How to download pictures etc. from an iPad or other iDevice
jimc, 2012-09-17

Use the charging cable to connect the iPad to a USB port (type A)
on the Linux box.  
Temporarily disable password locking on the iPad.  

lsusb
    Bus 001 Device 015: ID 05ac:12a4 Apple, Inc.
mkdir /tmp/jimc.junk/ipad
ifuse /tmp/jimc.junk/ipad
(read stuff from this directory; write access should also be possible
but one user reported a checksum error when using an unspecified library
version.)
fusermount -u /tmp/jimc.junk/ipad

Photos taken with iPad are in ./DCIM/100APPLE/IMG_0001.JPG (3 items)
Imported images: ./DCIM/100IMPRT/IMG_0128.JPG (295 items)
Albums: ./PhotoData/AlbumsMetadata/${GUID}.albummetadata (4 items)
Cache?: ./PhotoData/Caches/StackedImages/CachedStackedImage-${GUID}.BKS (10 x)
Edited?: ./PhotoData/Metadata/DCIM/100IMPRT/IMG_0128.JPG (to 432, 139 items)
./PhotoStreamsData/1245162553/.MISC/${GUID} (528 items)
./PhotoStreamsData/1245162553/100APPLE/IMG_0001.JPG (264 items)


With ifuse and libimobiledevice1 identified on SuSE Build Service as for the
Official Release, I had the following problems:

ifuse /tmp/jimc.junk/ipad
it messes around for 60 secs then exits, broken pipe.

Tried again...  Error message says:
Please disable the password protection on your device and try again.
The device does not allow pairing as long as a password has been set.
You can enable it again after the connection succeeded.

Tried again... Message:
Failed to connect to lockdownd service on the device.
Try again. If it still fails try rebooting your device.

To reboot an iPad, hold down the sleep button (northeast corner) until
a pop-up appears about power off, then slide the slider.  
After power is off, Hold down the sleep button until the Apple logo appears.

That didn't help.  Dead end.

In a zillion forum postings, people report this error but with no solution.
Conspiracy theorists attribute the problem to "improvements" in the protocol
introduced to prevent 3rd party apps from interacting with the iDevice.

Buried about 50 items down a Google search, on a Puppy Linux forum:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=59183&start=45&sid=b1214194d30b17580fad185d63c192db
tempestuous (2012-04-08) says about 2 weeks ago a new version of 
libmobiledevice was posted.  He recompiled it plus apps that use it
(gtkpod libanjuta gstreamer-audio).  
redandwhitestripes tried it successfully except for a checksum problem when
writing. 
Lobster gets "fuse: mountpoint not empty, use nonempty mount option"

Upgraded to ifuse-1.1.2 and libimobiledevice3-1.1.4 from SuSE Build Service. 
ifuse now mounts something with no error messages.  Has content.