Thread: Installing Rockbox on your iPod (play .flac games and more...)

What is Rockbox? What is its purpose?

Rockbox is an Open Source replacement firmware for portable digital audio players. A list of supported players can be found on the frontpage. For a more detailed list and for a list with targets under development see TargetStatus.

Rockbox is a complete rewrite and uses no fragments of the original firmware. It boasts numerous features while remaining easy to use.

With less words you are able to play .flac files on your ipod, you can play doom and other games (Rockbox in action: ScreenShots16bpp < Main < TWiki )

Ceck out Feature Chart: FeatureComparison < Main < TWiki




Supported hardware versions.
The Video is the 5th/5.5th generation Ipod only. Rockbox does not run on the newer, 6th/Classic generation Ipod. For information on identifying which Ipod you own, see this page on Apple’s website: Identifying iPod models.


Installing Rockbox

There are two ways to install Rockbox: automated and manual. The automated way is the preferred method of installing Rockbox for the majority of people. Rockbox Utility is a graphical application that does almost everything for you. However, should you encounter a problem, then the manual way is still available to you.

There are three separate components, two of which need to be installed in order to run Rockbox:

The Ipod bootloader.
The Ipod bootloader is the program that tells your player how to load and start the original firmware. It is also responsible for any emergency, recovery, or disk modes on your player. This bootloader is stored in special flash memory in your Ipod and comes factory-installed. It is not necessary to modify this in order to install Rockbox.

The Rockbox bootloader.
The Rockbox bootloader is loaded from disk by the Ipod bootloader. It is responsible for loading the Rockbox firmware and for providing the dual boot function. It directly replaces the Ipod firmware in the player’s boot sequence.

The Rockbox firmware.
Similar to the Ipod firmware, most of the Rockbox code is contained in a “build” that resides on your player’s drive. This makes it easy to update Rockbox. The build consists of a directory called .rockbox which contains all of the Rockbox files, and is located in the root of your player’s drive.

Apart from the required parts there are some addons you might be interested in installing.



Fonts.
Rockbox can load custom fonts. The fonts are distributed as a separate package and thus need to be installed separately. They are not required to run Rockbox itself but a lot of themes require the fonts package to be installed.

Themes.
The appearance of Rockbox can be customised by themes. Depending on your taste you might want to install additional themes to change the look of Rockbox.

Automated Installation

To automatically install Rockbox, download the official installer and housekeeping tool Rockbox Utility.

Rockbox 3.3 Download


It allows you to:

* Automatically install all needed components for using Rockbox (“Minimal Installation”).
* Automatically install all suggested components (“Complete Installation”).
* Selectively install optional components.
* Install additional fonts and themes.
* Install voice files and generate talk clips.
* Uninstall all components you installed using Rockbox Utility.

Prebuilt binaries for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X are available at the RockboxUtility wiki page.

RockboxUtility < Main < TWiki



When first starting Rockbox Utility run “Autodetect”, found in the configuration dialog (File → Configure). Autodetection can detect most player types. If autodetection fails or is unable to detect the mountpoint, make sure to enter the correct values. The mountpoint indicates the location of the player in your filesystem. On Windows, this is the drive letter the player gets assigned, on other systems this is a path in the filesystem.

Note: Autodetection is unable to distinguish between the Ipod 30 GB and 60 GB / 80 GB models and defaults to the 30 GB model. This will usually work but you might want to check the detected value, especially if you experience problems with Rockbox.

Choosing a Rockbox version

There are three different versions of Rockbox available from the Rockbox website: Release version, current build and archived daily build. You need to decide which one you want to install and get the appropriate version for your player. If you select either “Minimal Installation” or “Complete Installation” from the “Quick Start” tab, then Rockbox Utility will automatically install the release version of Rockbox. Using the “Installation” tab will allow you to select which version you wish to install.

Release.
The release version is the latest stable release, free of known critical bugs. For a manual install, the current stable release of Rockbox is available at Rockbox 3.3 Download.

Current Build.
The current build is built at each source code change to the Rockbox SVN repository and represents the current state of Rockbox development. This means that the build could contain bugs but most of the time is safe to use. For a manual install, you can download the current build from Current Rockbox Builds.

Archived Build.
In addition to the release version and the current build, there is also an archive of daily builds available for download. These are built once a day from the latest source code in the SVN repository. For a manual install, you can download archived builds from Rockbox - Daily builds.

Note: Because current and archived builds are development versions that change frequently, they may behave differently than described in this manual, or they may introduce new (and potentially annoying) bugs. Unless you wish to try the latest and greatest features at the price of possibly greater instability, or you wish to help with development, you should stick with the release.



Also check out the plugins for Rockbox:
PluginIndex < Main < TWiki

Rockbox Extras (Themes, Fonts, Doom)
RockboxExtras < Main < TWiki


taken from the manual
-> Contents

also check their page for more info:
-> Rockbox - Open Source Jukebox Firmware


if that tutorial helped you pls hit the Thanks Button

does it supports Ipod Classic 80GB ?