Installing Rockbox is generally a quick and easy procedure. However before beginning there are a few important things to know.
If you have Itunes installed and it is configured to open automatically when your player is attached (the default behaviour), then wait for it to open and then quit it. You also need to ensure the “Enable use as disk” option is enabled for your player in Itunes. Your player should then enter disk mode automatically when connected to a computer via USB. If your computer does not recognise your player, you may need to enter disk mode manually. Disconnect your player from the computer. Hard reset the player by pressing and holding the Menu and Select buttons simultaneously. As soon as the player resets, press and hold the Select and Play buttons simultaneously. Your player should enter disk mode and you can try reconnecting to the computer.
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:
Apart from the required parts there are some addons you might be interested in installing.
To automatically install Rockbox, download the official installer and housekeeping tool Rockbox Utility. It allows you to:
Prebuilt binaries for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X are available at the RockboxUtility wiki
page.
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.
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.
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.
Please now go to section 2.2.3 to complete the installation procedure.
The manual installation method is still available to you, should you need or desire it by following the instructions below. If you have used Rockbox Utility to install Rockbox, then you do not need to follow the next section and can skip straight to section 2.2.3
Note: The entire contents of the .zip file should be extracted directly to the root of
your player’s drive. Do not try to create a separate directory on your player for the
Rockbox files! The .zip file already contains the internal structure that Rockbox
needs.
If the contents of the .zip file are extracted correctly, you will have a directory called .rockbox, which contains all the files needed by Rockbox, in the main directory of your player’s drive.
Note: If ipodpatcher fails to install the bootloader for you, please be certain that you do indeed have a supported iPod model and are logged in as an administrator. If you do, run ipodpatcher once more and try again. If you don’t, then do not attempt to install again.
Note: If ipodpatcher fails to install the bootloader for you, please be certain that you do indeed have a supported iPod model. If you do, run ipodpatcher once more and try again. If you don’t, then do not attempt to install again.
Note: You should unplug your ipod immediately after ejecting it to prevent Rockbox immediately rebooting your player into disk mode when it detects that your player is attached to a computer.
Note: You need to be the root user in order for ipodpatcher to have sufficient permission to perform raw disk access to your player.
Safely eject / unmount the USB drive, unplug the cable and restart.
If you wish to use speech support you will also need a voice file. Voice files allow Rockbox to speak the user interface to you. Rockbox Utility can install an English voice file, or you can download it from http://www.rockbox.org/daily.shtml and unzip it to the root of your player. Rockbox Utility can also aid you in the creation of voice files with different voices or in other languages if you have a suitable speech engine installed on your computer. Voice menus are enabled by default and will come into effect after a reboot. See section 8.10 for details on voice settings. Rockbox Utility can also aid in the production of talk files, which allow Rockbox to speak file and folder names.
Hard reset the Ipod by holding Menu and Select simultaneously for a couple of seconds until the player resets. Now Rockbox should load.
Note: If you have loaded music onto your player using Itunes, you will not be able to see your music properly in the File Browser. This is because Itunes changes your files’ names and hides them in directories in the Ipod_Control directory. Files placed on your player using Itunes can be viewed by initialising and using Rockbox’s database. See section 4.2 for more information.
Rockbox can be easily updated with Rockbox Utility. You can also update Rockbox manually
– download a Rockbox build as detailed above, and unzip the build to the root directory of
your player as in the manual installation stage. If your unzip program asks you whether to
overwrite files, choose the “Yes to all” option. The new build will be installed over your
current build.
The bootloader only changes rarely, and should not normally need to be updated.
Note: If you use Rockbox Utility be aware that it cannot detect manually installed components.
Note: The Rockbox bootloader allows you to choose between Rockbox and the original firmware. (See section 3.1.3 for more information.)
You can uninstall Rockbox automatically by using Rockbox Utility. If you installed Rockbox manually you can still use Rockbox Utility for uninstallation but will not be able to do this selectively.
To uninstall Rockbox and go back to using just the original Ipod software, connect the player to your computer and follow the instructions to install the bootloader but, when prompted by ipodpatcher, enter u for uninstall instead of i for install.
If you wish to clean up your disk, you may also wish to delete the .rockbox directory and its contents. Turn the Ipod off. Turn the player back on and the original Ipod software will load.
To fix this, either install Rockbox with the Rockbox Utility which will take care of this for you, or recheck the Manual Install section to see where the files need to be located.