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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
2.2 Installing Rockbox
2.2.1 Automated Installation
2.2.2 Manual Installation
2.2.3 Finishing the install
2.2.4 Enabling Speech Support (optional)
2.3 Running Rockbox
2.4 Updating Rockbox
2.5 Uninstalling Rockbox
2.5.1 Automatic Uninstallation
2.5.2 Manual Uninstallation
2.6 Troubleshooting

2.1  Before Starting

2.2  Installing Rockbox

There are two ways to install Rockbox: automated and manual. The automated way is the preferred method of installing Rockbox for the majority of people. Rockbox Utility is a graphical application that does almost everything for you. However, should you encounter a problem, then the manual way is still available to you.

Note: The automated install is not yet available for the Gigabeat S Series. For now you can use the manual method to install Rockbox. Please still read the section on the automatic install as it explains various important aspects of Rockbox, such as the different versions available.

There are three separate components, two of which need to be installed in order to run Rockbox:

The Toshiba bootloader.
The Toshiba bootloader is the program that tells your player how to load and start the original firmware. It is also responsible for any emergency, recovery, or disk modes on your player. This bootloader is stored in special flash memory in your Toshiba and comes factory-installed. It is not necessary to modify this in order to install Rockbox.
The Rockbox bootloader.
The Rockbox bootloader is loaded from disk by the Toshiba bootloader. It is responsible for loading the Rockbox firmware and for providing the dual boot function. It directly replaces the Toshiba firmware in the player’s boot sequence.
The Rockbox firmware.
Similar to the Toshiba firmware, most of the Rockbox code is contained in a “build” that resides on your player’s drive. This makes it easy to update Rockbox. The build consists of a directory called .rockbox which contains all of the Rockbox files, and is located in the root of your player’s drive.

Apart from the required parts there are some addons you might be interested in installing.

Fonts.
Rockbox can load custom fonts. The fonts are distributed as a separate package and thus need to be installed separately. They are not required to run Rockbox itself but a lot of themes require the fonts package to be installed.
Themes.
The appearance of Rockbox can be customised by themes. Depending on your taste you might want to install additional themes to change the look of Rockbox.

2.2.1  Automated Installation

To automatically install Rockbox, download the official installer and housekeeping tool Rockbox Utility. It allows you to:

Prebuilt binaries for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X are available at the RockboxUtility wiki page.

Note: Rockbox Utility does not currently support the Gigabeat S Series and you will therefore need to follow the manual install instructions below.

When first starting Rockbox Utility run “Autodetect”, found in the configuration dialog (File → Configure). Autodetection can detect most player types. If autodetection fails or is unable to detect the mountpoint, make sure to enter the correct values. The mountpoint indicates the location of the player in your filesystem. On Windows, this is the drive letter the player gets assigned, on other systems this is a path in the filesystem.

Choosing a Rockbox version

There are three different versions of Rockbox available from the Rockbox website: Release version, current build and archived daily build. You need to decide which one you want to install and get the appropriate version for your player. If you select either “Minimal Installation” or “Complete Installation” from the “Quick Start” tab, then Rockbox Utility will automatically install the release version of Rockbox. Using the “Installation” tab will allow you to select which version you wish to install.

Release.
The release version is the latest stable release, free of known critical bugs. For a manual install, the current stable release of Rockbox is available at http://www.rockbox.org/download/.
Current Build.
The current build is built at each source code change to the Rockbox SVN repository and represents the current state of Rockbox development. This means that the build could contain bugs but most of the time is safe to use. For a manual install, you can download the current build from http://build.rockbox.org/.
Archived Build.
In addition to the release version and the current build, there is also an archive of daily builds available for download. These are built once a day from the latest source code in the SVN repository. For a manual install, you can download archived builds from http://www.rockbox.org/daily.shtml.

Note: Because current and archived builds are development versions that change frequently, they may behave differently than described in this manual, or they may introduce new (and potentially annoying) bugs. Unless you wish to try the latest and greatest features at the price of possibly greater instability, or you wish to help with development, you should stick with the release.

Please now go to section 2.2.3 to complete the installation procedure.

2.2.2  Manual Installation

The manual installation method is still available to you, should you need or desire it by following the instructions below. If you have used Rockbox Utility to install Rockbox, then you do not need to follow the next section and can skip straight to section 2.2.3

Installing the bootloader

Warning: Before starting this procedure, ensure that you have a copy of the original Toshiba firmware. Without this, it is not possible to uninstall Rockbox. It is also needed if you want to install the dual-boot bootloader. The Toshiba firmware can be downloaded from http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/tacpassets-images/firmware/MESV12US.zip.
The single-boot bootloader can only boot Rockbox, whereas the dual-boot bootloader can boot both Rockbox and the Toshiba firmware. The single-boot bootloader boots Rockbox more quickly if you no longer need access to the Toshiba firmware.

Installing the bootloader is only needed once. It involves replacing the existing firmware file on your player with another version. When running the original Toshiba firmware (a version of Windows CE), it is only possible to connect the player to a PC in “MTP mode”, which hides the actual content of your player’s disk and provides restricted access to its contents. In reality, the player’s hard disk contains two partitions, a small (150 MB) “firmware partition” containing the player’s firmware (operating system), and a second “data partition” containing your media files. The main firmware file in the bootloader partition is called nk.bin, and this is the file that is loaded into RAM (by the player’s ROM-based bootloader) and executed when your player is powered on.

Bootloader installation from Windows

Warning: You need to have at least Windows Media Player 11 installed for installing the bootloader to work correctly. If you have Windows Media Player 10 installed beastpatcher will not be able to send the firmware file to the player correctly.

1.
Attach your player to your computer.
2.
Download beastpatcher.exe from http://download.rockbox.org/bootloader/toshiba/gigabeat-s/beastpatcher/win32/beastpatcher.exe and then perform one of the following, depending on whether you want single or dual-boot.
Single Boot.
Run beastpatcher.exe. You should see some information displayed about your player and a message asking you if you wish to install the Rockbox bootloader. Press i followed by ENTER, and beastpatcher will install the bootloader. After a short time you should see the message “[INFO] Bootloader installed successfully”. Press ENTER again to exit beastpatcher.
Dual Boot.
Inside the MESV12US.zip file you downloaded earlier you should find an .iso file. Using e.g. 7zip (http://www.7-zip.org) you can extract an .exe file from this .iso file. Using 7zip again, extract the Toshiba firmware file nk.bin from the .exe file and place it in the same directory as beastpatcher.exe. Open a command prompt and navigate to this directory, and then type the following commands:

  beastpatcher -d nk.bin

After a short time you should see the message “[INFO] Bootloader installed successfully”. Press ENTER again to exit beastpatcher.

3.
After a successful installation, you need to disconnect your player from USB, and then immediately reconnect it. It should reboot then enter the Rockbox bootloader “USB Mass Storage” mode, which exposes your player’s disk to your computer as a standard USB Mass Storage device.

Bootloader installation from Mac OS X

1.
Attach your player to your computer.
2.
Download and open beastpatcher.dmg from http://download.rockbox.org/bootloader/toshiba/gigabeat-s/beastpatcher/macosx/beastpatcher.dmg and then perform one of the following, depending on whether you want single or dual-boot.
Single Boot.
Double-click on the beastpatcher icon. You can also drag the beastpatcher icon to a location on your hard drive and launch it from the Terminal. If all has gone well, you should see some information displayed about your player and a message asking you if you wish to install the Rockbox bootloader. Press i followed by ENTER, and beastpatcher will now install the bootloader. After a short time you should see the message “[INFO] Bootloader installed successfully” followed by some error messages that you can safely ignore. Press ENTER again to exit beastpatcher and then quit the Terminal application.
Dual Boot.
Inside the MESV12US.zip file you downloaded earlier you should find an .iso file. Using e.g. 7zip (http://www.7-zip.org) you can extract an .exe file from this .iso file. Using 7zip again, extract the Toshiba firmware file nk.bin from the .exe file and place it in the same directory as beastpatcher. Open a terminal window and type the following command:

  ./beastpatcher -d nk.bin
3.
After a successful installation, your player will immediately turn off. Turn it on again, and (because it is still connected to your Mac) it will enter the Rockbox bootloader’s “USB Mass Storage” mode, which exposes your player’s disk to your computer as a standard USB Mass Storage device.

Bootloader installation from Linux

1.
Download beastpatcher from http://download.rockbox.org/bootloader/toshiba/gigabeat-s/beastpatcher/linux32x86/beastpatcher (32-bit x86 binary) or http://download.rockbox.org/bootloader/toshiba/gigabeat-s/beastpatcher/linux64amd64/beastpatcher (64-bit amd64 binary). You can save this anywhere you wish, but the next steps will assume you have saved it in your home directory.
2.
Attach your player to your computer and then perform one of the following, depending on whether you want single or dual-boot.
Single Boot.
Open up a terminal window and type the following commands:

  cd $HOME
  chmod +x beastpatcher
  ./beastpatcher

If all has gone well, you should see some information displayed about your player and a message asking you if you wish to install the Rockbox bootloader. Press i followed by ENTER, and beastpatcher will now install the bootloader. After a short time you should see the message “[INFO] Bootloader installed successfully” followed by some error messages that you can safely ignore. Press ENTER again to exit beastpatcher.

Dual Boot.
Inside the MESV12US.zip file you downloaded earlier you should find an .iso file. Using e.g. 7zip (http://www.7-zip.org) you can extract an .exe file from this .iso file. Using 7zip again, extract the Toshiba firmware file nk.bin from the .exe file and place it in the same directory as beastpatcher. Open a terminal window and type the following commands:

  cd $HOME
  chmod +x beastpatcher
  ./beastpatcher -d nk.bin

After a short time you should see the message “[INFO] Bootloader installed successfully” followed by some error messages that you can safely ignore. Press ENTER again to exit beastpatcher.

3.
After a successful installation, your player will immediately turn off. Turn it on again, and (because it is still connected to your PC) it will enter the Rockbox bootloader’s “USB Mass Storage” mode, which exposes your player’s disk to your computer as a standard USB Mass Storage device.

Installing the firmware

Note: When your player is in the Rockbox USB or bootloader USB mode, you will see two visible partitions - the 150 MB firmware partition (containing at least a file called nk.bin) and the main data partition. Rockbox must be installed onto the main data partition.

1.
Download your chosen version of Rockbox from the links in the previous section.
2.
Connect your player to the computer via USB as described in the manual that came with your player.
3.
Take the .zip file that you downloaded and use the “Extract all” command of your unzip program to extract the files onto the main data partition of your player.

Note: The entire contents of the .zip file should be extracted directly to the root of your player’s drive. Do not try to create a separate directory on your player for the Rockbox files! The .zip file already contains the internal structure that Rockbox needs.

If the contents of the .zip file are extracted correctly, you will have a directory called .rockbox, which contains all the files needed by Rockbox, in the main directory of your player’s drive.

2.2.3  Finishing the install

Safely eject / unmount your player.

2.2.4  Enabling Speech Support (optional)

If you wish to use speech support you will also need a voice file. Voice files allow Rockbox to speak the user interface to you. Rockbox Utility can install an English voice file, or you can download it from http://www.rockbox.org/daily.shtml and unzip it to the root of your player. Rockbox Utility can also aid you in the creation of voice files with different voices or in other languages if you have a suitable speech engine installed on your computer. Voice menus are enabled by default and will come into effect after a reboot. See section 8.10 for details on voice settings. Rockbox Utility can also aid in the production of talk files, which allow Rockbox to speak file and folder names.

2.3  Running Rockbox

Rockbox should automatically load when you turn on your player.

Note: If you have loaded music onto your player using the Toshiba firmware, you will not be able to see your music properly in the File Browser as MTP mode changes the location and file names. Files placed on your player using the Toshiba firmware can be viewed by initialising and using Rockbox’s database. See section 4.2 for more information.

2.4  Updating Rockbox

Rockbox can be easily updated with Rockbox Utility. You can also update Rockbox manually – download a Rockbox build as detailed above, and unzip the build to the root directory of your player as in the manual installation stage. If your unzip program asks you whether to overwrite files, choose the “Yes to all” option. The new build will be installed over your current build.

Note: When your player is in the Rockbox USB or bootloader USB mode, you will see two visible partitions, the 150 MB firmware partition (containing at least a file called nk.bin) and the main data partition. Rockbox must be installed onto the main data partition.

The bootloader only changes rarely, and should not normally need to be updated.

Note: If you use Rockbox Utility be aware that it cannot detect manually installed components.

2.5  Uninstalling Rockbox

2.5.1  Automatic Uninstallation

Note: Rockbox can only be uninstalled manually for now.

You can uninstall Rockbox automatically by using Rockbox Utility. If you installed Rockbox manually you can still use Rockbox Utility for uninstallation but will not be able to do this selectively.

2.5.2  Manual Uninstallation

If you wish to clean up your disk by deleting the .rockbox directory and its contents, this must be done before uninstalling the bootloader in the next step.

Before installation you should have downloaded a copy of the Toshiba firmware from http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/tacpassets-images/firmware/MESV12US.zip.

Note: From Windows, you can also run gbs_update_1_2_us.exe directly to restore your player. This will format your player, removing all files.

2.6  Troubleshooting

“File Not Found”
If you receive a “File Not Found” from the bootloader, then the bootloader cannot find the Rockbox firmware. This is usually a result of not extracting the contents of the .zip file to the proper location, and should not happen when Rockbox has been installed with Rockbox Utility.

To fix this, either install Rockbox with the Rockbox Utility which will take care of this for you, or recheck the Manual Install section to see where the files need to be located.

If this does not fix the problem, there are two additional procedures that you can try to solve this:

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