My daughter has been using an iPod mini (since Christmas, as it was her Christamas present from me) with a PC I chucked together from spares mostly just for this particular job. I formatted the iPod for use with Windows using a borrowed laptop from work and the Apple software. This seemed like a safer option that using Linux tools although I have read this has been done (I don't like risk, Windows is a fine utilty.....). I added a firewire card to the PC bought off eBay for less than £10, I had to make a couple of entries in fstab and then installed gtkpod, with a few changes to preferences, I basically had it working. Getting audio from CD is a case of using RipperX, but you need the lame encoder, not toolame (which encodes to mp2) - all in all, a good job, automount, auto backup and so far, no corruption to the iPod.

All of this was a better solution than buying Windows XP, or buying OSX upgrade for her mother's Mac..... both of which were options.

Let me know if you need more info' - most of what I managed to do was with help of other people and Google links.

Stoo.....