Rockbox, supporting Ogg Vorbis

[Vogateer]

After reading an interview with Red Hat's new CEO, where he mentions he doesn't use an iPod or Zune because the don't support Ogg, I finally felt enough shame to load Rockbox on my iPod Mini—I received the iPod as a bank account promotion gift, before I had been fully exposed to Free Software ideals.

I found the Rockbox manual install to be easy (though I don't think Gentoo is hard, either, just have to follow instructions), and I didn't know it when I started, but it is nice to know that you can return to the regular iPod firmware in a dual boot fashion. That much is very impressive. I switched over to the ogg version of every podcast that offers it, and I started listening to the latest Ogg Vorbis version of the show on the way to work today, and felt a lot better for doing it. I'd like to say that I thought the sound quality of the last show was very good. I'm a bit fearful about Dann burning up his server in order to silence the fan, but I have to admit it likely helped rid the show of background noise.

I can't say I'm wild about the interface. Now that won't stop me from using Rockbox, which has some great features, but to be perfectly honest with myself, I think I would basically prefer the typical iPod interface, just with support for Ogg, Flac, and any other free audio codecs out there. As it is, I'll have to grow accustomed to managing my iPod differently, but it's worth it to avoid mp3s when I can.

Anyone else using Rockbox on here? I did a search through the forum and couldn't find any mention of it.

[CptnObvious999]

Yeah, I have used it on my iAudio X5L and then it broke and I was able to get a broken Gigabeat F40 off ebay for $50 and put Rockbox on it, works great. Even though you could put Rockbox on an iPod I still avoid it just due to personal hatred toward them...but that's just me. Still not sure what my next player will be, there are still rumors of an iAudio X5 successor...I'll wait and see.

[Vogateer]

Yeah, I received the iPod for opening a checking account, otherwise it probably wouldn't have been my choice. I must admit that I like its user interface on the Mini, though. But judging by the quality of the sound I experienced this morning with my ogg files, I'll be sticking with it.

Have you been upgrading Rockbox often, or do you simply stick with what you initially put on there? I haven't been using it for long, but I'm losing my upgrade itch on my computers and I imagine I'll have fewer reason to upgrade Rockbox if it works well. I do wish there was better support with Rhythmbox and Amarok, though. I've seen feature requests in bug trackers, so I think they're working on it, but it is slightly more troublesome to load songs onto my iPod now.

In the meantime, I'll see about the alternative interfaces they have for it, perhaps I'll find one more to my liking.

[CptnObvious999]

Yeah, I received the iPod for opening a checking account, otherwise it probably wouldn't have been my choice. I must admit that I like its user interface on the Mini, though. But judging by the quality of the sound I experienced this morning with my ogg files, I'll be sticking with it.

Have you been upgrading Rockbox often, or do you simply stick with what you initially put on there? I haven't been using it for long, but I'm losing my upgrade itch on my computers and I imagine I'll have fewer reason to upgrade Rockbox if it works well. I do wish there was better support with Rhythmbox and Amarok, though. I've seen feature requests in bug trackers, so I think they're working on it, but it is slightly more troublesome to load songs onto my iPod now.

In the meantime, I'll see about the alternative interfaces they have for it, perhaps I'll find one more to my liking.

I do it every couple months in hopes that there might be slightly better battery life. There is a utility for windows/linux that will automatically manage rockbox (including update the firmware): http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/M ... boxUtility