Introduction

Greetings to you reader.
Today we will be engaged in the modernization of the player Apple - iPod Nano 2 gen

More recently, in October 2009, on the rockbox alternative firmware website , information appeared about successfully porting it to the 2nd generation Ipod Nano player.


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Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia :

Rockbox is free software for replacing the firmware of digital audio players. The Rockbox project began in late 2001 and was first implemented on the Archos Studio player.
Rockbox offers an alternative to the player’s firmware, in many cases without removing the original firmware. The internal structure of the Rockbox allows you to increase functionality through the use of expansion modules. Improved functionality includes applications, utilities and games. Rockbox can provide (retrofit) video playback for players released in the mid-2000s. Rockbox also contains a voice-driven user interface suitable for use by people with blindness or impaired vision.

It was just that my main player broke down and I selected a suitable alternative for it.
Without hesitation, I went to ebay and ordered for $ 60 Ipod Nano 2 gen 8Gb



While the player was traveling to Chelyabinsk, I began to study the installation options.

Work plan

1) Install the ILoader bootloader
2) Pour Rockbox
3) Pour the original firmware
4) When downloading, select the necessary software

We prepare software and firmware

First we need a Linux PC on board.
If you do not have installed Linux, then you can take any Live CD

Swinging

1) iLoader downloader
2) The latest release of RockBox for iPod nano 2 gen
3) Original firmware for iPod nano 2 G from this site
There, in the drop-down menu, select the device and click the Download button.
I downloaded version iPod_29.1.1.3.ipsw
4) Download Dumper for firmware

Install iLoader

1) Connect Ipod to PC and in the / dev directory we look at the name of the disks (I have / dev / sdd {1,2} )
2) Unpack the iLoader-fullfs.7z archive with the command 7z e iLoader-fullfs.7z
3) Select the desired file for your model Ipod.
Since I have a model on 8Gb, I took the file iloader-image-8gb.bin
4) Install the bootloader for the iPod command

dd if = iloaderimage-Xgb.bin of = / dev / sdX; sync

Where / dev / sdX is the Ipod disk number (in my case / dev / sdd )
5) If you need to update the iLoader, you can do this with the command

dd if = iloaderimage-Xgb.bin bs = 2048 skip = 63 seek = 63 count = 63 of = / dev / sdX; sync

6) If you need to completely remove it, then you need to connect your iPod to iTunes and go through the recovery procedure .

Using iLoader

It's all very simple, you just need to copy the necessary firmware to disk and select it when you turn it on.

Menu Button : Downloads iBugger (/iLoader/ibugger.bin)
iBugger is the firmware for developing and testing firmware for iPod
Left button : Download the original Ipod firmware (/ iLoader / appleos.bin (decrypted) or / iLoader / osos.fw (encrypted)
Center Button : Drive Mode
Play button : Download RockBox (/.rockbox/rockbox.ipod)
Right button : Download any, third-party firmware (/iLoader/custom.bin)
This is most likely done for the future, under iPodLinux

Rockbox installation

1) Unpack the archive rockbox-ipodnano2g.zip
2) Copy the entire .rockbox folder to the root of the drive / dev / sdX2
3) Unmount and disconnect Ipod from PC
4) Select the corresponding menu item with the play button and use

Installing the original firmware

1) Make the file extract2g.i386 executable (chmod + x extract2g.i386)
2) Rename the iPod_29.1.1.3.ipsw file to iPod_29.1.1.3.zip and unpack
3) We give the command:

extract2g.i386 -A Firmware-29.8.1.3

And we get 3 files (osos.fw, aupd.fw, rsrc.fw)
4) We give the command:

dd if = osos.fw of = osos.out bs = 2048 skip = 1

5) Copy the osos.out file to iPod in the iLoader folder and rename it to osos.fw (/iLoader/osos.fw)
6) Unmount and disconnect iPod from PC
7) Select the appropriate menu item with the left button and use

Sources:
WiKi iLoader
My IT blog