| Q1. What is a FAQ? |
| A1. A rare small animal of the species 'Textius Electronicus'. It is known for |
| its helpful attitude and vicious misspellings. |
| |
| Q2. Okay, fine, what is _this_ FAQ? |
| A2. This FAQ is for questions (that we have answers too) that have been asked |
| repeatedly either in emails or on IRC. |
| |
| Q3. What is Rockbox? What is it's purpose? |
| A3. The purpose of this project is to write an Open Source replacement |
| firmware for the Archos Jukebox 6000, Studio 20 and Recorder MP3 players. |
| |
| Q4. I want to write code for my Archos, how do I proceed? |
| A4. First make sure to read the file CONTRIBUTING in the firmware directory |
| on Sourceforge. See http://rockbox.haxx.se/firmware/CONTRIBUTING |
| if you do not want to have to wade through the CVS directories. |
| |
| Q5: Whats CVS? |
| A5: Concurrent Versions System (http://www.cvshome.org). We have a small |
| help page about how to use this to get, update and commit files on the web |
| at http://rockbox.haxx.se/cvs.html |
| |
| Q6. What exactly is the CONTRIBUTING file? |
| A6. Just like the name implies, it lists conventions that the project follows, |
| and in turn asks you to follow, for the formating of source code in |
| general. |
| |
| Q7. Okay, so I read CONTRIBUTING and although I don't agree with all your |
| conventions, I am going to be sensible and follow them anyway. Now what? |
| A7. Start by reading up on the information about the jukeboxes on our web page. |
| Then go into CVS and look at the code we've written. Then take what you |
| need and start writing. |
| |
| Q8. Okay, so how do I submit a patch? |
| A8. Run: "diff -u oldfile newfile > patchfile" against the file(s) you have |
| changed. Then mail the output to any member of the development team and |
| we will take it under consideration. (Please remember that all |
| submissions are not automatically accepted, this is nothing personal.) |
| |
| Of if you would like to run the diff against the current cvs code: |
| cvs diff -ub [file(s)] |
| |
| Q9. I want to join the development team, but don't have a SourceForge account, |
| what should I do? |
| A9. Head on over to http://sourceforge.net/account/register.php and create an |
| account for yourself. |
| |
| Q10. Do you have a mailing list? |
| A10. Sure do! As a matter of fact, we have several of them for specific |
| things. Please check out: http://rockbox.haxx.se/mail/ |
| |
| Q11. Great you have a mailing list! Is there anyway for me to catch up on |
| past posts? |
| A11. Check out the archives at: http://rockbox.haxx.se/mail.cgi |
| |
| Q12. How can I meet the developers working on the project? |
| A12. One way is by visiting us on IRC. Head on over to the server |
| irc.openprojects.net, and then join "#rockbox". There is usually at |
| least one person there. If you don't see any activity, feel free to post |
| questions anyway, serveral of us log the channel and will get you answers |
| when we unidle. |
| |
| Q13: Wow, you guys talk on IRC alot? I wish I had been around for those |
| conversations to see what happened. |
| A13: We are glad you mentioned that! http://rockbox.haxx.se/irc happens |
| to have a list of various logs we have recorded of events in the channel. |
| Feel free to read up, and ask questions on what you find. |
| |
| Q14. What is this "SourceForge" you keep mentioning? |
| A14. http://www.sourceforge.net |
| |
| Q15. Can the changes or the software that Rockbox suggests or offers |
| possibly damage my Archos Player? |
| A15. All firmware mods that are presented are still highly experimental. |
| Try them at your own risk. We offer no guarantee that this software, or |
| the hardware modifications we show, will not damage your player or void |
| your warranty. That said, we have not been able to damage any of our |
| units by modifying only the firmware. You can accidentally password |
| protect your harddisk, but there are ways around that. (See below.) |
| |
| Q16. I want to see what the inside of my player looks like, but I would really |
| like to avoid voiding my warranty. Is there anything you can suggest? |
| A16. We have a collection of photos of both the player and recorder. Look at |
| http://rockbox.haxx.se/internals/ |
| |
| Q17. What exactly are you trying to achieve with this line of development? |
| (A.K.A. whats your purpose for being here?) |
| A17. Firstly, we wouldn't start something like this if we didn't simply enjoy |
| it profusely. This is great fun! |
| Secondly, we feel the firmware is lacking some features and contain a |
| number of annoying bugs that we want to fix. |
| Some ideas would include (in no particular order): |
| - No pause between songs |
| - Mid-song resume |
| - Mid-playlist resume |
| - No-scan playlists |
| - Unlimited playlist size |
| - Autobuild playlists (ie: "all songs in this directory tree") |
| - Auto-continue play in the next directory |
| - Current folder and all sub-folder random play |
| - Full disk random play |
| - REAL random |
| - Multi song queue |
| - Faster scroll speed |
| - More cool features with the wire remote control (including |
| controlling your Archos from your car radio (req hw mod)) |
| - Support playing of other files types (ie: Ogg Vorbis support) |
| - Support for megabass switch (req hw mod) |
| - Player control via USB |
| - Memory expansion? |
| Note: Just because something is on this list, does not mean that it is |
| technically feasible. (But hey we can dream) And something not |
| being on the list does not mean it isn't a neat idea. Bring it to |
| the list. |
| |
| Q18. I don't see you mentioning other file types on your list of ideas. What |
| about supporting those? |
| A18. Pessimist's Answer: At the current time we belive this is not very likely |
| The Micronas chip (MAS3507) decoder in the archos does not natively |
| support decoding and there is very little program space in the player to |
| implement it ourselves. The alternative would be to write a software |
| decoder as part of the RockBox firmware. However, as much as we love |
| our players, the computing power of the Archos (SH1 microcontroller) is |
| not fully sufficent for this need. |
| |
| Optimist's Answer: We can play any format if only we can write code for |
| the DSP to decode it. The MAS 3507 (and 3587) are generic DSPs that |
| simply have MP3 codecs in ROM. We can download new codecs in them and |
| we will be the first to celebrate if we can get OGG or FLAC or anything |
| into these DSPs. Unfortunately, we have no docs or tools for writing new |
| MAS DSP code and Intermetall is very secretive about it. If anyone can |
| help, please get in touch! |
| |
| |
| Q19. What about supporting playing of WMA files? |
| A19. Dear Mr. Gates, you have two options. Re-read question #17, or go buy |
| your own project. |
| |
| Q20. When do you think there will be a version available for my Archos? |
| A20. We recently released version 1.2, so head on over to |
| http://rockbox.haxx.se/download.html and pull it down. |
| Make sure to read the release notes. |
| (http://rockbox.haxx.se/download/rockbox-1.2-notes.txt). |
| |
| Q21. What do you plan to add to coming versions? |
| A21. We have a rough idea of which features we plan/expect/hope to be included |
| in which versions. Once again, remember that none of this is written in |
| stone (noticing a pattern yet?) |
| |
| Version 1.3 |
| Persistent settings for Player, UI improvements |
| |
| Version 1.4 |
| Recording? |
| |
| Q22. I tried one of your firmware files and now I can't access my harddisk! |
| When I turn on my jukebox, it says: |
| Part. Error |
| Pls Chck HD |
| A22. Your harddisk has been password protected. We're not 100% sure why it |
| happens, but you can unlock it yourself. Look at: |
| http://rockbox.haxx.se/lock.html |
| |
| Q23: This FAQ doesn't answer the question I have. What should I do? |
| A23: You have a couple options here. You could forget the question, find an |
| easier question, or accept '42' as the answer no matter what. We don't |
| really recommend any of these (though I do opt for '42' often myself). |
| What we do recommend is stopping by IRC, reading |
| http://rockbox.haxx.se to see if the question was answered else |
| where and just not included here, or ultimatly dropping an email to the |
| mailing list (rockbox@cool.haxx.se) or the FAQ maintainer listed on the |
| project homepage. |
| |
| Q24: Are there other ways to contact the developers? |
| A24: Yes. |
| |
| Q25: Are you going to tell us what they are? |
| A25: No. Post to the mailing list and we will get back to you. |
| |
| Q26: But I _really_ want to talk with you in person. |
| A26: I'm sorry. My girlfriend/boyfriend/pet says I'm not allowed to, and the |
| doctors here won't let me have pens or pencils. They say its some rule |
| about us not having sharp objects. I'm sorry. Now please stop calling me |
| here. |
| |
| Q27: Will you ever port Quake II to the Archos? |
| A27: If you ask that again, I'm sending your address and phone number to the |
| guy that mailed us with question #23. |
| |
| Q28: Umm, was that sarcasm? |
| A28: That's it, I'm mailing him now. |
| |
| Q29: Is this legal? I mean, I'd just hate to see something like that |
| challenged under the DMCA in all its ridiculousness. Any thoughts or |
| ideas? |
| A29: We believe we are in the green on this. We are not violating anyone's |
| copyright and we are not circumventing any copy protection scheme. |
| This has been a big point for the project since its inception. Some |
| people wanted us to distribute patched versions of the original firmware, |
| but seeing as that _would_ have violated Archos' copyright, we didn't |
| follow that course of action. |
| |
| Q30: On the website [and various information postings] you state |
| "Every tiny bit was reverse engineered, disassembled and then |
| re-written from scratch". |
| If it was rewritten from scratch then why was it first reverse-engineered |
| and disassembled? Instead this sounds more like someone disassembled it |
| then used the understanding that they gained to create a new version, |
| which is not quite the same as "from scratch". |
| A30: Don't confuse the terms. Reverse engineering means examining a product |
| to find out how it works. Disassembling the firmware is merely one tool |
| used in that examination. Oscilloscopes and logic analyzers are other |
| tools we have used. We have written every single byte of the Rockbox |
| firmware. But we could not have written the software without first |
| researching how the hardware was put together, i.e. reverse engineer it. |
| All of this is completely legal. If you define "from scratch" as writing |
| software without first researching the surrounding interfaces, then no |
| software has ever been written from scratch. |
| |
| Q31: Wait a minute here. When you released version 1.0 you did not have a |
| single one of the ideas you have mentioned on your website actually |
| implimented! Calling this version 1.0 is really misleading. Whats the |
| story?! |
| A31: In simple terms, the first release was called 1.0 because it had a basic |
| working feature set that worked and had no known bugs. That is what 1.0 |
| meant. It is true that Rockbox 1.0 lacked most of the feature set that |
| every sane user wanted. However, we never said it was more |
| feature-complete or better in any way then the original firmware that early |
| in the project. The first release was done as a proof of concept that our |
| ideas are moving in the right direction. We also hoped that it would help |
| bring the project some attention, and some additional developers. |
| Adding the missing features was just a matter of time. In more recently |
| releases we have completed many of our desired goals, and several new ones |
| that were implimented to fullfill user requests. |
| |
| Q32: I've heard talk of a 'Rolo'. What is that? (Or 'All you ever wanted |
| to know about Rockbox boot loaders') |
| A32: The developers have discussed the possibility of a boot loader. (Mainly |
| because having one sounds cool, and isn't Rolo just a great name?) |
| The idea would be that a user could use the load to choose between |
| different verions of Rockbox or the Archo firmware itself. We have a |
| working version of ROLO implimented for the players, and a version in |
| development for the recorders. However, at this time, the patch for ROLO |
| is not optimal for use and is not part of the main branch of the CVS. |
| Once this improves and has been tested sufficently, it will become part of |
| the main release. Please check the mailing list logs and irc logs for more |
| information. |
| |
| Q33: I was thinking about making the USB a bit more usable. What are the |
| chances of using the USB port to [play games / share files / list |
| the device as something other then a hard drive / sell my soul to you |
| for a nickel]. What do you think? |
| A33: You really don't want to know what I think, it involves road flares, |
| microwave ovens and shaved cats. Enough said. But regarding the USB |
| portion of your question, this is not feasible. First, any ideas |
| regarding special communications over the USB port will not work because |
| we have no control over the USB port itself. We are capable of |
| dectecting if it is in use (so we know which mode to switch to) but that |
| is it. Second, if you would like to have your Archos as a harddrive for |
| another device, know that this will not work either. The Archos unit is |
| a slave. Most other USB devices are slaves as well. So without some |
| master involved there can be no communication. Sorry. Now about your |
| soul. Would you settle for 3 cents and a small wad of belly button lint? |
| |
| Q34: When I use RockBox my jukebox's red "error" light turns on a lot, but this |
| doesn't happen on the factory firmware. Why? |
| A34: Rockbox uses the red LED as harddisk activity light, not as an error |
| light. Relax and enjoy the music. |
| |
| Q35: How do I use the loadable fonts? |
| A35: Loadable fonts are a work in progress. We do not have full documentation |
| for it. The best we can do now is tell you that you need a valid .bdf |
| font, and to use the tool "bdf2ajf" from CVS to conver to the .ajf format. |
| The final .ajf font must be stored in the archos root as 'system.ajf' |
| We do expect more documentation on this process shortly. |
| |
| Q36: I have a question about the batteries... |
| A36: STOP! We have put togeather a completely different FAQ for battery |
| related questions. Check out: http://rockbox.haxx.se/docs/battery.html |
| |