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Rockbox is a free software replacement firmware for many older mp3/mp4 devices. Rockbox can take and old iPod Video 5g and turn it into anything you want! Installing puts many features like; Notes, Themes (Not supported by all mp3 and mp4 players), and the power to run emulators of the Gameboy!

Here is a really good picture showing the before and after installing RockBox on an iPod Video 5g:
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Here is the list of mp3/mp4 devices that are compatible with the RockBox firmware:
Archos
Archos Jukebox series:
Jukebox 6000
Jukebox Player/Studio
Jukebox Recorder
FM Recorder
Recorder v2
Ondio FM
Ondio SP
iRiver
H10 series (H10 5, 6, and 20 GB)
H100 series (H100/H110/H115/H120/H140, aka iHP-100/110/115/120/140)
H300 series (H320/H340)
Cowon
X5 and X5L
X5V
M5 and M5L
M3 and M3L
D2
Apple
iPod 1st generation
iPod 2nd generation
iPod 3rd generation
iPod 4th generation (grayscale)
iPod 4th generation (color/photo)
iPod 5th and 5.5 generation (video)
iPod Mini 1st generation
iPod Mini 2nd generation
iPod Nano 1st generation
iPod Nano 2ndgeneration (basic can play music and supports plug-ins)
Toshiba
Gigabeat F series (F10/F11/F20/F21/F30/F31/F40/F41/F60)
Gigabeat X series
Gigabeat S series (Standard build works, requires a couple of external steps.)
SanDisk
Sansa e200 series—v1 and v2/AMS
Sansa e200r series
Sansa c200 series—V1 support only
Sansa Fuze—V1 is stable and V2 is unstable.
Sansa Clip and Clip+(unstable)
Olympus
m:robe 100


Now you think, “How hard is this to install?” Will it break or brick my music player?”

No, it‘s very simple to install. No it cannot break your mp3/mp4 player! Rockbox can easily be installed and uninstalled in about 5 to 10 minutes.

I will show a tutorial for the iPod Video 5g

**NOTE: If you follow my tutorial about the Video 5g, please do not mix it up with the iPod Video 5.5g**

1. Plug in your iPod Video 5g
2. Enable disc use in iTunes
3. Open your web browser and go to You must login or register to view this content. (Or follow my link)
4. Look in the left hand corner of the screen and find under DOWNLOADS, click current builds. This will bring up a list of all supported mp3/mp4 players. But for my tutorial I’ll be showing you the iPod Video 5g.
5.Find the link for, “iPod Video 30GB” and click it. It will automatically bring up a zip file called, “RockBox-ipodvideo.zip” Save this to your desktop.
5. Use any extraction program, WinRAR, WinZip to un-zip the file onto the desktop.
6. Go to My Computer and find the name of your iPod.
7. Open this and move the UN-ZIPPED .RockBox folder from the desktop to your iPod. Don’t put it in any folder just drag and drop.
**Now your not done yet!**
8. Return to your browser, and look in the left hand corner of the screen. Find Documentation and click “manual”.
9. Find “iPod Video 30GB” and click “online”
10. Find on the next screen, click “Installation” and scroll down to 2.2.2 Manual Installation.
11. I will post a spoiler with each for Windows, MAC OS X, and Linux….

Windows Bootloader Installation
1. Download ipodpatcher.exe from You must login or register to view this content. and run it whilst logged in with an administrator account.
2. If all has gone well, you should see some information displayed about your player and a message asking you if you wish to install the Rockbox bootloader. Press i followed by ENTER, and ipodpatcher will now install the bootloader. After a short time you should see the message “

Bootloader installed successfully.” Press ENTER again to exit ipodpatcher.
3. Note: If ipodpatcher fails to install the bootloader for you, please be certain that you do indeed have a supported iPod model and are logged in as an administrator. If you do, run ipodpatcher once more and try again. If you don’t, then do not attempt to install again.

Mac OS X Bootloader

1. Attach your player to your Mac and wait for its icon to appear in Finder.

2. Download and open ipodpatcher.dmg from You must login or register to view this content. and then double-click on the ipodpatcher icon inside. You can also drag the ipodpatcher icon to a location on your hard drive and launch it from the Terminal.

3. If all has gone well, you should see some information displayed about your player and a message asking you if you wish to install the Rockbox bootloader. Press i followed by ENTER, and ipodpatcher will now install the bootloader. After a short time you should see the message “

Bootloader installed successfully.” Press ENTER again to exit ipodpatcher and then quit the Terminal application.

4. Note: If ipodpatcher fails to install the bootloader for you, please be certain that you do indeed have a supported iPod model. If you do, run ipodpatcher once more and try again. If you don’t, then do not attempt to install again.

5. Your player will now automatically reconnect itself to your Mac. Wait for it to connect, and then eject and unplug it in the normal way. Note: You should unplug your ipod immediately after ejecting it to prevent Rockbox immediately rebooting your player into disk mode when it detects that your player is attached to a computer.

Linux Bootlaoder Installation

1. Download ipodpatcher from You must login or register to view this content. (32-bit x86 binary) or You must login or register to view this content. (64-bit amd64 binary). You can save this anywhere you wish, but the next steps will assume you have saved it in your home directory.

2. Attach your player to your computer.

3. Open up a terminal window and type the following commands:
cd $HOME
chmod +x ipodpatcher
./ipodpatcher

Note: You need to be the root user in order for ipodpatcher to have sufficient permission to perform raw disk access to your player.

4. If all has gone well, you should see some information displayed about your player and a message asking you if you wish to install the Rockbox bootloader. Press i followed by ENTER, and ipodpatcher will now install the bootloader. After a short time you should see the message “

Bootloader installed successfully.” Press ENTER again to exit ipodpatcher.

12. Eject/Safetly Remove your iPod and let it reboot. If you have done correctly, you should be at the RockBox screen

**To go back to your iPod's original settings, press and hold the "MENU" and the "Select/Middle Button" wait for the Apple logo to show up, and switch the hold button to "ON'***


Thank you for reading this, hope this was easy to understand as it was my first tutorial.

This is a great thread Samberg! It is put together like a pro!

That means alot Reaper :cry: <-- Tears of joy LOL

Very well organized post. Keep up the good work

Thanks a ton man!