I don't have an Ipod and never will have as I believe you need itunes (downloaded easily enough) to manage the music. That might be fine, but when I did it as a favour to load up an ipod for someone without a PC at the time, it completely took over my music, and became the default player and that I didn't want. I am sure you can rip your own CD's, but I don't know for sure.
Also I believe you can only buy stuff from itunes, and that has DRM, wich again issomething I don't want - if I buy stuff, I want to buy it, not effectively lease it tp play on a few machines. I buy now from Amazon, which are DRM free.
Course, as I said, I don't have an Ipod, so I am only talking based on my brief experience - someone will know more