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Rockbox is a
free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...
replacement for the OEM
firmware In computing, firmware is a specific class of computer software that provides the low-level control for a device's specific hardware. Firmware, such as the BIOS of a personal computer, may contain basic functions of a device, and may provide h ...
in various forms of digital audio players (DAPs) with an original kernel. It offers an alternative to the player's
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
, in many cases without removing the original firmware, which provides a plug-in architecture for adding various enhancements and functions. Enhancements include
personal digital assistant A personal digital assistant (PDA), also known as a handheld PC, is a variety mobile device which functions as a personal information manager. PDAs have been mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of highly capable smartphones, in partic ...
(PDA) functions, applications, utilities, and games. Rockbox can also
retrofit Retrofitting is the addition of new technology or features to older systems. Retrofits can happen for a number of reasons, for example with big capital expenditures like naval vessels, military equipment or manufacturing plants, businesses or go ...
video playback functions on players first released in mid-2000. Rockbox includes a voice-driven user-interface suitable for operation by
visually impaired Visual impairment, also known as vision impairment, is a medical definition primarily measured based on an individual's better eye visual acuity; in the absence of treatment such as correctable eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment†...
users. Rockbox runs on a wide variety of devices with very different hardware abilities: from early
Archos Archos (, stylized as ARCHOS) is a French Multinational corporation, multinational consumer electronics, electronics company that was established in 1988 by Henri Crohas. Archos manufactures tablet computers, tablets, smartphones, portable media ...
players with 1-bit character cell-based displays, to modern players with high resolution color displays, digital optical audio hardware and advanced recording abilities.


History

The Rockbox project began in late 2001 and was first implemented on the early
Archos Archos (, stylized as ARCHOS) is a French Multinational corporation, multinational consumer electronics, electronics company that was established in 1988 by Henri Crohas. Archos manufactures tablet computers, tablets, smartphones, portable media ...
series of hard-disk based MP3 players/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
central processing unit A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, an ...
s (CPU), and instead offload music playback to dedicated hardware MP3 decoding chips (MAS). Rockbox was unable to significantly alter playback abilities. Instead, it offered a greatly improved user interface and added plug-in functions absent in the factory firmware. Rockbox can be permanently flashed into flash memory on the Archos devices, making it a firmware replacement. Versions of Rockbox have since been produced for more sophisticated devices. These perform audio decoding in
software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...
, allowing Rockbox to potentially support many more music formats than the original firmware, and adding the extensibility and increased functions already present in the Archos ports. Rockbox is run from the hard drive or flash memory after being started with a custom boot loader, so to upgrade Rockbox, users need only copy the files onto the player's drive and restart the device. Reflashing is only needed when changing the boot loader, and on some platforms is not needed at all. The first of these ports, beginning in late 2004, was for the
ColdFire The NXP ColdFire is a microprocessor that derives from the Motorola 68000 family architecture, manufactured for embedded systems development by NXP Semiconductors. It was formerly manufactured by Freescale Semiconductor (formerly the semiconductor ...
-powered devices manufactured by iriver, focusing on the H1xx series of hard drive players (H110/H120/H140). About one year later, a port for the H3xx series became functional, offering similar functions. In late 2005, work began on a port of Rockbox to Apple's iPod portable players based on CPUs from ARM Ltd. incorporated into systems on a chip sold by
PortalPlayer PortalPlayer, founded in 1999, was a fabless semiconductor company that supplied system-on-a-chip semiconductors, firmware and software for personal media players. The company handled semiconductor design and firmware development, while subcontra ...
. Throughout 2006, Rockbox ports were made available for a variety of iPod models. Beginning in 2007, ports became available for a large number of additional ARM based targets, including players from
Sandisk SanDisk is a brand for flash memory products, including memory cards and readers, USB flash drives, solid-state drives, and digital audio players, manufactured and marketed by Western Digital. The original company, SanDisk Corporation was acquir ...
,
Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure system ...
, Olympus and
Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters i ...
in addition to newer Apple and iRiver players based on a variety of ARM7, ARM9 and ARM11 series processors. During this time, extensive work was conducted optimizing open source audio decoders for each of the ARM series processors. In 2008, porting began to processors based on the
MIPS architecture MIPS (Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipelined Stages) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures (ISA)Price, Charles (September 1995). ''MIPS IV Instruction Set'' (Revision 3.2), MIPS Technologies, ...
. In 2010, work began on supporting "hosted" architectures where Rockbox runs as an application inside of more complex
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
. all Rockbox ports have been accomplished by reverse engineering with little or no manufacturer assistance. As free software, many Rockbox developers and supporters hope to eventually see official manufacturer support for new ports, or at least unofficial assistance in porting Rockbox to new devices. Only a few companies have expressed interest in Rockbox, and none have officially contributed code to the project or included it with their hardware. The Sansa e200v1 port is the first to be started at the request of the hardware manufacturer, who gave the Rockbox team samples of their devices. Rockbox is continuously developed, with new
Git Git () is a distributed version control system: tracking changes in any set of files, usually used for coordinating work among programmers collaboratively developing source code during software development. Its goals include speed, data in ...
builds being released after every source change, and stable releases every 4 months for targets deemed sufficiently mature. Additionally builds are often available to developers of unsupported targets, which, while somewhat functional, are typically not ready for general users due to incomplete features or poor stability. As of 2019, there have been no new ports released.


Future

Rockbox is targeted primarily at
digital audio players Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Technology and computing Hardware *Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals **Digital camera, which captures and stores digital i ...
, rather than the much more powerful general-purpose devices (such as
smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...
s and
tablet computer A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being comput ...
s) that have been increasing in popularity since 2010. Some authorities expect the former class of devices to become obsolete in the next few years.
Daniel Stenberg Magnus Daniel Stenberg is a Swedish developer, recipient of the Polhem Prize 2017 for his work on cURL. He was born and raised in Huddinge, a suburb south of Sweden's capital Stockholm. He created a utility which, after various name and licens ...
, a founder of the Rockbox project, envisions the project evolving away from a standalone Rockbox operating system to Rockbox as a media player application that runs under
mobile operating system A mobile operating system is an operating system for mobile phones, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typical laptops are "mobile", the operating systems used on ...
s, such as Android,
iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
,
Sailfish OS Sailfish OS is a Linux-based operating system based on free software, and open source projects such as Mer as well as including a closed source UI. The project is being developed by the Finnish company Jolla. The OS first shipped with the o ...
or
Tizen Tizen () is a Linux-based mobile operating system backed by the Linux Foundation, mainly developed and used primarily by Samsung Electronics. The project was originally conceived as an HTML5-based platform for mobile devices to succeed MeeGo. Sa ...
: A project to port Rockbox to run as an application under a full-fledged operating system was accepted for
Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
's 2010 Summer of Code and completed. Currently, Rockbox runs on Android based players, but integration into Android and conversion to work with touch based devices is ongoing. Subsequently, an anonymous Chinese developer unofficially ported Rockbox to
Palm Palm most commonly refers to: * Palm of the hand, the central region of the front of the hand * Palm plants, of family Arecaceae **List of Arecaceae genera * Several other plants known as "palm" Palm or Palms may also refer to: Music * Palm (ba ...
's
WebOS webOS, also known as LG webOS and previously known as Open webOS, HP webOS and Palm webOS, is a Linux kernel-based multitasking operating system for smart devices such as smart TVs that has also been used as a mobile operating system. Initially ...
.


Customization

Subject to the limitations of each particular platform, the appearance of Rockbox can be customised in various ways. Fonts and foreground and background colours can be added and selected, while a simple
markup language Markup language refers to a text-encoding system consisting of a set of symbols inserted in a text document to control its structure, formatting, or the relationship between its parts. Markup is often used to control the display of the document ...
can be used to create themes for the menu and playback screens. These themes can include backgrounds and other images (such as icons), plus various formats for file names, ID3 tags, album art, file progress, and time and system information. Rockbox has essentially been a file-tree based player, to which folders could be dragged and dropped and then navigated by folder structure. However, more recent versions have included a complementary database feature which allows the player to compile information from the files' ID3 tags. The user can then navigate the files regardless of file structure.


Features


Target status

Rockbox has many features additional to those supported by the original operating firmware, but in many cases there are limitations. On platforms classified as "stable" and supported, the device can be used as a digital music player, but even on some such platforms Rockbox does not support charging or USB; the player must be dual-booted into the original firmware to be charged or to transfer files. Some platforms are classified as "unstable", but supported; those deemed "unusable" are not supported, and their use is not recommended. Some porting projects are in a pre-development hunting and gathering stage, with no code written.Rockbox Target Status
/ref>


Codecs

Rockbox on software decoding platforms (non-Archos) supports playback of twelve
lossy In information technology, lossy compression or irreversible compression is the class of data compression methods that uses inexact approximations and partial data discarding to represent the content. These techniques are used to reduce data size ...
codecs (depending on how one counts), five
lossless Lossless compression is a class of data compression that allows the original data to be perfectly reconstructed from the compressed data with no loss of information. Lossless compression is possible because most real-world data exhibits statistic ...
, two uncompressed and twelve miscellaneous formats. This makes a conservative total of 30 supported audio formats, although a few of them do not operate in realtime on all platforms. Extensive work has gone into optimizing each codec, with FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, WMA, APE, TTA, MPC, Wavpack, ATRAC3, Cook and WMA Pro among the fastest known integer implementations for those formats.


Lossy formats

* MPEG audio layers I-III (MP3/ MP2/
MP1 MPEG-1 Audio Layer I, commonly abbreviated to MP1, is one of three audio formats included in the MPEG-1 standard. It is a deliberately simplified version of MPEG-1 Audio Layer II (MP2), created for applications where lower compression efficiency ...
) *
Ogg Vorbis Vorbis is a free and open-source software project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The project produces an audio coding format and software reference encoder/decoder (codec) for lossy audio compression. Vorbis is most commonly used in conjun ...
*
MPEG-4 AAC Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is an audio coding standard for lossy data compression, lossy digital audio Audio data compression, compression. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves higher sound quality than MP3 encod ...
(-LC/HE/HEv2 profiles) (in MP4 or RM containers) *
Musepack Musepack or MPC is an open source lossy audio codec, specifically optimized for transparent compression of stereo audio at bitrates of 160–180 (manual set allows bitrates up to 320) kbit/s. It was formerly known as MPEGplus, MPEG+ or MP+ ...
* AC3 (raw or RM container) * WMA Standard * WMA Professional *
Speex Speex is an audio compression codec specifically tuned for the reproduction of human speech and also a free software speech codec that may be used on VoIP applications and podcasts. It is based on the CELP speech coding algorithm.Xiph.OrIntrodu ...
*
Cook Cook or The Cook may refer to: Food preparation * Cooking, the preparation of food * Cook (domestic worker), a household staff member who prepares food * Cook (professional), an individual who prepares food for consumption in the food industry * ...
* ATRAC3 * The lossy portion of
WavPack WavPack is a free and open-source lossless audio compression format and application implementing the format. It is unique in the way that it supports hybrid audio compression alongside normal compression which is similar to how FLAC works. I ...
hybrid files *
Opus ''Opus'' (pl. ''opera'') is a Latin word meaning "work". Italian equivalents are ''opera'' (singular) and ''opere'' (pl.). Opus or OPUS may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Opus number, (abbr. Op.) specifying order of (usually) publicatio ...


Lossless formats

*
FLAC FLAC (; Free Lossless Audio Codec) is an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio, developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation, and is also the name of the free software project producing the FLAC tools, the reference software p ...
* ALAC *
WavPack WavPack is a free and open-source lossless audio compression format and application implementing the format. It is unique in the way that it supports hybrid audio compression alongside normal compression which is similar to how FLAC works. I ...
* Shorten *
Monkey's Audio Monkey's Audio is an algorithm and file format for lossless audio data compression. Lossless data compression does not discard data during the process of encoding, unlike lossy compression methods such as Advanced Audio Coding, MP3, Vorbis, a ...
*
TTA TTA may refer to *Tan Tan Airport, Morocco, IATA code *Teacher Training Agency, former name of the Training and Development Agency for Schools, England * Technical Theatre Awards, UK *Terran Trade Authority, the setting for a series of science-fict ...


Uncompressed formats

*
WAV Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or WAV due to its filename extension; pronounced "wave") is an audio file format standard, developed by IBM and Microsoft, for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is the main format used on Microsoft Wind ...
*
AIFF Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) is an audio file format standard used for storing sound data for personal computers and other electronic audio devices. The format was developed by Apple Inc. in 1988 based on Electronic Arts' Interchange File ...
Together they include over a dozen different PCM and
ADPCM Adaptive differential pulse-code modulation (ADPCM) is a variant of differential pulse-code modulation (DPCM) that varies the size of the quantization step, to allow further reduction of the required data bandwidth for a given signal-to-noise ratio ...
formats.


Miscellaneous formats

In addition, there are playback of game audio types ADX, SID,
NSF NSF may stand for: Political organizations *National Socialist Front, a Swedish National Socialist party *NS-Frauenschaft, the women's wing of the former German Nazi party *National Students Federation, a leftist Pakistani students' political gr ...
,
SAP Sap is a fluid transported in xylem cells (vessel elements or tracheids) or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. These cells transport water and nutrients throughout the plant. Sap is distinct from latex, resin, or cell sap; it is a separa ...
, SPC, AY, GBS, HES, KSS, SGC, VGM, and VGZ. The
MOD Mod, MOD or mods may refer to: Places * Modesto City–County Airport, Stanislaus County, California, US Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Mods (band), a Norwegian rock band * M.O.D. (Method of Destruction), a band from New York City, US ...
tracker format, and the Yamaha
SMAF Synthetic-musicsmaf-yamaha.com spells it Synthetic music Mobile Application Format, with the word "music" not capitalized so it does not participate in the abbreviation SMAF. However one editor expressed concern that this odd capitalization patter ...
are also now supported. Some profiles in Monkey's Audio are not real time on all targets due to very high CPU needs. Also, Rockbox will not play files with a
digital rights management Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures (TPM) such as access control technologies can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works. ...
(DRM) scheme.


Rockbox features

Beside the ability of playing and recording audio files, Rockbox offers many playback enhancements that other firmware packages may not have implemented yet. Listed below are a handful of these features. *
Gapless playback Gapless playback is the uninterrupted playback of consecutive audio tracks, such that relative time distances in the original audio source are preserved over track boundaries on playback. For this to be useful, other artifacts (than timing-related o ...
* Crossfading *
ReplayGain ReplayGain is a proposed technical standard published by David Robinson in 2001 to measure and normalize the perceived loudness of audio in computer audio formats such as MP3 and Ogg Vorbis. It allows media players to normalize loudness for indi ...
Software decoding targets only * 10 band fully
parametric equalizer Equalization, or simply EQ, in sound recording and reproduction is the process of adjusting the volume of different frequency bands within an audio signal. The circuit or equipment used to achieve this is called an equalizer. Most hi-fi eq ...
* Variable speed decoding with pitch correction *
Crossfeed Stereophonic sound, or more commonly stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configuration ...
* OTF ("on the fly") playlists * True random shuffle (fresh randomly shuffled list every time) * Custom UI themes * Dynamic Playlists (queue files to play next, or in other parts of a dynamic playlist) * Stereo voice/MIC & FM radio recording to WAV/AIFF/WavPack (lossless) and MP3 (limited model/device/target support) * Remote control (supporting devices) * Digital
S/PDIF S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) is a type of digital audio interface used in consumer audio equipment to output audio over relatively short distances. The signal is transmitted over either a coaxial cable (using RCA or BNC connectors) ...
input/output (supporting devices) *
Last.fm Last.fm is a music website founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. Using a music recommender system called "Audioscrobbler", Last.fm builds a detailed profile of each user's musical taste by recording details of the tracks the user listens to, e ...
support (even on players lacking RTC) * Cue sheet support * Album art * Sleep timer


Plug-ins

Rockbox developers can create plug-ins, which provide the user with other enhancements that may not be available on various
firmware In computing, firmware is a specific class of computer software that provides the low-level control for a device's specific hardware. Firmware, such as the BIOS of a personal computer, may contain basic functions of a device, and may provide h ...
modules. Available plug-ins include: *
JPEG JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and imag ...
viewer (16 bit color/129 shade greyscale) * Rockboy
Game Boy The is an 8-bit fourth generation handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on April 21, 1989, in North America later the same year, and in Europe in late 1990. It was designed by the same ...
emulator (port of Gnuboy) * ZXBox
ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as t ...
emulator (port of Spectemu) * ''
Doom Doom is another name for damnation. Doom may also refer to: People * Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed * Daniel Doom (born 1934), Belgian cyclist * Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitcher * ...
'' (port of the
PrBoom The present article is a list of known platforms to which ''Doom'' has been confirmed to be ported. ''Doom'' is one of the most widely ported video games. Since the original MS-DOS version, it has been released officially for a number of operatin ...
engine) * ''
Duke Nukem 3D ''Duke Nukem 3D'' is a first-person shooter video game developed by 3D Realms. It is a sequel to the platform games ''Duke Nukem'' and ''Duke Nukem II'', published by 3D Realms. ''Duke Nukem 3D'' features the adventures of the titular Duke Nuke ...
'', '' Quake'', and ''
Wolfenstein 3D ''Wolfenstein 3D'' is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software and FormGen. Originally released on May 5, 1992, for DOS, it was inspired by the 1981 Muse Software video game ''Castle Wolfenstei ...
'' running atop a version of the
Simple DirectMedia Layer Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) is a cross-platform In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in sever ...
runtime * XWorld, a clone of Another World * WAV to MP3 and Wavpack encoder * MPEG video playerThe mpegplayer plug-in supports
MPEG-1 MPEG-1 is a standard for lossy compression of video and audio. It is designed to compress VHS-quality raw digital video and CD audio down to about 1.5 Mbit/s (26:1 and 6:1 compression ratios respectively) without excessive quality loss, making ...
and
MPEG-2 MPEG-2 (a.k.a. H.222/H.262 as was defined by the ITU) is a standard for "the generic video coding format, coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of Lossy compression, lossy video compression and ...
video streams with MPEG audio (layer II/III) multiplexed into .mpg files with no hard limits on
frame rate Frame rate (expressed in or FPS) is the frequency (rate) at which consecutive images (frames) are captured or displayed. The term applies equally to film and video cameras, computer graphics, and motion capture systems. Frame rate may also be ca ...
or
bit rate In telecommunications and computing, bit rate (bitrate or as a variable ''R'') is the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time. The bit rate is expressed in the unit bit per second (symbol: bit/s), often in conjunction w ...
. Files must be encoded at
native Native may refer to: People * Jus soli, citizenship by right of birth * Indigenous peoples, peoples with a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory ** Native Americans (disambiguation) In arts and entert ...
screen
resolution Resolution(s) may refer to: Common meanings * Resolution (debate), the statement which is debated in policy debate * Resolution (law), a written motion adopted by a deliberative body * New Year's resolution, a commitment that an individual mak ...
. Seeking is now implemented

/ref> * PictureFlow, an album art viewer similar to Apple's Cover Flow * Various games including 2048,
Sudoku Sudoku (; ja, 数独, sĹ«doku, digit-single; originally called Number Place) is a logic-based, combinatorial number-placement puzzle. In classic Sudoku, the objective is to fill a 9 Ă— 9 grid with digits so that each column, each row ...
,
Solitaire Solitaire is any tabletop game which one can play by oneself, usually with cards, but also with dominoes. The term "solitaire" is also used for single-player games of concentration and skill using a set layout tiles, pegs or stones. These game ...
, Chess, Minesweeper, Pong and many others (see https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/PluginIndex for an official list of plug-ins) *
Musical Instrument Digital Interface MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and re ...
(MIDI) player, real-time on some targets. *
MikMod A music tracker (sometimes referred to as just tracker for short) is a type of music sequencer software for creating music. The music is represented as discrete musical notes positioned in several channels at discrete chronological positions on a ...
, used to play multiple
module file Module file (MOD music, tracker music) is a family of music file formats originating from the MOD file format on Amiga systems used in the late 1980s. Those who produce these files (using the software called music trackers) and listen to them f ...
formats


Architecture

Rockbox uses a simple kernel, with a
flat memory model Flat memory model or linear memory model refers to a memory addressing paradigm in which "memory appears to the program as a single contiguous address space." The CPU can directly (and linearly) address all of the available memory locations witho ...
and single
process A process is a series or set of activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recurrent or periodic. Things called a process include: Business and management *Business process, activities that produce a specific se ...
, letting it run on platforms without a
memory management unit A memory management unit (MMU), sometimes called paged memory management unit (PMMU), is a computer hardware unit having all memory references passed through itself, primarily performing the translation of virtual memory addresses to physical ad ...
. Thin threads run cooperatively, returning control to a
scheduler A schedule or a timetable, as a basic time-management tool, consists of a list of times at which possible tasks, events, or actions are intended to take place, or of a sequence of events in the chronological order in which such things are i ...
that prioritizes the audio thread; the only form of preemption is through
interrupt In digital computers, an interrupt (sometimes referred to as a trap) is a request for the processor to ''interrupt'' currently executing code (when permitted), so that the event can be processed in a timely manner. If the request is accepted, ...
s. The operating system and plug-ins are written in C, with
assembly Assembly may refer to: Organisations and meetings * Deliberative assembly, a gathering of members who use parliamentary procedure for making decisions * General assembly, an official meeting of the members of an organization or of their representa ...
used for code that is device- and platform-specific, and performance sensitive. The simple and lightweight architecture allows Rockbox to run on a variety of targets, with memory ranging from 1 to 64 MB, and CPU speeds ranging 12 to 532 MHz. Rockbox also provides support for multicore and asymmetric multiprocessor systems based on
ARM In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between th ...
,
ColdFire The NXP ColdFire is a microprocessor that derives from the Motorola 68000 family architecture, manufactured for embedded systems development by NXP Semiconductors. It was formerly manufactured by Freescale Semiconductor (formerly the semiconductor ...
, MIPS and SH. Several codecs can be parallelized across 2 CPU cores for increased power efficiency, and the HWCODEC interface allows for dedicated audio decoder DSPs.


Rockbox Utility

The Rockbox Utility is a free computer application, available for
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
,
Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...
, and
Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
, built using Digia Qt platform, that is used to install and manage Rockbox on DAPs. Rockbox Utility provides automatic installation of Rockbox, as well as themes and voice files, directly onto a DAP with minimal user interaction. Rockbox Utility is updated frequently as support for new devices is added.


See also

*
iPodLinux iPodLinux is a µClinux-based Linux distribution designed specifically to run on Apple Inc.'s iPod. When the iPodLinux kernel is booted it takes the place of Apple's iPod operating system and automatically loads Podzilla, an alternative GUI ...


References


External links

* *
FLOSS Weekly FLOSS Weekly is a free and open-source software ( FLOSS) themed netcast from the TWiT Network. The show premiered on April 7, 2006, and features interviews with prominent guests from the free software/open source community. It was originally hoste ...
â€
43: Rockbox
TWiT.tv (network) TWiT.tv, which is the operating trade name of TWiT LLC, is a podcast network that broadcasts many technology news podcasts, founded by technology broadcaster and author Leo Laporte in 2005, and run by his wife and company CEO Lisa Laporte. ...
podcast with Paul Louden of Rockbox {{Media player (application software), free Custom firmware Digital audio players Embedded operating systems Free software projects Free software primarily written in assembly language Free software programmed in C Free media players Free and open-source Android software IPod software Lua (programming language)-scriptable software Portable media players