RockBox for iAudio, any (new) plans?

[fx3000se]

I wonder whether there are any plans to port the RockBox(once it runs on the iRiver's) FW to the iAudio's(X5/M3)?

I have seen one thread(http://www.iaudiophile.net/forums/viewtopic.php?id=902) in this forum trying to initiate such a "project". What is the current status?

Regards
fx3000se

[korinengell]

Well there you go M3 is supposedly an SCF5249... sorry fx3000se, someone asked in another thread what the processor was. I was sure I had read it was a coldfire comewhere.

I work on the XCF5272 (which is another coldfire microprocessor) as an embedded programmer (even now that job description still scares me). I haven't really investigated the RockBox at all, other than a quick look at your link. However, speaking as a person with direct experience in embedded programming and with the coldfire family, it is my professional advice to stay the hell away from hacking device firmware unless you know what you are doing and don't mind voiding your warranty!

I am not the "what makes it tick" kind of guy. I'm very much an "if it works don't try and fix it" kind of guy. If you buy an iRiver or whatever and their firmware is crap and it doesn't look like the problems will ever be fixed then you might want to consider it.

With a player from Cowon who regularly release firmware updates, my warning to anyone who has an inclination to hack this kind of stuff is this:
IF YOU MODIFY YOUR FIRMWARE THERE IS A VERY GOOD CHANCE YOU WILL COMPLETELY SCREW UP YOUR DEVICE IF YOU TRY TO DO A FIRMWARE UPDATE!

The only time I would be happy to modify firmware myself would be if I had a full development environment and the original source code and the ability to completely restore the original firmware if I f*cked it up. Coz then I could implement my own ID3 tag database!

That being said I've never tried to hack firmware before because I have never had any inclination to since I do it for a living (well I generally try to avoid hacking but sometimes you just don't have the time to do it properly) and I definitely will not be doing it on a brand new DAP that I spend $500 AUD on.

It would not be so bad if you stick with one version of the firmware and just make modifications to that, but doing a firmware update is a very complicated process (at least it is for us because there is memory that we must retain between those updates). The update I expect is much simpler on the X5 and M3 and other DAP's, but without knowing the details I don't know the risks, so my advice is: don't risk it.

[Fido]

The rockbox people know what they're doing and they don't modify the firmware, they build it from scratch.

The reason there was so much demand for rockbox with the other players was because the firmware sucked so much, with iAudio we aren't in need of a replacement so there will be much less demand.

[tarepanda]

Amen korinengell!
I think you just sum up pretty well the situation.

For the Rockbox firmware they build it from scratch but used reverse-engineering for some tricky functions/understand how hardware is working... And when developping such a project, you have to be ready to 'enbrick' your player. I think they are using a JTAG port to hard reprogram a f***ed played : not easy for the Joe 6 pack user (just have a look at their forum).

One solution is to use open source dap like the Neuros:
http://www.neurosaudio.com/
There player is a bit old and chunky but has some nice caracteritic. And their fabulous new player 'neuros III' is a bit of a vapor(hard)ware, due for the end of the year apparently.

Somehow the U2 maybe is more accessible as it's a single-chip architecture. The problem here is that the Sigmatel chip is not open development. I guess you have to pay to get the full datasheet/spec/devel soft.

Da PandA

[korinengell]

The reverse engineering side appeals to me. I'd like to know what is involved. I think that would be an interesting exercise but that is strictly from the perspective of gaining knowledge and experience in the area.

We've tried to reverse engineer some stuff here. It's damn hard and some of it got fooked up. I have to admit I'm sort of curious now. I might do a bit more investigating into rockbox just to see what it is supposed to do and how it does it. But I can still guarantee I won't ever be fooking with the firmware on my X5!

[tarepanda]

The reverse engineering side appeals to me. I'd like to know what is involved. I think that would be an interesting exercise but that is strictly from the perspective of gaining knowledge and experience in the area.
I agree that's a good way to spend your evenings instead of watching TV ;)

I think the answer from the rockbox guys when someone was asking them to port their work on a new player was :

1) Reverse engineering of the hardware
- open it
- Scan all the circuits in high definition
- Start a part list + collect datasheet
- get your favorite ohm-meter and extract the circuit :)
(dont forget some aspirin if they are using multilayers circuits)

2) Collect the development tools

3) send a free player to the team so they can experiment on it

4) ...

5) Profit !

Da PandA

[fx3000se]

Hi all,
sounds as if you'd expect me to open mine and fiddle around ;) Me being only a software but not an electrical engineer keeps me away from that. I have already "spoilt-fixed" quite a few devices at home ;)
On the other hand I still like trying new/other things and I think that the RockBox-project sounds real appealing. Starting with the bootloader(à la LILO, grub etc) which lets you(once in place :) ) decide whether to boot the original fw or RockBox. And looking at the feature list(http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/FeatureComparison) reveils that they intend to implement everything(and more). We(german speaking) call this kinda thing an egg-laying-wool-milk-pig(Eierlegendewollmilchsau).
Also I think that the iRiver's fw is not that much worse than the iAudio's, that it would absolutely require RockBox. Still RockBox is ported.
I know that building such a beast is VERY timeconsuming but I don't give up hope that one day I might still see "RockBox" showing up on the (soon arriving) X5 screen...
Too bad iAudio doesn't go OpenSource(such as Linksys for example). This would definitely reduce the turnaround cycle of such an undertaking.
Greetz
fx3000se

[korinengell]

hahahaha!

egg-laying-wool-milk-pig...

I love it. I want one!

[tarepanda]

mmm ;)
is it for breakfast?