Question : Problem: How do I convert a video to iPod format in Linux?

Does anybody know how to use mencoder to convert a video into a format the Touch understands without having to re-encode thru iTunes?
(or if anyone knows of another command-line program that would do it, I'd be willing to try it)

Answer : Problem: How do I convert a video to iPod format in Linux?

You may want to try this shell script:
http://code.google.com/p/podencoder

There are extensive instructions listed inside the script.
For a quickstart, copying the script as "podencoder" to a folder in your $PATH, chmod'ding it to executable, and then running
podencoder file
should work.

Note: I did not test this, I don't even own (nor need) an iPod. But it worked for this guy: http://www.jmadden.eu/index.php/category/tech/linux/