Regarding ipodpatcher on a 5.5 iPod Video

[Chauncellor]

Hi, there. I used IpodPatcher for the first time tonight. Since I have no use for the original Apple firmware on my ipod, I followed the directions here for just installing the Rockbox bootloader:

http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/IpodPatcher#4_OSOS_contains_only_Rockbox

Well, it took nearly five times for it to work. There must have been something I was doing, but every time I would reboot the ipod after the prompt told me it successfully wrote rockbox.ipod, it would actually boot up the original apple firmware! I first attempted this using the .exe for Windows on XP, but then I gave up on that platform and tried installing with the Linux PPC version on Debian Lenny. It took two or three times on Debian, but it finally worked by repeating the second command of the two:

chmod +x ipodpatcher to make it executable and
./ipodpatcher -wf rockbox.ipod

My reason to post here is to find out any info that might explain this and to maybe ask if the guide could be updated to help a little better or any bugs to be fixed. Why was it so difficult to do this?

Also, I started the ipod with the "Hold" lock enabled just to make sure it was gone, and Rockbox started as normal with the word "Clear" on it. I noticed my clock is back to the 24 hour cycle: Does this mean that it cleared my settings?

And finally, the IpodPatcher page has a 404 link for the PPC version. I had to snoop around to get the PPC version here:

http://88.191.250.9/rockbox/bootloader/ipod/2.0/ipodpatcher/linux-ppc/

[saratoga]

And finally, the IpodPatcher page has a 404 link for the PPC version.

The wiki link works for me. 

I had to snoop around to get the PPC version here:

http://88.191.250.9/rockbox/bootloader/ipod/2.0/ipodpatcher/linux-ppc/

Thats a very old version.  If you go up a few levels from that link you'll find the one recommended in the wiki page you linked.  You'll probably have more luck with that version.  IIRC booting from the OSOS like you're trying was only just recently added and may not work with very old versions of ipodpatcher. 

[Chauncellor]

I tried again for Linux PPC, I still get a 404.

Remember, though, I couldn't get the .exe from the version the wiki referred to to work at all, even when it said it did.

Yep. This link is for 3.0:

http://88.191.250.9/rockbox/bootloader/ipod/3.0/ipodpatcher/

There's no PPC directory.

[froggyman]

I don't get a 404 error either...

[Chauncellor]

We are talking about the Linux PPC link, right? This link?:

http://download.rockbox.org/bootloader/ipod/ipodpatcher/linux-ppc/ipodpatcher

I asked a friend to open it. She gets a 404 as well.

Going to:

http://download.rockbox.org/bootloader/ipod/ipodpatcher/

Shows that there is x86, amd, MacOS, and win32. No PPC.

[froggyman]

We are talking about the Linux PPC link, right? This link?:

http://download.rockbox.org/bootloader/ipod/ipodpatcher/linux-ppc/ipodpatcher

ohh.... I though you meant the other one... Yeah, I got a 404 error as well.

[torne]

Hi, there. I used IpodPatcher for the first time tonight. Since I have no use for the original Apple firmware on my ipod, I followed the directions here for just installing the Rockbox bootloader:

http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/IpodPatcher#4_OSOS_contains_only_Rockbox

You probably *do* have a use for the original Apple firmware: currently USB transfers are significantly faster if you boot the OF, and charging barely works while in Rockbox (it will charge ~9 times faster in the OF).

Well, it took nearly five times for it to work. There must have been something I was doing, but every time I would reboot the ipod after the prompt told me it successfully wrote rockbox.ipod, it would actually boot up the original apple firmware!

Can you paste the complete output of ipodpatcher? There is no reason for this not to work, it's quite a trivial process.

Also, I started the ipod with the "Hold" lock enabled just to make sure it was gone, and Rockbox started as normal with the word "Clear" on it. I noticed my clock is back to the 24 hour cycle: Does this mean that it cleared my settings?

Yes, booting Rockbox with the hold switch on clears all your settings.

[Chauncellor]

Well, I wasn't aware of the speed differences between the original and Rockbox's, but I've been using the Rockbox mode since it was introduced and I've been pleased enough that I haven't noticed anything. Charging is no problem, either, I just plug in the module while I sleep when it gets too low. It's always seemed fast enough for me  . Overall, since I start up my rockbox much more often than I transfer mass amounts of files, I find the slightly improved boot worth it. Plus no more accidental boots into the apple side, which will recreate all those useless "Calendars" folders and whatnot!

I didn't log it, sorry, but they all said the same success messages, every time, so there wasn't any specific error messages. I'd be happy to do it again for you if you'd like some specific debug messages.

[torne]

It only takes about 40 minutes or so to charge from flat to full in the OF We're working on sorting this

Anyway, unless you can reproduce this reliably then I doubt we can really do anything about it: overwriting OSOS with rockbox is entirely trivial and it's hard to see how it could get it wrong, so it would need some rather in-depth investigation...

[Chauncellor]

Sure, I'll necro this topic if I have the problem again when updates come out and it comes time to re-do this. However, I'll be on my main computer when the time comes, which is Intel Linux.

Really, 40 minutes is nothing to me. Also, transferring consists of 300 or so Megabytes, and I use GNOME's conduit to send my music to various backup places and my ipod while I sleep. I don't notice anything at all concerning speed.

Thanks for the help, though I wasn't terribly helpful. Could we at least solve the PPC 404? I swear, I'm not crazy!

[torne]

I mean it takes 40 minutes in the Apple firmware, versus 8-10 hours in rockbox

[Chauncellor]

uh.... I seriously don't think it's taken me that long ever. It's always been at most an hour. I haven't used the Apple firmware in forever.

I don't doubt that the problem is there, but I can't honestly look at my experiences and say that it's taken ten hours to charge the ipod. I've sat down at my computer between classes, plugged in the module with low battery, and by the time I leave again, it's near full.

Well, it doesn't matter. It'll get better for certain, so there's no use arguing how it is right now as it works fine for me!

[torne]

No, if it works differently for you then that is *interesting* because that's a data point of it behaving differently. This is not an argument, this is me trying to find out if your device is behaving differently for some reason, so that I can take this into account when I work on fixing the (very real) issue with iPod USB charging

The behaviour I expect on the iPod Video is that when connected via USB it only draws 100mA at 5V from the host, regardless of whether that is a PC or a dumb USB charger. This is 500mW, not very much. The actual power required to run the player is then subtracted from that: this depends what you are doing with the player, and what the settings are, but if the player is just sitting there in Rockbox idle, it will draw 30-40mA. This only leaves at most 70mA (350mW) to charge the battery, which means it *should* take a very long time, a lot more than an hour. The original firmware instructs the power controller to draw 500mA, the full USB power, instead, which means that there is ~470mA left to charge with, a much more respectable 2.35W.

The Video has a current meter, which is available in the debug screen. Can you connect your ipod in charging-only mode (hold MENU) and then go into debug -> view battery, then scroll down with the wheel once? You should find a number labelled "Ibat" which is the amount of current currently flowing into (or out of, when not charging) the battery. What is that value for you while charging?

[gevaerts]

uh.... I seriously don't think it's taken me that long ever. It's always been at most an hour. I haven't used the Apple firmware in forever.

Which rockbox revision are you using? If it's one of the stable releases (3.x), it will switch to the Apple in-rom disk mode when plugged in, so the rockbox charging code is not used.

[torne]

Forgot about that

If that's why then that's also why you don't notice USB transfers being slower, because you aren't using the Rockbox code for that either