138      iPhone_iPad_Mac_apple

How to copy files to my iPad from Linux via USB

Hello. I'm using Ubuntu Trusty (14.04). iTunes is not available for this platform (AFAICS).

A friend recently gifted me an iPad Air. I have several ebooks from archive.org and music files which I purchased locally here in India (as CDs) which I'd like to transfer to my iPad via USB to read/hear etc. I'd like to know what is the official method of transferring files to the iPad via USB so I can use them there.

This AskUbuntu question suggests a method but it does not work on iOS 7 on my iPad Air. I am able to transfer the files to the iPad sure enough (and the storage space available decreases as I can verify from the iPad Control Center) but those files do not show up on Adobe Reader's list or the built-in music player's list.

Please help. Thanks.

You should be able to download the books from archive.org directly to your iPad if they are PDFs. Once you open them in Safari, you can then open them in the PDF reader of your choice on your iPad. You could also email them to yourself.

The only way to transfer music to the iPad's native player is by using iTunes. However, if you have a DropBox account, you can store the music in your DropBox account and stream it to your iPad. You can also use something like the Sandisk Wireless Flash Drive to store your music and play it on the iPad from their.

You probably figured some way to do what you wanted by now, but for anyone looking for the same thing, if you don't have any issues with running a Python script (this one in particular is harmless), follow directions from this answer. Worked flawlessly for me after correcting a few indents which in Python are critical, but here's the script exactly as I ran it:

# From https://superuser.com/questions/661419/how-do-i-transfer-pdf-files-to-my-ipad-to-take-on-a-business-trip

import os

header = "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?>\n<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC \"-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN\" \"https://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd\">\n<plist version=\"1.0\">\n<dict>\n <key>Books</key>\n  <array>\n"

footer = "  </array>\n</dict>\n</plist>"
fst = "     <dict>\n            <key>Inserted-By-iBooks</key>\n         <false/>\n             <key>Name</key>\n            <string>"
tnd = "</string>\n          <key>Page Progression Direction</key>\n         <string>default</string>\n          <key>Path</key>\n           <string>"
lst = "</string>\n          <key>s</key>\n          <string>0</string>\n        </dict>\n"
bodystr = ""

for root, dirs, files in os.walk(".", topdown=False):
    for name in files:
        sttmp = os.path.join(root, name)[2:]
        if not ".pdf" in sttmp:
            continue
        bodystr+=fst
        bodystr+=sttmp[:-4]
        bodystr+=tnd
        bodystr+=sttmp
        bodystr+=lst

file = open("Managed.plist", "w")
file.write(header);
file.write(bodystr);
file.write(footer);
file.close();