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Topic: Both add and remove Rockbox? (Read 3884 times) previous topic - next topic
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Both add and remove Rockbox?

There is an interest in testing a Sansa Clip+ with Rockbox. The question is
Can Rockbox be removed to return the player to normal Sansa operation (just in case that is wanted)?
Is operation entirely back to Sansa normal after removal?
Are there any difficulties in doing this? That is, does it always work properly or are there sometimes unexplained failures?

Both add and remove Rockbox?

Reply #1 –
i know reading the manual is a very un-manly thing to do but sometimes it has to be done....

Quote
2. Installation
Installing Rockbox is generally a quick and easy procedure. However before beginning there are a few important things to know.
2.1. Before Starting
DRM capability.
It is possible that installation of the bootloader may lead to you permanently losing the ability to playback files with DRM.


this is going to be a non-issue for 99.9% of people. i don't know how anyone could go back to the original firmware after using rockbox. it's just too good.

Both add and remove Rockbox?

Reply #2 –
The Rockbox manual seems to talk about uninstalling but it never quite out and says it explicitly. It message is about installing, or perhaps reinstalling, the Sansa something or other (I'm not in the mood to look up its terms at the moment).  It perhaps hints that the result of this is a return to the original operating mode, but I did not seem anything that explicitly said it gets rid of Rockbox. Nor do I recall anything about "this is easy and certain" or "this could present problems."

There is an earlier version of a Sansa player where it isn't possible to uninstall Rockbox, and Rockbox doesn't work on that player.  One had to be very careful to note which version of that particular player one had, some worked with Rockbox, some did not.  I know this because someone sold, or gave, such a player to my daughter with Rockbox (non-functioning) on it and I had to try to deal with it. It could not be removed without destroying the player -- bricking it in the Rockbox terminology. The player could only be used through a clumsy procedure of booting into the original system, bypassing the botched Rockbox install.

As far as too good, it depends on one's viewpoint and perhaps on the player. I use a Sansa Fuze+ for audiobooks. I could not get books to play in sequence, from beginning to end, with the Sansa firmware. Rockbox made it possible, and somewhat improved the operation of that stupid touch panel. However, Rockbox, from my view, has far too many options attached to too many "buttons", so I would not use it if the Sansa system worked.

I have to be very careful where I touch, and just where does not seem to be very consistent, even if I am being most careful. Because of all the things I don't seem to be able to turn off, I get screens for setting shuffle, variable speed playback, repeat, and possibly another thing or two, when I am trying to do a totally different thing. No doubt this is in some part due to the poor Fuze+ control surface, the fact that the options are accessed, oh so easily accidently, from the playing screen makes for a frequently miserable experience.

If those options were all only under "settings" on the main menu, it would be great. I would never have to touch them because I would never have the slightest interest in them. However, they pop up frequently when I am trying to do something else, like so backwards to an earlier point of the track. Then, getting out of them can be quite difficult, sometimes requiring turning the player off so it will reset. It is all very annoying and makes things much more difficult than it should be, especially as I am most often trying to do something while I am on the move and can't stop and fiddle with it. Whether or not a Clip+ will be much better is yet to be seen.

And, by the way, you neither answered the question nor displayed any part of the Manual which is relevant. I looked up what ever a Google search could find. I read the relevant manual parts. I read the web page that may be about uninstalling. They do not say just what they are about in terms just anyone would recognize. There is a word or two that must be Rockbox jargon, maybe defined somewhere, but not where it is used. Definitely the manual does not say uninstall or remove, although it is under an "uninstall" heading.

If anyone wants to actually say, "yes, it can be installed cleanly" or "no it can't" or "there are certain potential problems, no matter how closely you follow instructions",  please step forward.

Both add and remove Rockbox?

Reply #3 –
You have a dual-boot system after installing Rockbox. You can boot into original Sansa mode if you want to.
I personally would not give away the Rockbox advantages though I don't like the complicated menu system either.
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

Both add and remove Rockbox?

Reply #4 –
Quote from: AndyH-ha on
And, by the way, you neither answered the question nor displayed any part of the Manual which is relevant.


i answered your question in full. if you're too stupid to understand it, then it's not my fault.

Quote
It message is about installing, or perhaps reinstalling, the Sansa something or other (I'm not in the mood to look up its terms at the moment)


ok maybe not stupid, just lazy. i can't help you with that.

Both add and remove Rockbox?

Reply #5 –
In a nutshell: Yes, you can. It's not hard either.

You merely need an original, unmodified firmware image without the RB bootloader. This is placed on the player's internal memory. Then you need to boot the player into OF, whereupon it will proceed to flash the firmware. After a reboot, the RB bootloader will be gone. Removal of /.rockbox directory is optional.

Essentially it's much the same as installing the RB bootloader. RB Utility merely modifies an existing firmware file to include the bootloader and copies it over, where it is is then treated as a firmware update and flashed by OF.

And no, few people ever want to go back. I certainly don't miss the eternal database refresh, for one thing. Lots of RTFM and poking around is much recommended though, there is decidedly a learning curve here. It took me a while to get to the finer points such as the shortcuts menu.

If you don't want Rockbox to mess with DRM, by no means adjust the date in RB.

Both add and remove Rockbox?

Reply #6 –
Yeah you can install, uninstall and dual boot.  See manual sections 2.2 Installing Rockbox and 2.5 Uninstalling Rockbox.

I haven't used DRM on the sandisk players much myself, but my understanding is that if you change the time in rockbox all your DRMed files will expire, but you can fix this by resetting the time in the Sandisk firmware and sycning with WMP or other software (but I've only heard this second hand, could not care less about DRM).

Both add and remove Rockbox?

Reply #7 –
I suppose I shouldn't have been so snarky in elaborating why I did not think much of the gratuitous opinion presented, about someone who might want to uninstall Rockbox. Also, the post struck me as sounding like a comment from someone who didn't really know what worked but wanted to offer an opinion anyway.

If my Fuze+ worked like the original  Fuze I purchased for my granddaughter when she was 5, and which she is still happily using as she approaches 10, I definitely would not have Rockbox on it. Rockbox is a necessary evil, so to speak, because the thing will not play audiobooks properly otherwise.

Rockbox is far too busy for my taste. I acknowledge that it probably would not have much of what it has if people were not interested in those features, and I wouldn't deny them to anyone who wants them. I, however, don't want to take a chance on messing up a new player for the potential small benefits of an alternate interface without knowing if I can cleanly remove that alternate interface should I want. I know about dual boot and I don't consider that an acceptable alternative if Rockbox turns out to just be in the way, something I never want to use.

I searched the Rockbox website, and Google, for uninstalling or removing Rockbox. I found nothing useful. The Rockbox website search doesn't even get one hit on 'uninstall'. I found one page, by some other means I don't recall, that had something with uninstall in it, as in:
prefix Sansa, linked with a three or four letter acronym (undefined), suffix uninstall.
That page has a short instruction list that involved using the Sansa firmware, but nowhere did it explicitly say anything about what the end result will be.

I should also apologize for ruffling feathers with my comment about the manual. I read as much of it as interested me when I did the Sansa Fuze+, but after I downloaded the Clip+ manual I did a search on 'uninstall' and on 'remove', and looked at whatever was located. The only explanation I can think of is that I must have opened the wrong pdf file in my directory of manuals. What I read today is not the ambiguous comments I read yesterday.

Changing the topic, to avoid making a separate post:
I played with the Mp3tag options enough, before making my inquiry, to remember them, and to know that I did not have selections that were different than the defaults in the new Mp3tag version I downloaded last night -- except that the ID3v2.3 ISO-8859-1 option (selected by default) did not exist in the old version. So, something other than program option selections was wrong.

It is hard for me to believe that foobar2000 and (older version) Mp3tag were making the same tags,. Tags created in Mp3tag continued to be present and unchanged if I opened any previously Mp3tag tagged files in the program, while files tagged with foobar2000 showed as blank (and were actually made blank if Mp3tag made any change to any field). Also, nothing I could do got the program's freedb access working in the old version, while with the new version it was easy to get it going.