Rockbox moving along splendidly on the Clip +

SanDisk MP3 players Sansa® Clip | Sansa® Clip+
1

Just a heads up.

Having become totally frustrated with Sandisk’s firmware releases dating back to the Sansa View I have alwayshad an interest in Rockbox.

And while sadly still not available for the Sansa View, Rockbox is out for the Sansa Clip +.

And its working pretty well for me.

If you want to give it a shot here is the link for the Rockbox auto installer. It works awesome.

http://www.rockbox.org/download/

Clip + is still considered a “beta” but its working quite well for me.

Give it a try, it cant possibly be worse than Sandisk’s firmware. And please post what you think of it.

P.S.  I’m just a person looking for the best out of my Clip +, currently that means Rockbox. I’m not affiliated with any group or what ever else. Peace peeps.

Ply

2

I take it you missed the other 37 threads already here about this.

3

Hmm, yeah I guess I did. But good news is worth repeating  :stuck_out_tongue:

4

@plywood99 wrote:
Hmm, yeah I guess I did. But good news is worth repeating  :stuck_out_tongue:

And I,for one, am glad you did plywood. As a new owner of Sansa Clip+ I am moving sequentially from the newest posts to the oldest. I have seen mentions of rockbox, but always with the caveat that it is unstable with Sansa Clip+. I have not yet seen “the other 37 posts” that Tapeworm mentioned, I presume they are in older posts that I have not yet encountered. So thanks for the heads-up!  

5

@exlobo wrote:

 

And I,for one, am glad you did plywood. As a new owner of Sansa Clip+ I am moving sequentially from the newest posts to the oldest. I have seen mentions of rockbox, but always with the caveat that it is unstable with Sansa Clip+. I have not yet seen “the other 37 posts” that Tapeworm mentioned, I presume they are in older posts that I have not yet encountered. So thanks for the heads-up!  

 

Are you trying to read ALL the posts? If so, I’m not sure whether to commend your enthusiasm or question your sanity. :wink:

Either way, welcome and enjoy your Clip+!

6

From now on those promoting Rockbox should also warn of its dangers. It is good for enthusiasts who have at least 2 players and don’t mind experimenting and perhaps even destroying a player. It is not good for those with just one player who are unaware of its risks. Putting Rockbox on a player also voids the warranty.

Have I used Rockbox? Not yet, although I might risk a player on it. I have over 3 mp3 players though, and know that Rockbox might destroy a player.

7

@jk98 wrote:

From now on those promoting Rockbox should also warn of its dangers. It is good for enthusiasts who have at least 2 players and don’t mind experimenting and perhaps even destroying a player. It is not good for those with just one player who are unaware of its risks. Putting Rockbox on a player also voids the warranty.

 

Have I used Rockbox? Not yet, although I might risk a player on it. I have over 3 mp3 players though, and know that Rockbox might destroy a player.

I’m almost positive one of your players is a V1 Fuze…which is a fully stable port. I waited until I got my hands on one of those again before I tried it, because I, too thought I might be “risking a player”.  It installed nice as can be, and the only drawback to RB on the Fuze V1, at least the one I have, is that the battery life isn’t that great, although that could change in the future with an updated build.

But the added features more than make up for the loss of a couple hours of battery life…for example, with the V1 Fuze, no more waiting for the database refresh to use your Fuze…unplug from the computer, and it will update its database in the background, and you can select something with the file browser to listen to in the meantime.

You could have your variable speed playback with pitch adjustment, at long last…and I think there are more bookmarking features available too, which for you with your many podcasts and lectures would be a welcome addition.

I waited to try it on a Clip+ until I got my second one, just to be sure…and now I have it on both of them. Asides from the stellar customizable EQ in Rockbox, which they all share, the battery life is improved with the Clip+, especially with FLAC and Ogg Vorbis files that eat up the battery quickly with the factory firmware.

I have yet to see anything that might brick any of my players, so far…if you decide you don’t like to use it, then remove it…it’s easy to do. It’s also easy to boot into the Sansa firmware as well, if you want to. Would I recommend it to the tech-challenged person, or someone with only one player? No…but you don’t need to be an engineer to use it, either.

8

Is the Rockbox for the V2 Clip stable enough? That is the only player I have that I would consider Rockboxing.

9

@jk98 wrote:

Is the Rockbox for the V2 Clip stable enough? That is the only player I have that I would consider Rockboxing.

 

 

I don’t know…I haven’t had one in quite a long time. I do know of one person who is using it, and liking it, but that’s only one person.

10

@gwk1967 wrote:

Are you trying to read ALL the posts? If so, I’m not sure whether to commend your enthusiasm or question your sanity. :wink:

 

Either way, welcome and enjoy your Clip+!

Heh, not ALL the posts–just trying to find the most common problems so I don’t have to ask here. :wink:  After reading the OP I went to the Rockbox site to learn more. Don’t think I’ll risk it  on my new 8GB Clip+ , but might try it on a Clip a friend gave me

11

“Don’t think I’ll risk it on my new 8GB Clip+ , but might try it on a Clip a friend gave me”

Good idea. Don’t try Rockbox on a player if you would be upset if Rockbox destroys it. If you have an extra old player that you don’t care much about, then that would be a good candidate for Rockboxing.

12

I RB’d my clip+ last week, then I took it off the next day.  I might go back and try it again, but probably not until there’s a stable release for the clip+. 

My main reasons for RB’ing:  I want replay gain to work, and I want a decent equalizer. These are my only real quilbbles with the clip firmware. 

My reasons for un-RB’ing:  Interface is way WAY too busy; this can probably be fixed in the options, but the options menus themselves are enormous.  The manual is 190 pages!  Also, there was a power-up bug:  RB kept opening to the slotradio commercial.  I probably could have fixed it, but I didn’t feel like devoting the time to figure out how. 

Say what you want about the Clip firmware, but you can’t say it’s too complicated.

13

@comfortablynumb wrote:

I RB’d my clip+ last week, then I took it off the next day.  I might go back and try it again, but probably not until there’s a stable release for the clip+. 

 

My main reasons for RB’ing:  I want replay gain to work, and I want a decent equalizer. These are my only real quilbbles with the clip firmware. 

 

My reasons for un-RB’ing:  Interface is way WAY too busy; this can probably be fixed in the options, but the options menus themselves are enormous.  The manual is 190 pages!  Also, there was a power-up bug:  RB kept opening to the slotradio commercial.  I probably could have fixed it, but I didn’t feel like devoting the time to figure out how. 

 

Say what you want about the Clip firmware, but you can’t say it’s too complicated.

Don’t know why Replay Gain doesn’t work for you…how’d you apply the info to your files?

The “bug” you describe in your player with the slotradio ad, that is your fault for installing the ad on your player in the first place. I described this to you on the other forum, yet you conveniently don’t mention it here…why is that?:stuck_out_tongue:  You could have fixed it in a matter of minutes…if you can’t devote that much time to it, maybe you should stick to the stock firmware after all. :dizzy_face:

And the 190-page manual, you don’t have to read every page of it, you know…for example, I don’t read the games or recording sections of it, because I will never use them. And the interface, which seems too busy to you, is not going to be different once the port is “stable”, you know.

Seriously, it sounds to me like you’d be best suited to staying with the stock firmware. There is probably a way to make the ReplayGain work better for you…post back how you did that, and we might be able to resolve that.  And the EQ of the stock firmware isn’t too bad…not world-class like the Rockbox EQ, but it is decent enough.

14

ComfortablyNumb wrote:

My reasons for un-RB’ing:  Interface is way WAY too busy; this can probably be fixed in the options, but the options menus themselves are enormous.  The manual is 190 pages!  

 

Nope.  You can’t change the interface through options, just the themes.  That would make it even more complicated and theres really no point.

ComfortablyNumb wrote:

Also, there was a power-up bug:  RB kept opening to the slotradio commercial.  I probably could have fixed it, but I didn’t feel like devoting the time to figure out how. 

 

Like I told you when you asked on ABI, thats not a bug.  You’re either clicking on the slotradio commercial, or have set it to auto-resume playback and left the commercial as the last thing you played.  Either way, thats not something we can fix.  Either don’t use that option, or don’t keep copies of the slotradio commercial on your mp3 player.  

15

I already removed the slotradio ad, thanks for the info.  I’m just posting about a bug, and the bug was more elaborate than just opening to the wrong selection – I just didn’t feel like taking the time to describe a complicated bug. 

Lighten up, fellas, this isn’t grad school! 

I posted my Replay Gain question in the RG sticky. 

16

@comfortablynumb wrote:

I already removed the slotradio ad, thanks for the info.  I’m just posting about a bug, and the bug was more elaborate than just opening to the wrong selection – I just didn’t feel like taking the time to describe a complicated bug. 

 

 

My point is theres no point waiting for a stable release when the problems you encountered aren’t bugs and will not be changed in future releases.  

17

By noting that the interface is too busy, do you mean what you see on the screen when a tune is playing (the so-called WPS–While Playing Screen)? 

If so, you can create your own WPS (it’s actually possible to do, without an engineering degree!) or simply import one created by someone else and posted for use.  In fact, I saw a very nice, simple, not-busy one the other day–you might want to check it out.

http://themes.rockbox.org/index.php?target=sansaclipplus - check out the botio theme

As to the manual:  you don’t really need to read it beyond the basics (what each button does, for example; and how to install the software).  But just skimming the pages on the Rockbox features (under an hour) will help you learn all the great options that Rockbox has, that you might want to use.