Two approaches to Open gadgets [LWN.net]

The world is full of fun gadgets which perform specific tasks. Those gadgets tend to be highly closed affairs, however. Even the ones which run Linux are sealed shut so that they cannot be played with. The result is that many of these toys retain annoying misfeatures and do not live up to their full potential. For this reason, most interesting electronic toys are surrounded by a crowd of developers looking for a way in. Wouldn't it be nice if that work weren't necessary?

One device which has begun to attract attention is the GP2X, which will be shipping soon. This device has a superficial resemblance to the Sony PSP; it has a central screen with a set of buttons on the right and a joystick-button on the left. Unlike the PSP, however, it is an open device. The specifications are available (this Wikipedia page has the most comprehensive information), and the device runs Linux. It is clearly meant to be hacked on, and it could be the source of no end of interesting applications.

On the other hand, some details are scarce, and there appears to be no place to download the Linux distribution used on the device. An earlier version of the product page contains the ominous words "copyright protection by certified DRM." The device will remain vaporware for a little longer; once it is in circulation, the world will see if it is truly a Linux-friendly (as opposed to simply Linux-using) gadget or not.

A more interesting project, one which could certainly benefit from more development help, is Rockbox. The Rockbox developers are creating a free system for portable music players; the primary target is the Archos product line, but work is proceeding on iRiver 1xx and 3xx players as well. This project (which will be releasing version 2.5 "soon") is a demonstration of why free software is such a nice thing to have on these devices.

A partial list of advantages to the Rockbox software would include:

A much wider range of translations than the original manufacturer provides.
Numerous features for blind users, including a voice mode which reads out menu entries as the user moves over them.
Gapless playback.
A wider range of codecs, enabling the use of audio formats not supported by the manufacturer.
A user-configurable "while playing" screen, enabling scarce display space to be used for exactly what the user wishes to see.
A plugin architecture for adding new features. The plugin list appears heavily biased toward games, but it also includes image file viewers, clocks and stopwatches, and more.
On the iRiver: faster booting and the ability to boot into USB storage mode when the filesystem is corrupted. So filesystem problems which would turn a stock iRiver into a brick are recoverable with Rockbox.

The list goes on, but the point should be clear: Rockbox allows the owner of a music player to do away with no end of annoyances, add new features, and generally get the most out of a nice piece of hardware. The freedom to make changes like this is what drew many of us to free software in the first place.

The sad thing is that the Rockbox developers have had to put considerable work into figuring out how the hardware works and developing firmware patches. Had the vendors simply opened up their hardware in the first place, that effort could have gone into making the software better. This situation should eventually change: Rockbox already looks better than what a number of manufacturers are installing onto their players. As Rockbox develops and that gap widens, there will come a time when some manufacturer will realize that the ability to run Rockbox will be a positive selling point for a media player. Then, maybe, we'll have a truly open gadget to play with.

to post comments

Rockbox != Linux

Posted Sep 22, 2005 2:33 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (3 responses)

While there are ports of Linux that run on certian Archos devices (the AV series in particular), Rockbox itself is *not* Linux. It's fully GPL'ed though.

Rockbox is its own operating system, very lean and on its original target, a 16-bit microcontroller in the Archos Jukebox series. has to fit within 2 megs of RAM, including song buffers.

While it is being ported to much more capable platforms now, that does not make it Linux.

- Solomon [using rockbox for a couple of years now]

Rockbox != Linux

Posted Sep 22, 2005 3:15 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (2 responses)

Oops. Don't know how I could spend that much time digging through their stuff and still get that wrong. Article has been fixed, sorry for the confusion.

Rockbox != Linux

Posted Sep 22, 2005 9:21 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (1 responses)

Not only is Rockbox not Linux (although the developers use Linux, and the code is generated via a GCC cross-compiler), there's no way you could get Linux to run on some of the machines this targets. Without physical modification the Archos targets have 2Mb of RAM, most of which should be devoted to MP3 buffering, and Rockbox eats into that (except if it runs out of RAM). I don't think that's exactly a Linux dream machine.

But Rockbox does what it does excellently --- and compared, in particular, to the appallling pre-installed software on Archoses, it's excellent.

One definite problem is that by the time any device is supported, it's probably no longer on sale. The only device that's even partially supported *and* on sale now is the iRiver 3xx, and that's apparently being obsoleted in favour of iRiver models that contain chips with no specs (read `no chance of running anything free on them').

What's really needed is for the manufacturers of these things to use chips with public specs, and preferably to provide specs for the devices themselves, so the devs don't need to burn time tracing the PCBs by hand.)

Rockbox 2.5

Posted Sep 22, 2005 12:53 UTC (Thu) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link]

Rockbox 2.5 was just released today, BTW.

Nano, of course

Posted Sep 22, 2005 5:45 UTC (Thu) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link]

This article would be incomplete without mention of ipodlinux . They have Linux (yes, actual Linux -- albeit uCLinux, which uses no hardware memory mapping) running on the older iPods, and may get it going on Nanos someday -- sooner if you help.

The Nano does need their help. It's really very, very nice hardware. As well as people say they like it, though, it just doesn't have precisely the feature set each of us would prefer. That's fixable, despite Apple. Why can't you transfer a song to somebody else's iPod? Evidently just because Apple is afraid to let you. iPodLinux lets you. Similarly for all the other features listed for Rockbox. (Blind people should be able to use something besides the Shuffle!) And, of course, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to run your own programs in there, once Steve and his opinions have been shouldered aside.

Of course, since iPodLinux runs only on older iPods, so far, you're obliged to pay a lot less, on eBay, than if you were buying one new, and Apple doesn't get any of it.

Two approaches to Open gadgets

Posted Sep 22, 2005 7:28 UTC (Thu) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link]

Rockbox is great. I have an iRiver H120 which the manufacturer has stopped producing and deemed "obsolete" (despite being only a year old) so factory firmware updates are nonexistant. Rockbox has breathed new life into this great player.

Although still beta software, the current Rockbox iriver port is stable and feature-full enough for me to use exclusively for the past couple of months (download a daily build if you want to try it). It supports everything the original firmware does including MP3 and Ogg Vorbis as well as new formats such as FLAC and WavPack, with the potential for more to come.

Two approaches to Open gadgets

Posted Sep 22, 2005 9:23 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

The wider-range-of-codecs stuff is iRiver only (the Archos models do decoding in hardware).

Some additions/comments

Posted Sep 22, 2005 10:36 UTC (Thu) by laf0rge (subscriber, #6469) [Link] (2 responses)

Please see the OpenTom project for TomTom GO navigation systems. TomTom has been very helpful in releasing all kernel code under GPL (there even is 100% fre SD-Card support). They even released pinouts of the connectors, etc.

Maybe also of interest, my newest "locked down" linux based toy is a Motorola A780 cellphone (quad-band, with GPS). It runs a heavily modified 2.4.20 kernel with glibc(!) and qtEmbedded on top. There's already a port of two different gameboy emulators and a console program available from the folks at motofans.

The list is neverending, I'm running into tons of more-or-less open devices during my gpl-violations.org... I'm also intending to put a "www.gpl-devices.org" webpage online, but hampered by lack of time :(

Some additions/comments

Posted Sep 22, 2005 13:10 UTC (Thu) by wookey (guest, #5501) [Link] (1 responses)

Indeed. Tom Tom have been remarkably enlightened as companies approached by GPLviolations.org go. They were smart enough to employ (some of) the open tom hackers to help with their kernel 2.6 port for example.

The big potential for devices like this is to help collect input data for open geospatial data projects like openstreetmap.org. If some of the world's TomToms have software which makes it easy to collect, annotate and upload track information then we can make fairly complete road-map datasets remarkably quickly.

This stuff will no doubt be discussed at the World Free Information Infrastructure Conference on 5th/6th October in London.

On the newer TomToms with flash drives in them you have enormous potential for making cool systems which play music and movies, and log tracks, as well as doingyour navigation. Build systems like Open Embedded and Embedded Debian should make it easier to knock together small-enough systems using standard components for relatively powerful devices like this. I'd encourage anyone with an interest in the potential to help out wherever they can.

Some additions/comments

Posted Sep 22, 2005 13:25 UTC (Thu) by wookey (guest, #5501) [Link]

That should have been 1st/2nd of October for the conference. Apologies for my brain-rot.

GP2X and no source code

Posted Sep 22, 2005 10:38 UTC (Thu) by laf0rge (subscriber, #6469) [Link]

Obviously, gpl-violations.org might help with obtaining the source code of the device. But according to the GP2X homepage, the devices don't really ship before October - so why would the source code be available (even in a gpl compliant device) before the actual device is released onto the market?

Speaking of open gadgets

Posted Sep 22, 2005 15:32 UTC (Thu) by pj (subscriber, #4506) [Link]

Don't forget the fine folk at Neuros Audio; they've built one open music platform already and have another under way... they've even opened up the development process! check out http://open.neurosaudio.com/ for more details. I wouldn't mind a story abuut them, either, hint hint :)

PepperPad

Posted Sep 22, 2005 15:45 UTC (Thu) by zooko (guest, #2589) [Link]

It's a lot bigger than some of these other devices, but it runs Linux and is trying to hit an interesting niche.

http://pepper.com/

Two approaches to Open gadgets

Posted Sep 24, 2005 18:07 UTC (Sat) by Frej (guest, #4165) [Link]

Or the nokia maemo project. Currently only for the 770 nokia. Although it's for another market than portable music players :).