There are programs and/or scripts out there that can automate the process of sticking album art in the album folders, thus rendering them more rockbox-friendly. They are generally platform dependent though, you'd have to do some googling to see if one met your needs.

BrianW62

Just did this 2 days ago (Saturday) to my iPod Nano 2GB. Works great. My favorite part: playing Gameboy Color games on it.

bRADynelson

Ok i have an Alpine head unit in my car with the "full speed" direct ipod connection, if i install rockbox will i still be able to use it?

detach

Sadly I've never owned a Rockboxable player (Zen Touch and Zune). But I do love the concept.

skyhopper88

@Khamel: As far as I know it will work just fine. I've only rockboxed my old Archos JBR and SanDisk Sansa so far, but the screen drivers ought to handle things just fine. You can always hop on the rockbox users mailing list ([www.rockbox.org]) if you have more questions.

BrianW62

it can be removed very simple... attack ipod to computer go to files and delete the .rockbox folder.. done! i have a sandisk 8gb and it gives alot more life. .. sadly: it cannot play videos your gonna have to load the previous boot to watch videos (which is very easy just hold back when its starting up) ANOTHER BIG PROBLEM is that it can only see one type of album art .bmp correct me if im wrong.. and it cannot view them if there imbued in the song which sucks cause i dont have any album art on it even though i want some!

mzeal93

can it be removed?

glaeven

@tobiasly: Apologies for the typo—all fixed.

Adam Pash

is it worth it to rockbox my 4g (non color screen!) ipod? will doom work in black and white?

Khamel

"Breath" is a noun. "Breathe" is the verb you're looking for (as in "Breathe new life").

tobiasly

@johnsmith1234: Because we posted once about the release and second time with a screenshot tour of what Rockbox offers and a walkthrough on how to install it? If that kind of "repetition" bothers you, you might want to try elsewhere.

Adam Pash

rockboy and zxbox.

I just realized they existed.

Ipod touch can wait for a while.

helldiver

Hmmm... Maybe I should un-bury that 6 gig iPod Mini I have somewhere around here...

Krustoff

Repeat much? Talk about recycled content

Unfortunately my Sandisk C250 is a "V2" so rockbox doesn't work with my player. A shame because the default firmware sucks.

johnsmith1234

No video breaks the deal for me. Well, that and it doesn't seem to be supported for my 2nd gen nano.

smartboydan hates college

@BrianW62:

Yeah, on my Sansa E250 if I hold theleft button it goes into the original firmware.
I then sync via media player. Also, this kind of defeats the purpose, but I play music in the original firmware as well because Rockbox really burns through the battery on Sansas.

helldiver

@Khamel: At worst, you will have some contrast issues as I did with my iRiver. The lcd didn't really have a gray so much as black, white, and flicker, so it was hard to see what was going on. But if it worked on the iRiver it should work fine on the 4g

AndyMan1

Rockbox doesn't play DRM'ed music - and shame on you for buying any. =P

And once you install rockbox you'll manually manage your music, or use some other kind of software to do the syncing. No more iTunes. Well, you could do a form of "dual-booting", actually...

BrianW62

@Adam Pash: I _think_ he was referring to the fact that originally there were two identical copies of the preceding post, the one from "smartboydan hates college". ;)

BrianW62

@detach:

I am wondering about a similar thing. Wife is using my old 20gb 3rd gen clickwheel iPod in her Ford Edge. She has the Sync system which indexes her media, voice activates it, and directly plays it through her stereo. Would this installation still allow it to sync with Sync?

itloser

Wouldn't this make all that iTunes store DRM'ed music unplayable? Assuming you had DRM'ed music, that is... Silly Apple.

tonyx3

After installing this, does your ipod still sync with iTunes? Is it possible to get it to sync with something else using the new firmware?

Getting away from iTunes would be a big win for me...

Munkii

@Adam Pash:

Rockbox is so great, you should write about it weekly!

I only wish there was something like that for the Touch.

helldiver

"Even better, Rockbox supports custom themes that look incredible."

The best of the bunch is Cabbie3 (as seen in the first image after that quote.)
And while it's pretty cool, and definitely different than the standard Apple iBoring theme, I wouldn't go as far as saying any of the themes are Incredible.

pconnors

@Darkmatter91:

The lack of Album art, as small an issue as it may be, is one of the reasons I may be uninstalling RockBox soon.

pconnors

@glaeven:

Yes, in general you should be able to just restore your device in iTunes, assuming you're referring to an ipod.

I've had an old iRiver using Rockbox for years (which I could restore if I really wanted to also), and it was my primary music device until I got an iphone. I still like the interface for rockbox, but I'm just too lazy to carry around multiple players.

jimejim

Yeah, I try to load it on my 2GB Nano, and, when it tries to boot, gives me the error that rockbox.ipod could not be found.

Any ideas?

jccarr117

I used to use Rockbox, but I went back to the apple default on my iPod Nano just because I like how simple and featureless the apple os is -)

But if you love having tons of features on your fingertips, RockBox is amazing - and I really enjoyed it while I used it.

Here's a tip: you can run both RockBox and the Apple OS at the same time so you can sync all of your songs from iTunes just like you normally would, and RockBox will detect them and be able to play them. This is great for people like me who love how simple it is to transfer songs from iTunes to your iPod. In other words, don't overlook RockBox simply because of the file transfer issues.

marksman7328

STOP IT LIFEHACKER. You trick me and I install everything :) I have used RB about 3 diff times and the thing it always comes back to is. 1. I still want to use itunes for simplicity. 2. It CAN'T read embedded album art. 3. Video playback (at least on iPod 5g) is awful

Darkmatter91

@itloser: not yet, but they work to solve this: [forums.rockbox.org]

Bonhomme7h

Two years ago i owned a glorious Gigabeat S60 (the portable media player that was supposed to change the game)

I think Rockbox for the S series was "just around the corner" for the entire eighteen months i had it. I don't think it ever came.

General Halfshaftery

@jccarr117: first of all, check that the rockbox.ipod file is in the correct location (i.e. in the ".rockbox" folder from the player's root)...

Drakar2007

@Munkii: yes, it's called "hook up your player and copy the files straight onto it without having to 'synch' anything".

Drakar2007

@Munkii: You can use a sync software à la Syncback:

[www.snapfiles.com]

Bonhomme7h

If you have one of the original Archos devices (Jukebox, Studio, Jukebox Recorder, Jukebox Recorder V2 or FM Recorder), upgrading to Rockbox 3.0 may be a bad idea. They come with only 2 megs of RAM, and Rockbox uses up too much of that. Also, the changes in newer versions are more applicable to newer devices.

dreamlayers

I tried Rockbox on my Sansa e260 and the install was really easy. Unfortunately, I thought the menus were so tiny as to be unusable, so I uninstalled it. It seemed like it had a lot of promise, though.

edosan

@Drakar2007: How do you do that? Say, if you're on a Mac. I don't see any files through Finder. I tried "Complete Install" and figured that would put things where they need to go automagically. Not so, apparently. Error, error.

fakerjohn

That's cool. I wish my mp3 player wasn't too old for this. But heck, all I really want from it is music, and it does that pretty well.

Natnie

Doom on a 1st gen mini is scary for all the wrong reasons! Ha. Gave it a shot, but I think I'm going to back to the original. There's something about the iPod's simplicity that just...works. Nice to know such a thing it possible though.

Cerrav

Adam, you had me at Sodoku.

Git Em SteveDave loves this guy-->

@Bonhomme7h: I don't like the rockbox gui as much as the original on my ipod, but it is really nice to be able to copy music over without a clunky interface like itunes.

The lack of docking support on the basic release is the main reason that I switched back. I think I'll give this a try.

mechfluff

How's the battery life?

Also, last time I tried rockbox, I was so confused how to quickly exit the games.

I'd love to have this, but have the automatic boot be apple and the alternative boot be rockbox (for when I feel like games). Any advice? Meh, I guess I should search the site, but I'm too lazy right now.

goodywitch

I'm tempted to get this just for the Flying Spaghetti Monster theme.

atmtarzy

@Darkmatter91:
and the interface is slow and laggy
and it eats battery life

(i just installed and uninstalled Rockbox for the 6th time, I keep thinking it's the holy grail, and it keeps letting me down...)

hobnob

first of all, how the heck do I get out of Doom? Second, my computer doesn't recognize the device anymore, so I can't uninstall. And, yes, didn't see any files, said no files in the database (I had 27G of music). I don't know what the fuk I am going to do.

tapirul

it just fuked up my iPod.

tapirul

Its totally useless since I got the nano 2g. Other than that, loads of the new ipods aren't supported. Why could Apple just make it more open source? Even though everybody knows that rockbox is better than the software inside ipod by default, people will still buy your machine. I just really wish that the rockbox team could really build up the compatibility.

delagato

Suddenly I'm reconsidering my aversion to iPods.

xenobyte72

Thanks to marksman7328 on that comment that you can have both Rockbox and Apple OS.
Still unfortunate that its not available on nano 2nd gen. Anyone know if there are plans for this to be released?

andrewdmik

@marksman7328:

and how do we do that please?

i'd love for the pod to function a wee bit differently but with 15,000 tracks on itunes, and happy enough with its function i'd prefer to keep that option

ffolliet

@goodywitch:
Battery life on iPods used to be inferior but those problems have been fixed.

Games can generally be exited by pressing menu+select.

You'll probably be ok with Rockbox being the default boot. The Apple firmware normally suspends to RAM or hibernates and when you turn the iPod on again you're back in it even if Rockbox is the default to boot to.

dreamlayers

My only real concern is the comment that video playback didn't work well on an iPod 5g (which is what I have). What was the issue more specifically ? What video formats does Rockbox support ? (perhaps it's more efficient at playing back some formats vs. others ?)

Oh, and I got a real laugh from Darkmatter's (?) comment above, where he/she used the words "iTunes" and "simplicity" in the same sentence :D iTunes has got to have one of the most obtuse / non obvious user interfaces I've ever seen... (and I like Apple stuff for the most part)

dhuff

Does Rockbox sync with MediaMonkey?

gpzbc

@edosan: you can change the font.

global_dev

@mzeal93: I am using the last version of rockbox on my sansa e260 and I just watched Drunken Master I on the sansa's screen. I am pretty sure it was a video. Its also an mpeg2 file. read the instructions

global_dev

@delagato:
HAHAHAHAHAHA....apple make something open source?

ai.scorp

@hobnob: yes! finally a negative comment. i like rockbox but I agree. It just ran a little slow and ate a lil too much battery life.

mrpeepants

Hmmm... time to blow the dust off the old ipod Photo. Does anyone know if it will play video on the Photo?

PunkMunkey

Well, OK...a quick trip to the Rockbox wiki answered my questions ;) It only plays MPEG 1 & 2 files, not at a great frame rate, and doesn't use the built-in video decoder hardware on the iPod (just the CPU). So basically, Rockbox is for music.

So, anyone got an iTunes alternative for Mac OS X ? with a simple drag-n-drop interface ? Something that'll stop being all hand-holdy & getting in my fecking way ? ;)

dhuff

@Khamel: I have the 4g ipod mini, and doom works. It is pretty hard to see the action, but the game can play. I had a very hard time navigating in the game. You pretty much only have turn left, turn right, walk forward and shoot. For me this was not enough control (I'm a 2 handed FPS player). So I don't play it anymore.

Ryan Fisher

@smartboydan hates college: It plays video just fine. In fact my ipod (4g mini) didn't support video until I installed RockBox. Now it does. The contrast on the screen sucks, so the video isn't great, but I can watch video on it.

Ryan Fisher

I have Rockbox on my 5G iPod. It runs painfully slow, but the fact that I can play back my FLAC files on my iPod more than makes up for that.

bmocbarker

@tobiasly: Critical is an adjective. Thankful is also.

xlerate

I actually think the themes suck, however, all the features and added support is a winner.

I'm a dj, and listen to a lot of dj mixes, Rockbox supports single mp3's w/ a cue file (standard for continuous dj mixes) and it shows as different tracks. Hell I can do a flac + cue. There are so many things I am still playing with on mine. I purposely went and found a 5.5 80gig on ebay just for rockbox.

RJinLA

Any chance Rockbox will support old Creative MP3's?

thedudeabides

Does it work on Zune?

artemisfowl

one of my biggest beefs with apple (and jobs) is that when I got my first ipod I soon realized that you could use iTunes which if you're not into the whole mac thing just blows big BIG donkey ballz, or use winamp, which kinda blows in different ways. In any case, I have felt that I do not have full control over a piece of hardware that I've F$#@ING BOUGHT AND PAID FOR, geebus xmas.

now I'm rocking the iphone 3g and it has both good/bad elements (last update really sped up the sync) but goshdammit I still hate f$#@ing trying to put shit like lectures onto the thing off my PC.

first have to put files 'into' itunes, which I think is bullshit; then have to ONE BY F$#@ING ONE make sure track #s are correct; some files have id coding, some don't - this really f$#@s up the whole process.

itunes just blows at this shit, and frustrates me to no end. makes me wanna hurt stevie. hurt 'em bad.

oh, and after spending all that f4#@ing time doing this shit, if my PC needs the OS redone, or I build a new PC, I have to do it all over again, 'cuz itunes doesn't actually change the id data on my PC file, just within itunes. fasz fasz faszfej!! Jobs, you SUCK. stop making pretty hardware that I wanna buy, or start making PC friendly software, and make it in general more f$#@ing user friendly.

PCs and their assoc programming still give the most flexibility (unless you're a hacker and can set up linux yadda yadda yadda *coughgeek*)

cheers.

banmojo

@xlerate: dude, that's a very funny and appropriate reply. you've nearly made my day. cheers!

banmojo

I've used rockbox on a sansa and on an iriver.
My experience has varied somewhat from the poster's-
1 -- The backgrounds for the themes don't seem to load at all.
2 -- Rockbox seems to be incapable of figuring out when it should refresh its database of mp3s. I know where those settings are, they just don't work; I have to set my mac to manually remove the database files so rockbox is forced to rebuild it to play songs I've just added.

3 -- bookmarking doesn't work. At all.

4 -- To exit games, use the power button.

5 -- Do not use rockbox for more recent versions of the players listed (e.g., the sansa 4G version), lest you turn your player into a paperweight.

Use the rockbox application, don't try to do it manually, it's a complete PITA.

remember that you need to be in non-rockbox mode to connect via usb. Read the docs under your player for help.

dbg1970

Just installed it on my Sansa e260 and will give it a shot. I mostly use my iPod nowadays but I've always hated the Sansa's interface...

Will follow up in a few days.

SaGR

I am afraid that the theme installations didn't work for me but the games are incredible so I am perfectly happy. Being that I'm an idiot, I am living proof that this is so easy an idiot can do it.

haydenphb

@BrianW62: Well actually you can run rockbox "ontop" of ipod os letting boot into if need be and letting itunes continue to sync content

Darkmatter91

@Darkmatter91: Yes, I have not personally experienced battery life problems and while it can't "read" embedded album art there are work around's but having to boot into ipod OS to use the video function sucks -- I u like modding ur ipod use ipodwizard people are doing so crazy stuff with that and it wont crash ur ipod

Darkmatter91

The Linux Action Show guys weren't impressed.

[www.jupiterbroadcasting.com]

Iain Cheyne

@PunkMunkey:

[www.rockbox.org]

Look for pluginMPEG scan over and...yep works for the Photo.

ben

Pity it only works with WinPods, i.e. FAT-formatted iPods, not HFS. It looks like a really good alternative otherwise.

sciamachy

@Darkmatter91: There is a name for software that requires workarounds to function as intended. That word is crap.

Good call on the iPod wizard software. That is way more useful to me than Cockbox

ThickSkinned

@ffolliet: Shut down the ipod. Immediately turn on the Hold switch after turning the ipod back on.

ThickSkinned

I haven't tried Rockbox for a while. After trying 3.0, I remember why I uninstalled it in the first place. It is not an easy, intuitive process to use the software. Current music on the iPod is not recognized until a database is built. Current playlists are not accessible and must be remade from scratch using only the Rockbox software. While I enjoy the games and themes, the unease of use compared to the itunes software makes this a can't uninstall quickly enough type of software. At least uninstalling was painless.

ThickSkinned

Sansa e200s are on woot all the time. The 2GB model usually goes for about $35, and has a microSD slot (removable media! Yay!) for swapping your huge podcast backlogs, Librivox compilations, ripped audiobooks, vast music library, and slot music albums.

Add a podcatcher that runs from the device (like podcastready), and you can update your podcasts from any machine.

Use a bash script with eyeD3 to extract the album art in an autorun.sh script, and you're all set.

brianary

@Darkmatter91: There are themes that support album art (it reads a bitmap out of the album directory).

InfectedWithDrew

@Munkii: Winamp can sync media players.

InfectedWithDrew

@artemisfowl: No.

InfectedWithDrew

@jimejim: It doesn't need to be removed - it's a dual-boot. You'll just have to hold a button during boot if you want to boot the original firmware.

InfectedWithDrew

I use rockbox on my Sansa. Works great. There are official builds and custom builds. I recommend you research and find a custom build that you like.

JamalFantazmoto

Loved RB when I used it...however I reverted back to the regular iPod OS as it used to annoy me that with RockBox running my iPod wont 'sleep'. Booting up if i haven't listened to if for a couple of hours just got on my nerves. Also does this affect battery life/HD life?

ZebediahIrus

installed it on my 4th gen ipod- It wiped all the music.! OK. I'm not stupid, I have it all b/u on hard drive. But it sure didn't say that anywhere. Just sayin..

RogerGaia

"Rockbox supports custom themes that look incredible" WTF?? They all look horrible! The devs need to spend some time getting away from that stupid text menu thing. I installed it on my GFs mp3 player, but she quickly told me to take it off when we realised it was so ugly!

MelindaElatus

Search for "reverse boot loader".

KentCabacha

You can change the font size...

KentCabacha

One key feature - which I haven't seen mentioned above - is that Rockbox adds support for FLAC

If you have all your music ripped to FLAC then being able to use it on your portable player avoids the hassle of having to keep a synchronised mp3 copy of your music

loofah

I think it's really "just around the corner" now :D Almost everything seems to work except charging (there is an in-progress patch for that), and the battery life is pretty bad, though it wasn't all that good in the Original Firmware either.

KentCabacha

To properly uninstall Rockbox, you also have to remove the bootloader. Only removing the .rockbox folder will give you a "Can't load rockbox.mi4" error message. Rockbox can play MPEG1/2 video. You're correct in saying that Rockbox only supports .bmp album art (not .png, etc.), and doesn't support album art embedded in song file tags.

KentCabacha

It has come! it wasn't released as part of 3.0 because of a few rough edges in the install process, but it does work beautifully :)

SapnaSurtur

I've been using Rockbox on my Gigabeat S60 for months now. Although it's not listed as supported on their front page, it is possible to run Rockbox on it. The biggest problem is that the S uses MTP and is therefore not recognized as a HDD. Because of this, it is somewhat difficult to install the Rockbox bootloader. There's also the fact that Rockbox, although it does run, is somewhat incomplete on the S. To recharge the player, you need to boot into the original OS. Overall though, I've found my Gigabeat S60 quite useable and vastly improved with Rockbox on it.

MerciJay

actually you can play videos on rockbox just have to convert them first personally i use winff with sansa e200 preset it works like a charm. after converting put it on the player and select it in the file browser

BuckNimrod

I was just posting on some audio forums on how great Rockbox is. I have installed it on my Sansa and my Cowon X5L.

ChanningGoldsboro

I just installed this yesterday on my Ipod Video 5G, and I have mixed feelings. On the upside, there are tons of great games, and you can play gameboy roms -- I was enjoying Zelda within twenty minutes of installation. It's pretty customizeable and has a lot of applications (notepad, calculator) that are pretty useful if you're bored and all you have is your ipod. Also, the dual-boot function works well so I have lost none of my old Apple firmware functionality -- you just hold down menu while you're booting and you're in the old OS. On the downside, I find the new music playing functionality very confusing. It's a bit cluttered, which takes away from the pristine simplicity of the Apple interface -- and it doesn't automatically take my itunes album artwork. Also, battery life is shorter. I like experimenting with it, but to me it doesn't improve drastically upon the Apple firmware's music-playing functionality. If I keep it, it will be for the games.

HelenIapetus

@dreamlayers: Thanks. I'll give RB a shot again.

goodywitch

I've had Rockbox on my iPod for about half a year and I love it. One day, I was using a friend's iPod and was 1) very confused, and 2) felt very limited. Playlist creation/editing with original software is awful! That's my main gripe. And equalization, and games, and skins. I don't think I'd ever want to switch back to Oh, and I forgot the *most* important thing. Rockbox treats my ipod as a hard drive - so I can copy to and from it freely, as opposed to having iTunes rename my files every time.. euch.

LeslieMarigny

Rock on!
I will definately try this one.

Itangalo