I worked on this project a bit back in the day as a teen. Bricked my first iPod trying to get a DIY uClinux kernel to boot on it within hours of getting it for Christmas. Took bricking 8 more warranty replacements before I finally got Linux to boot.
Weeks later thanks to a lot of community help, finally found the memory address for audio out and got music playback that was not beholden to any DRM.
This work was all referenced by the RockBox team that made a tiny embedded kernel and OS far more suited to the tasks.
Now all devices that can run rockbox are EOL and other community members are working on an open hardware player to run Rockbox.
Couple decades in, but we are finally close to having the first fully featured fully open hardware music player, which all started back with reverse engineering iPods to run Linux kernels.
As someone that does not carry a cell phone, I am absolutely excited about this as it would be a daily driver for me.
echelon_musk · 43m ago
> Now all devices that can run rockbox are EOL
All Apple devices are, but the 'AIGO EROS Q / K' [0] is not end of life and is supported by Rockbox.
I'm interested in the Echo player and I think it's important long term. However, the lack of a scroll wheel is what keeps me invested in iPod Classics over all other players.
Nostalgia! I forgot all about this. I had an iPod that I flashed with podzilla back in the day. It worked really well. I remember that you could enter the shell. Ended up selling it on eBay.
MarcelOlsz · 1h ago
I've an urge to get back into the ipod video 5th gen, with an SSD mod and a bluetooth mod (via moonlit.market).
echelon_musk · 41m ago
The iPod Classic has a much better CPU. Unless you specifically want the 5th gen because of its DAC I would always recommend a Classic over a Video. If the look is what matters to you then you can retrofit a Classic into the plastic housing of a Video.
Weeks later thanks to a lot of community help, finally found the memory address for audio out and got music playback that was not beholden to any DRM.
This work was all referenced by the RockBox team that made a tiny embedded kernel and OS far more suited to the tasks.
Now all devices that can run rockbox are EOL and other community members are working on an open hardware player to run Rockbox.
https://github.com/amachronic/echoplayer
Couple decades in, but we are finally close to having the first fully featured fully open hardware music player, which all started back with reverse engineering iPods to run Linux kernels.
As someone that does not carry a cell phone, I am absolutely excited about this as it would be a daily driver for me.
All Apple devices are, but the 'AIGO EROS Q / K' [0] is not end of life and is supported by Rockbox.
I'm interested in the Echo player and I think it's important long term. However, the lack of a scroll wheel is what keeps me invested in iPod Classics over all other players.
[0] https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/AIGOErosQK.html
I think it's here?
https://sourceforge.net/p/ipodlinux/code/HEAD/tree/
Wayland is more flexible, as it's just a protocol, so it could work.