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_2025.02.16_x86_64-linux.tar.gz arm64: rockbox_2025.02.16_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 libsdl2-dev libfreetype6-dev libunwind-dev zip protobuf-compiler cmake

On Fedora40/41:

sudo dnf install SDL2-devel freetype-devel libunwind-devel zip protobuf-compiler cmake

Build Instructions

1. Clone the repository

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

1. Navigate to the project directory

cd rockbox-zig

1. Build the webui

cd webui/rockbox
deno install
deno run build

1. 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.