Introduction

Greetings to you, reader.
Today we are going to modernize the Apple player - Ipod Nano 2 gen.

More recently, in October 2009, on the alternative rockbox firmware site , information appeared about its successful porting to the 2nd generation Ipod Nano player Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia :

Rockbox is free software to replace the firmware of digital audio players. The Rockbox project began at the end of 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. Rockbox's internal device allows for increased functionality through the use of expansion modules. Improving functionality includes applications, utilities, and games. Rockbox can provide (retrofit) video playback for players released in the mid-2000s. Rockbox also has a voice-driven user interface suitable for use by people with blindness or impaired vision.

I just broke my main player and I was choosing the right alternative for him.
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 installation options.

Work plan

1) Install the bootloader ILoader
2) Pour RockBox
3) Pour original firmware
4) At boot, select the necessary software

We prepare software and firmware

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

Download

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

Install iLoader

1) Connect the Ipod to the PC and look at the drive name in the / dev directory (I have / dev / sdd {1,2} )
2) Unpack the iLoader-fullfs.7z archive with 7z e iLoader-fullfs.7z
3) Select the file you need for its iPod model.
Since I have an 8Gb model, I took the file iloader-image-8gb.bin
4) Install the bootloader for Ipod with the 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 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

Everything is very simple here, you just need to copy the necessary firmware to disk and select it when you turn it on.

Menu button : Loads iBugger (/iLoader/ibugger.bin)
iBugger is the firmware for developing and testing firmware for Ipod
Left button : Loads the original firmware Ipod (/ iLoader / appleos.bin (decrypted) or / iLoader / osos.fw (encrypted )
Center button : Drive mode
Play button : Loads 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 the Ipod from the PC
4) Select the corresponding menu item using the play button and use

Installing the original firmware

1) Make the extract2g.i386 file executable (chmod + x extract2g.i386)
2) Rename the file iPod_29.1.1.3.ipsw to iPod_29.1.1.3.zip and unpack it
3) 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 in Ipod to the iLoader folder and rename it to osos.fw (/iLoader/osos.fw)
6) Unmount and disconnect Ipod from the PC
7) Left -click on the corresponding menu item and use

Sources:
WiKi iLoader
My IT blog