I do not remember what tutorial i had originally followed to make my ipod work. however i was pointed to this one by a member of this listserv: http://lilserenity.wordpress.com/2007/12/22/virgin-mobile-praise-ubuntu-and-ipod-nano-3g/
it seems quite similar to what i followed, including changing the libgpod (which i compiled but here are provided as .deb) and using the read-sysinfo-extended script. so this should work. thanks again for the help and hope this allows you to use your ipods with our OS of choice. note: I never got the artwork to display properly even though it uploads to the ipod. if there's a way to do it please tell me. it might be that following the above link's steps will enable artwork as it's a more recent article (looks to be from around christams time). i'd like to hear whether it worked or not... ~Brian.
