Android mobile phone owners have it easy when they want to connect their devices to a Linux computer. Android interfaces pretty seamlessly with Linux.

iPhone users on the other hand have a harder time accessing their devices using Linux. In particular, when you want to access the camera photo directory DCIM from a Linux device. 

In order to do this, you first need to install a file system tool called iFuse on your Linux system.

iFuse makes use of the software library called libmobiledevice. iFuse makes it very easy to access files on any iOS device. 

How To Install iFuse on Linux Ubuntu

Installing iFuse is easy on most Linux operating systems:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install ifuse

Using iFuse

iFuse isn’t a program as such, rather its a utility that runs in the background.

Once its installed open the Linux Ubuntu File Manager

Then plug in your iPhone or other iOS device to your Linux computer.

When you have plugged in the device, unlock it and click on the “trust” prompt that appears on the screen.

Your iOS device should then appear in the File Manager as a mounted device.

You can then click on it to browse the contents.

Bear in mind that iFuse is not supported by Apple as they dont support Linux systems.

Libimobiledevice is written in C and uses native protocols to communicate with services running on iOS devices. It doesn’t use libraries from Apple, so it’s free and open source software. It supports Apple’s earliest iOS devices right up to the current models.

root@asus:~# ifuse –help
Usage: ifuse MOUNTPOINT [OPTIONS]
Mount directories of an iOS device locally using fuse.

-o opt,[opt…] mount options
-u, –udid UDID mount specific device by UDID
-h, –help print usage information
-V, –version print version
-d, –debug enable libimobiledevice communication debugging
–documents APPID mount ‘Documents’ folder of app identified by APPID
–container APPID mount sandbox root of an app identified by APPID
–list-apps list installed apps that have file sharing enabled
–root mount root file system (jailbroken device required)

Example:

$ ifuse /media/iPhone –root

This mounts the root filesystem of the first attached device on
this computer in the directory /media/iPhone.

root@asus:~#

ifuse – Mount filesystem of an iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad or Apple TV.

SYNOPSIS
ifuse <mount_point> [OPTIONS]

DESCRIPTION
Mount filesystem of an iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad or Apple TV

Example:

ifuse /media/iPhone –root

This mounts the root filesystem of the first attached device on this computer in the
directory /media/iPhone.

OPTIONS
-o opt,[opt…]
mount options.

-u|–uuid UUID
mount specific device by its 40-digit device UUID.

-h|–help
prints usage information.

-V|–version
print version.

–appid APPID
mount ‘Documents’ folder of app identified by APPID.

–root mount root file system (jailbroken device required).

–debug
enable libimobiledevice communication debugging.

root@asus:~#