Now that the desktop is starting to settle down it was time to look at support for my iPod Shuffle and ripping tracks from CD. gtkpod proved to be the solution for the first and Grip seems to do a good job for the second one. Took less than 20 mins to install both, which is less time that iTunes takes! Actually mounting the iPod is pretty easy as well, though it would be even better if it were a little more automated, so might have to look at that in due time.

The CD drive is a bit noisy, which really shows up as the rest of the system is nice and quiet, so it might have to be replaced at some point in the future.