ETA of next release of Rockbox Utility?

[matwood]

Hi there, hopefully I'm posting this in the correct location, if not I apologize. I'm curious what the estimated time of arrival is for the next release of the Rockbox Utility. I recently updated the firmware on my Sansa C250, and saw on the Sansa C200 port that "The next version after m1.0.6 of RockboxUtility will be able to work with this (01.01.07) firmware." I see the current REV of rockbox utility is only a month or so old. Any ideas as to when the next REV will be released? I'm trying to decide whether to roll back to old firmware or wait for the next utility release.
Thanks.

[bluebrother]

We do not estimate time frames. Seriously.

If you check the changelog of Rockbox Utility releases you might get an idea when it's *likely* a new version gets released. There is no guarantee though -- it will get released when serious bugs are fixed (happened for the last release, which fixed a non-fatal but annoying, and in case of new users possibly confusing issue).

I'm currently working on a rather major internal bootloader installation rework (won't be much visible for users) so it's likely I'll provide test binaries when that's done. Can't tell you when this is going to be finished though (free time is always the problem).

[matwood]

Thanks for the quick response. I'll check the previous release dates to get a general historical timeframe. I hear you about a lack of free time, I wish I could get paid to only do stuff I enjoy!

I'm just curious, to make the utility work with the new firmware what's involved, do you have to crack the internal encryption of the new firmware (if such a thing exists), or is it just correctly matching the utility to the new firmware? I'm not a programmer, as you can see, but I'm an engineer, therefore, curious...
 
Thanks.

[bluebrother]

Rockbox Utility only does the installation itself. It does not "crack" anything itself. Let me explain some details:
The first problem when trying to port Rockbox to a new player is to get your custom code executed. Later this will be the Rockbox bootloader. For the players supported up to now this means replacing the original firmware or bootloader image with a custom one. Some players only need a file to get placed at the right location (archos), others boot from a special partition (Ipods) that can get used to inject code. Other players require you to flash a modified firmware file (iriver h100 and h300). This means the old firmware upgrade file gets decoded, our code gets added and the reset vector adjusted accordingly -- and afterwards the binary needs to get converted back to a format the original firmware accepts as upgrade file. The original firmware code itself doesn't get modified (well, apart from adjusting some addresses).

So I don't think it's "cracking" (remember, that's the evil thing -- we do hacking ) the original encryption. Usually it's just finding the right (back)door

Everything else is "just" downloading some data and extracting archives to the player.