far as I can see, doesn't exist on this iPod. According to the iPod display, it is a model 'MA978 version 1.1 Mac' (although the number shown on the case is A1236).
"This is my recipe for setting up an MA978 Mac-format iPod on Debian 4.0 GNU/Linux, based on information gleaned from the web (see references at the end of this document).
