Rockbox

Rockbox is a free software replacement for the firmware held on various forms of digital audio players (DAPs). Rockbox offers an alternative to the host device's operating system firmware (in many cases without removing the original firmware) which provides a plug-in architecture for adding various enhancements and functionality to DAPs which are not present in the original OS. Enhancements include PDA functionality, applications, utilities, and games. Rockbox can also retrofit video playback functionality onto DAPs first released in mid-2000. Rockbox also includes a voice-driven user-interface suitable for operation by blind and visually impaired users.Rockbox runs on a wide variety of portable audio devices with very different hardware abilities: from early Archos players with 1-bit charcell-based displays to modern players with high resolution color displays, digital optical audio hardware and advanced recording capabilities. In many instances, rather than being run from flash memory, a minimal bootloader is installed in the supported device's flash which is capable of loading either Rockbox from the hard disk or, alternatively, the original factory firmware. Installing to flash is also supported on certain devices.Released under the GNU General Public License, Rockbox is free software.