20080913
Rockbox is better than your iPod - Click!
After a near foolish attempt to replace my iRiver 120 MP3 player with a SanDisk Sansa, I finally got around to getting Rockbox to work.My experience has been positive especially after fearing a repeat of previous experiences. My only regret is that the iRiver 120 has a black and white screen. Imagine what it would be like if it was in color.
I should be able to listen to music how I want it this time, by playlist order (which the iRiver's original software could not read .m3u or .pls files) or in some form of portable relational database.
FM radio still works, although I wonder if there is some way to pick up other bands. I should double check my understanding of electronics.
I have not explored all the features yet, but I am amazed that I can finally play games and WRITE text files on the device. I hope I can read PDFs on it now.
Another feature that Rockbox has that the origninal iRiver (or several other MP3 players) is support for people with disablities, specifically those with impaired vision.
My only grievances about Rockbox so far are how the Installation instructions were written. I wanted to install the manual instructions for rockbox, but when the Linux instructions started talking about using a .exe file (which Linux does not run .exe files) and mentioned some tools for modifying the .hex file (the iRiver firmware patch) that were not on my system, I had to conceed to using the Automatic instructions.
It would also be a little awesome if there was like a mini-Linux console to write shell scripts and fiddle with sed, awk, and vim. The Handhelds.org had something like this. I blame the emphasis on Debian packages for why Handhelds.org wasn't very successful.
Outside of all that, Rockbox rules!
Labels: disabilities, hack, handhelds, lifeisgood, linux, music, radio, software, tech
posted by Bushido Hacks 9/13/2008 05:20:00 PM
