Jump straight to the summary if you are impatient….

I tried to add songs to it with Rythmbox, Banshee, gtkpod, gtkpod-aac all these applications could add songs but none of them played (and yes I first converted my precious ogg files into mp3)

It turns out the device needs to be initialized on a windows machine with iTunes installed, so off I went to hunt for windows machines, luckily I realized that I have not yet formated a windows partition on one of my laptops so I was off to a good start. After that I tried to add songs to the iPod again with these various programs and while I could add songs some songs played and others didn’t and when I removed songs they dissapeared from all the programs but still played in the shuffle. Aaaargh and frustration.

As I was trying to install iTunes in crossover office and realizing that the version that works with crossover is to old for the shuffle I was ready to toss the thing and jump off a cliff when I found this little python script. Thank God for hackers! It is a tiny script that sits on your iPod and when you copied the mp3 files over to your shuffle in any directory you like with any name you want, you just run the script and viola

presto working iPod shuffle.

Summary

1. Initialize (or restore if you allready have stuff on it) the iPod shuffle in iTunes on a windoze machine
2. Copy all the music you want in mp3 format (get SoundConverter with ‘apt-get install soundconverter‘ if your files are in other formats) to your iPod shuffle in nautilus
   using any file structure that makes sense to you
3. Copy in the rebuild-db.py script to the root of your iPod shuffle and double click it in nautilus (and select run)
4. Eject your iPod shuffle and enjoy your music

Set up a linux system and use it as your only OS during prep period

Experience is your friend. Make sure you have a system to work on and test all the commands and systems that will show up on the test. Everyday use of a Linux machine will trim you in every area of LPI whether you want it or not. It is not enough just to sysadmin a webserver somewhere, to pass this certification you have to get down and dirty with Linux everyday workstation use. Choose a distribution that use RPM or DPKG (Suse, RedHat, Debian)

Download the objectives from LPI

The first step is to go to LPI and find the objectives for 117-101 and 117-102 these two pages will be the best resource and the most accurate descriptin as to what will actually be on the test.

RTFM

For each objective read the man page on the key commands and files. Then read it again

Lay your hands on me

Test every command, set up every subsystem. You need to set up a sendmail, Apache, Samba, NFS, Named, etc. write some Bash scripts for everyday use, tweak your system untill you know every dark nook and cranny. Even tho the test is a written test there will be questions that will test if you have actually grasped the key concepts not only memorized commands. Even though it is a written test it is very hands on!