reboot into apple firmware to connect to computer

[elitenoobboy]

This might be a noobish question, but I don't know what keywords to search for on it, so I can't seem to find the answer myself...

When you plug a rockbox ipod video into a usb connection, it automatically reboots into apple firmware to make a connection to the computer. Is there anyway for rockbox itself to connect to the computer without restarting and relying on apple firmware, and if there currently isn't way, is one possible to implement in the future and if so, are there plans to? And for what reason or limitation does it already do this? Is any of this documented in the manual somewhere?

[Llorean]

Simply put: There needs to be a USB stack coded for it for Rockbox to do it itself. On previous players the USB hardware handled most of the work, on the iPod and many other newer players the software needs to do a lot more work. A lot of progress has happened on this front, and it's "usable" but it's not reliable enough yet that we're comfortable turning it on at this time.

[cool_walking_]

The Rockbox USB stack isn't 100% finished, so it's disabled in the official build.  It seems to work well enough, though it's slower than the Apple firmware, and there's the possibility of bugs.

You can compile your own build with it enabled.
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/DevelopmentGuide
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/PortalPlayerUsb

I don't think it's in the manual.  A while back I wanted to add a chapter on USB connectivity, but I ran into some stumbling blocks trying to build it, and forgot about it.

[elitenoobboy]

Thanks for the info.
I look forward to when it is ready.

[ghen]

What are the conditions to enable the USB stack by default?  Any chance to get this in 3.0?  Are there specific things the community can test or help with?

[GodEater]

What are the conditions to enable the USB stack by default?

Not sure what you mean by this question ? Are you asking how to compile it in yourself? Or are you asking why it's not included in our current builds ?

Any chance to get this in 3.0?

I would say slim to none.

Are there specific things the community can test or help with?

Test? No - we know what it doesn't do right, we don't need more people to confirm this for us.

Help with? Yes - fix the problems with it.

[cool_walking_]

The Rockbox USB stack won't be in 3.0 (gevaerts did lots of work on the USB stack).

Rockbox has gone into feature freeze, which means no new features will get into the release, just bug fixes.

I guess one specific thing you could do is compile a build with the USB stack enabled, and hunt for bugs.

[ghen]

What are the conditions to enable the USB stack by default?

Not sure what you mean by this question ? Are you asking how to compile it in yourself? Or are you asking why it's not included in our current builds ?

I wanted to know what the remaining issues are, which need to be fixed before it can be enabled by default.

I'm tempted to enable the USB stack in my own builds (I run ipodvideo and h10_5gb), I just want to know what the (known) issues are, and what to look out for (eg. X should work, but Y is known to be broken).

Also I can't find any documentation on the USB serial interface.  The PortalPlayerUsb wiki page explains how to connect (with cu) but not what you can do with it. :-)  Or is this just a logging (read-only) rather than a debugging interface?