Installing Rockbox on your iPod Nano 2G

Reading the title, a couple of questions are bound to arise. I’ll tackle them one by one:

What’s Rockbox?

Well, Rockbox is an open-source replacement firmware for your digital audio player (DAP). It basically replaces the default interface and ‘OS’ that the DAP shipped with, and installs itself in its stead.

Why Rockbox?

Rockbox offers more functionality than the default OS ever can. You can install themes, plug-ins. As of now, Rockbox offers support for a total of about eighteen different codecs, depending on how you count them. More importantly, support for formats such as .ogg has been added, a feature that was sorely missed by some (not me). One other reason why many people go for Rockbox is because it allows you to tweak your settings beyond what the default Apple firmware could ever allow.

But perhaps one of the killer reasons why people go for Rockbox is because of the way it can unshackle your iPod from iTunes, thereby allowing you to retain your music player, but ditch the application. I’m a bit equivocal about iTunes, mainly because my opinion of it vacillates violently over a course of a few days at times.

Rockbox is also available for a variety of different DAPs, but the Nano 2G is the first Apple device to be added, which has an encrypted firmware. You can find the list of supported devices here.

Why Now? 

Okay, so the iPod Nano 2G may not be the latest thing to come out of Cupertino’s stables, but as it happens, it is the latest iPod to be added to the Rockbox family. The reason for this is very simple. The iPod 2G is unlike most iPod which preceded it: the firmware is encrypted. The Nano has a separate bootloader, which decrypts the firmware and loads it into the RAM. This had made it very difficult for developers to lay their hands analyse the actual code that helps run the Nano 2G. Fortunately, after discovering a loophole of sorts in the Notes application, the Rockbox Crew managed to dump the entire firmware onto a hard drive. After they dissected it, along with the bootloader, they were successfully able to release a version for the Nano 2G with a few modifications. But even so, I agree that the product is nearing the end of its life cycle. I’ve managed to prolong the battery life by carefully managing backlight settings and judicious use of the Hold switch. But even I’ll admit that it’s becoming a less interesting over the times (especially since I got my hands on my 5230). So this is an attempt to try out something new.

Installation

is really quite simple. I was done in about 5 minutes, including download time! First thing, you should click here to download the Rockbox release for iPod Nano 2G. Although an automatic installer is available for most devices, the Nano 2G is still classified as an Unstable Build, which has varied interpretations, from ‘there are a few minor niggles to iron out’ to ‘oh my GOD, the battery is going to explode’. I found no issues after installing it on my iPod.

Make sure that your Nano 2G has Disk Mode enabled i.e. it should turn up like a USB drive when you connect it to your computer. If that’s not the case, you should open iTunes, select your iPod from the left menu once it’s done detecting it, and select the appropriate checkbox.

Once you’re done with the download, extract the files in the ZIP archive to the root folder of the iPod. Don’t disturb the directory structure inside the .rockbox folder, you’ll only make things harder for yourself.

Once that’s done, just download the bootloader patcher. You need to run this once with your iPod connected to fix the default bootloader on your iPod to detect Rockbox as a firmware as well. Don’t worry, you can still access your old Apple firmware. You’ll have to enter i once your iPod is detected.

Once you’ve patched the bootloader, in my case the iPod restarted itself as soon as I disconnected the USB cable. You’ll be presented with the Apple logo, which means that it is hard resetting itself. Remember that when you switch off your iPod, by pressing the Play button for a few seconds, you’re actually only putting it into a sleep mode: the RAM still has the firmware loaded, which enables you to quickly resume playback.

Rockbox is a bit different. It loads itself from the flash disk each time you switch on your iPod, which consequentially takes a little while. But it’s surprisingly quick when compared to how long the default firmware takes to load after a hard reset. One other thing to notice is that when you switch off your iPod in Rockbox, it really does switch off. There’s no sleep mode. Although I haven’t yet been able to benchmark the battery performance, I think there will be a marginal increase in battery life.

More importantly, you can dual-boot your iPod! When your iPod shows the Apple logo while booting, if your Hold switch is on, it will boot into the default firmware. In case it’s not, it loads Rockbox. If you want to switch from Apple to Rockbox, you’ll have to hard reset your iPod, by first switching Hold on, then off, followed by simultaneously pressing Menu and Select till the screen blanks out. It’s much simpler with Rockbox – it reboots each time you switch it on anyways.

There are some things which Rockbox permits me to do, which the default firmware doesn’t. For example:

• I can adjust the brightness level on my Nano 2G, a feature which was added only in later iterations of the Nano.
• Music transfer can be simplified. Rather than letting iTunes maintain a monopoly over your iPod, and maintaining absurd 4-character filenames instead of simple human-friendly ones, you can use another music player, like Windows Media Player, for example, to sync music to a sane Music folder in your iPod. Nevertheless, Rockbox is perfectly capable of reading the iTunes database on your iPod, and create a library out of that.
• There are a couple of nifty features: a voice that can guide you through the menus (I haven’t really tried it yet), a couple of fresh audio settings that the old firmware didn’t allow, like resuming playback after your plug in your earphones. Currently, iPods are capable of pausing playback if the earphones are disconnected.
• The plug-ins are fun, ranging from games to oscilloscopes, Rockbox has them all. There are a ton of them preloaded already, with the scope for more to be added, without needing to reinstall the entire firmware. Simply copy the stuff into the appropriate folder and voila!

But it’s not all good news actually:

• Firstly, there’s one very important reason why I may not use Rockbox on a day-to-day basis. There is no support for ratings. One of the primary reasons I still use my iPod is because of the rating synchronisation it offers with iTunes. Any changes on the iPod are reflected on my ratings in my library, which is great, because it lets me rate my music on the move, or while reading the newspaper. And these ratings help build auto playlists in iTunes, which further decide what gets synced next. Indeed, by using a utility such as MusicBridge, I can maintain global ratings on my files, instead of in the iTunes database, which lets other media players, such as WMP read them and build its own auto playlists, which I can then sync with my phone. Rockbox does not offer me this functionality, so it’s utility for me is limited.
• The plug-ins are great, but still remain a bit disconnected from the music. A few of them allow playback control from within the plug-in, but most require you to navigate back to the Now Playing screen to make changes, which can sometime be annoying, especially because I’ve water-damaged my Menu button.

So it’s really very simple. If you have no desire to maintain ratings for your music, you should switch to Rockbox. End of debate.