for: Rock Box

Rockbox is a free software replacement for the firmware held on various forms of digital audio players (DAPs). Rockbox offers an alternative to the host device's operating system firmware (in many cases without removing the original firmware) which provides a plug-in architecture for adding various enhancements and functionality to DAPs which are not present in the original OS. Enhancements include PDA functionality, applications, utilities, and games. Rockbox can also retrofit video playback functionality onto DAPs first released in mid-2000. Rockbox also includes a voice-driven user-interface suitable for operation by blind and visually impaired users.

Rockbox runs on a wide variety of portable audio devices with very different hardware abilities: from early Archos players with 1-bit character cell-based displays to modern players with high resolution color displays, digital optical audio hardware and advanced recording capabilities.

Released under the GNU General Public License, Rockbox is free software.

Development

The Rockbox project began in late 2001 and was first implemented on the early Archos series of hard-disk based MP3 players and player/recorders, including the flash-only model Ondio, because of owner frustration with severe limitations in the manufacturer-supplied user interface and device operations. These devices have relatively weak main CPUs and instead offload music playback to dedicated hardware MP3 decoding chips (called the MAS). Rockbox, therefore, was unable to significantly alter playback capabilities. Instead, it offered a greatly improved user interface and added plugin functionality not present in the factory firmware. Rockbox is capable of being permanently flashed into flash memory on the Archos devices, making it a literal firmware replacement.

Versions of Rockbox have since been produced for more sophisticated devices. These perform audio decoding in software, allowing Rockbox to potentially support many more music formats than the original firmware as well as bringing the extensibility and increased functionality already present in the Archos ports. Rockbox is run from the hard disk on these devices, after being started with a custom bootloader, so to upgrade Rockbox users need only copy the files onto the player's drive and restart the device. Reflashing is only necessary when changing the bootloader, and on some platforms, is not required at all.

The first of these ports, beginning in late 2004, was for the ColdFire-powered devices manufactured by iriver, focusing on the H1xx series of hard drive players (H110/H120/H140). Approximately one year later a port for the H3xx series became functional, offering similar functionality.

In late 2005, work began on a port of Rockbox to Apple iPod portable players. Throughout 2006, Rockbox ports were made available for a variety of iPod models (iPod photo, iPod nano, iPod 4g, iPod mini, and iPod Video), as well as the Cowon iAUDIO X5 series. As of February 2007, usable ports are also available for the iriver H10 and Toshiba Gigabeat F & X series. As of March 5th, 2007, a new port for the Cowon iAUDIO M5 became functional. On March 11th, 2007, the SanDisk Sansa e200 series became the next addition to the Rockbox lineup. On May 23rd, 2007, support for the iPod video 80 GB model was added, completing the iPod video lineup. On July 27, 2007, initial support was added for the iPod 1G and 2G. On September 23, 2007, the Sansa c200 series was welcomed into the lineup. On March 18th, 2008, the Olympus m:robe 100 became the first new port of 2008, and the iAUDIO M3 joined the lineup days later. Rockbox now includes video-support for MPEG playback through the included work-in-progress mpegplayer plugin.