Rockbox Zig 🎵 ⚡

A modern take on the Rockbox open source high quality audio player with enhancements in Zig and Rust. This project offers:

• gRPC & GraphQL APIs for seamless interaction and control
• Chromecast support for streaming to your TV
• MPD server for compatibility with existing clients
• MPRIS support for desktop integration
• TypeScript support for building powerful extensions

Take advantage of modern tooling while preserving the core functionality of Rockbox.

[!NOTE] 🐲 It is a work in progress and is not yet ready for use. 🏗️🚧

✨ Features

• Zig Build System
• Rockbox API FFI for Rust
• gRPC API
• GraphQL API
• HTTP API
• Web Client (React)
• Fast search engine, built with Tantivy
• Desktop Client (Electron/Gtk)
• Rockbox REPL
• Terminal Client (TUI)
• Systemd service
• Gapless playback and crossfading
• Navigate music by folders or tag database
• Supports over 20 sound codecs: MP3, OGG, WAV, FLAC and many more
• Android Library
• Mobile version (React Native)
• Stream from Youtube (audio only)
• Stream from Spotify
• Stream from Tidal
• Stream to Chromecast
• Stream to Kodi
• TuneIn Radio
• MPD Server
• MPRIS
• UPnP/DLNA
• Airplay
• TypeScript (Deno) API (for writing plugins)
• Wasm extensions

🚀 Quickstart

To quickly get started, you can run the following docker command:

docker run \
    --device /dev/snd \
    --privileged \
    -p 6061:6061 \
    -p 6062:6062 \
    -p 6063:6063 \
    -p 6600:6600 \
    -v $HOME/Music:/root/Music \
    tsiry/rockbox:latest

🚚 Installation

Ubuntu/Debian

echo "deb [trusted=yes] https://apt.fury.io/tsiry/ /" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/fury.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install rockbox

Fedora

Add the following to /etc/yum.repos.d/fury.repo:

[fury]
name=Gemfury Private Repo
baseurl=https://yum.fury.io/tsiry/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=0

Then run:

dnf install rockbox

Arch Linux

paru -S rockbox-zig-bin

Bash

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tsirysndr/rockbox-zig/HEAD/install.sh | bash

📦 Downloads

• Linux: intel: rockbox_2025.01.18_x86_64-linux.tar.gz arm64: rockbox_2025.01.18_aarch64-linux.tar.gz

🧙‍♂️ Systemd Service

Rockbox daemon can be started as a systemd service. To enable and start the service, run the following command:

rockbox service install

To disable and stop the service, run the following command:

rockbox service uninstall

To check the status of the service, run the following command:

rockbox service status

Compiling from Source

Run the following commands to build the project:

Before building the project, you need to install the necessary dependencies for your operating system.

On Ubuntu/Debian

sudo apt-get install libusb-dev libsdl2-dev libfreetype6-dev libunwind-dev zip protobuf-compiler cmake

On Fedora40/41:

sudo dnf install libusb1-devel SDL2-devel freetype-devel libunwind-devel zip protobuf-compiler cmake
sudo ln -s /lib64/libusb-1.0.so /usr/lib64/libusb.so

Build Instructions

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/tsirysndr/rockbox-zig.git
git submodule update --init --recursive

2. Navigate to the project directory

cd rockbox-zig

3. Build the webui

cd webui/rockbox
deno install
deno run build

4. Run the following command to build the project

mkdir -p build && cd build
../tools/configure --target=sdlapp --type=N --lcdwidth=320 --lcdheight=240 --prefix=$HOME/.local
make zig

Build GUI (Gtk4)

sudo apt-get install flatpak
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists --user flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
flatpak install --user flathub org.flatpak.Builder
flatpak install --user flathub org.gnome.Sdk/x86_64/47
flatpak install --user flathub org.gnome.Platform/x86_64/47
flatpak install --user org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.rust-stable
flatpak install --user org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.llvm18
cd gtk
flatpak run org.flatpak.Builder --user --disable-rofiles-fuse --repo=repo flatpak_app build-aux/io.github.tsirysndr.Rockbox.json --force-clean
flatpak run org.flatpak.Builder --run flatpak_app build-aux/io.github.tsirysndr.Rockbox.json rockbox-gtk

🧑‍🔬 Architecture

📚 GraphQL API

Open http://localhost:6062/graphiql in your browser.

📚 HTTP API

Open http://localhost:6063 in your browser.

📚 gRPC API

https://buf.build/tsiry/rockboxapis/docs/main:rockbox.v1alpha1

Try Rockbox gRPC API using Buf Studio.