Usability of Rockbox for average person

[comporanger]

Hi all. Rockbox sounds pretty cool and I hope to try it out on my Sansa e260 soon, but I was wondering- how reliable is it for long-term usage, as compared to the original Sandisk firmware? I'd like to use Rockbox, but I wouldn't want to spend all my time at the computer trying to fix some problem or other. I can see there's a vast community of people who love it, and a lot of folks have done a great job in making the project happen. However, looking through the forums and seeing how many issues other people seem to have, I'm just wondering how usable it is for non-tech types like me, that would like all the features that it offers but don't want to continually have to reset, rebuild, or reinstall something. For all I know Rockbox may be more reliable than the original Sandisk firmware - I just haven't had any experience to say one way or the other. Does anyone have any thoughts? Any statistics? Thanks in advance.

[tpijag]

Check the sansa forums. Same thing. Support forums are for problems. There will always be more problem posts than 'thanks works great' posts.

If it works for you today, there is nothing that wears out over time. Thus it is reliable.

Rockbox can be removed 100% if you find that you prefer the OF. Might as well give it a test ride.

[Llorean]

In the majority of cases, especially on well supported targets (like the original e200 series), Rockbox is incredibly reliable. Every now and then you'll get a buggy version, but a few updates later you'll end up on a solid one, and at that point there's often no reason to update nor anything to need to change. Most people probably even don't encounter problems if they're not trying one of the players with certain things known to still be undergoing development.

Nobody can promise you a bug free experience, but the typical experience isn't "constantly having to fix things" or even close to that.

[Serenity]

My wife, who is definitely not a techy person by any stretch, uses a Rockboxed Sansa e280 (version 1) at the gym. She loves it and hasn't installed a new build since 3.7.  It runs like a top.  Once in a long while I'll get a *panic* error, but it's usually when I'm doing something stupid to it, and all I have to do is turn it off, then on again. No problem.

If it turns out you hate it with a fiery passion, all it takes to get rid of Rockbox is to update the Sansa's original firmware. There's information in the Rockbox instruction manual.

As the mods say, your mileage may vary, but I've been very pleased with Rockbox on the e200 series.  My wife also likes it quite a bit.