From: Jonathan Corbet <corbet-rb_at_lwn.net>
Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2006 13:35:31 -0700

I've been running Rockbox on my iRiver H340 for a bit now; it currently
has the 12/28 build on it. Overall, I'm impressed. It works.
Congratulations and thanks to the people who have worked on this
project.

Here's a list of issued I've noticed. Please note that these aren't
complaints; trust me, I know what running early-stage software is
about. But I thought I'd throw them out there in case there's anything
you don't already know about.

- I was under the impression that the boot loader, on failing to find an
  installed Rockbox, would automatically fall back to the iRiver
  firmware. Instead, it prints "Result: -1" and immediately halts.

- Happily, holding down the "dot" button while starting the H340 works
  as advertised - about half the time. The other times, it just halts.
  I have no idea what makes the difference here. FWIW, I'm using the US
  1.04 version of the firmware.

- If I plug in the USB cable, then start the unit, it reports
  "Bootloader USB mode," but the host system sees no device. If,
  instead, I plug in the cable after the unit boots, USB mode works
  fine.

- The delay in navigating between directories can be significant - and
  aggravating if you hit buttons repeatedly while waiting. I've not yet
  messed with the directory cache options which are said to mitigate
  that - it's on my list. Meanwhile, a simple "busy" indication would
  make the whole thing friendlier.

- It's ugly; the screens are apparently designed for a device with a
  smaller screen, and a monochrome screen at that. I assume some of
  this can be fixed up with some iRiver-specific images and .wps files.

- It looks like recording from the FM tuner is not supported yet.

- I've not done any serious controlled study, but it seems that it
  drains the battery more quickly than the iRiver firmware does.

The above notwithstanding, I find I rarely have reason to boot into the
iRiver firmware anymore. Great work!

jon

Jonathan Corbet
Executive editor, LWN.net
corbet_at_lwn.net
Received on 2006-01-03