Bootloader question?

[Sam66]

Hope this is the correct area to post a question about the bootloader.

I have an iPod Mini 2g that I use in my car all the time, but I don't leave it in the car it is always removed when I get out, for these reasons the battery has about a 10 minute play time (and I'm not going to replace it) but I usually keep the pause button on, and I usually forget to un-pause it when I get back in and of course it boot to the crApple OS.

Is there a patch I can use on the bootloader or another build of it that DOES NOT boot the crApple OS when the Pause button is on during the boot up.

thanks in advance for any help on this issue of mine!

[torne]

I'm guessing you mean the hold switch, not the pause button...

Anyway, the answer is "not really". It's possible to build a bootloader which doesn't check the hold switch and always starts Rockbox, or even to not use the bootloader at all and just install Rockbox directly to the firmware partition, but then Rockbox will reset its settings to defaults every time you boot it up with the hold switch turned on, since that's what the switch does if it's turned on *after* the bootloader but before Rockbox has booted, so you would need to build a custom build of Rockbox itself as well which doesn't have that functionality either (and then you'll have to do a custom build forever to get any updates).

I've considered how to solve this but haven't come to a reasonable conclusion yet; probably the best thing to do is stop using the hold switch as the mechanism for *either* of these features on ipod, but this is a UI change (and some ipods apparently had a problem using a button for dual-boot) so it's not something I'm just going to change without more consideration.

[dreamlayers]

On my 5G 30GB iPod I'm using a bootloader which ignores the hold switch.  I remember having difficulties when trying to press menu at the right time to enter the OF, but if I simply hold menu, I can reliably enter the OF:

• From an off state, simply hold menu until you see that the OF is booting.
• From Rockbox, hold menu+select, release select when the iPod starts rebooting, and then release menu when you see that the OF is booting.

I patch Rockbox to remove the settings clearing feature because I never really needed it.  A few times I installed unpatched Rockbox and unintentionally cleared my settings.  In those cases, I waited for the hard drive to spin down and then reset the iPod (with menu+select) to preserve my settings.

[torne]

Nobody seems to recall clearly, but it's suspected that maybe menu on startup doesn't register on every model properly. It may also just be that people weren't doing it right

I've been meaning to do stuff about this for a while but haven't gotten to it yet, I suspect step 1 is to stop using the hold switch to reset settings on devices which are capable of being powered on with hold enabled... suggestions for what else it should be on ipod?

[Sam66]

I had forgotten about the reset function with the hold button on.

since I can't program my way out of a wet digital paper bag, I guess I will have to stop using the hold button, or remember to turn it off before I plug it it.

thanks for all the help.