502 apps installed in my HTC Hero.
The phone runs absolutely flawlessly. Everyday.
I'm filling it up to see if/when it falls over. Then when Android 2 is released I will format and only install the apps I really want.... (about 495 of them )
As you can see from my sig, you don't need a lot of space at all for apps, not sure how much I've used but I think I could add another couple of hundred apps yet.
So what is your favorite app(s)?
Hmmmmmmmmm, there's a question.....
Appmanager
Atrackdog
Geobeagle
Hyperspace
Xgalaga
A world of photo
What the Doodle!
Ethereal Dialpad
Magic Marker
Ball
Audio Manager
More Icons Widget
Floating Images
Keepscreen
Sportypal
To name a few!
Amdathlonuk said:
502 apps installed in my HTC Hero.
The phone runs absolutely flawlessly. Everyday.
I'm filling it up to see if/when it falls over. Then when Android 2 is released I will format and only install the apps I really want.... (about 495 of them )
As you can see from my sig, you don't need a lot of space at all for apps, not sure how much I've used but I think I could add another couple of hundred apps yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You know that is cheating right? Using Apps2SD on a 32GB memorycard you probably can download way more than 700 apps... try doing that WITHOUT using Apps2SD...
Apps2SD force closes on me 24/7
How many apps can you get on a stock htc hero and what is the available user memory
Thiesen said:
You know that is cheating right? Using Apps2SD on a 32GB memorycard you probably can download way more than 700 apps... try doing that WITHOUT using Apps2SD...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not cheating, it's 'tweaking'.
I only have an 8Gb SD Card and only 700Mb is Ext3.
It's like having a car and playing eith the engine a little. Nothing wring with that.
I think with stock Rom, I would get around 200 apps, however it does actually depend on the app size ultimately.
Ok thanks what is the internal memory available on a stock rom like the g1 has 74mb
M..N said:
Ok thanks what is the internal memory available on a stock rom like the g1 has 74mb
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Stock memory is around 170Mb but the Hero runs a lot different to the G1.
It seems to keep the same speed no matter how full it is.
However my G1 used to slow terribly once it started to get fully loaded.
can you check the total size of your /data/app folder, and divide that by the number of files in it?
for example:
Code:
adb shell du -hs /data/app/
123.8M /data/app/
adb shell ls -1 /data/app/ | wc -l
124
Data/app is:
342 Mb
507 files.
Interestingly, all of the protected apps are .zips in the folder.......
Dunno if anyone else has picked up on this but it looks like google might have solved the problem of the G1's (and other phones) low ROM and newer android updates.
Question went something like this:
Q: "Why does the Nexus One have limited storage space for Applications?"
A: "We want to protect our apps and developers however we are working on encrypting apps and allowing them to be stored on the SD".
So basically we have A2SD (legit) coming up soon.
Which means 2.0,2.1,2.5,3.0 etc etc should fit fine on the G1 right?
um, not really
The storage limitation they're referring to deals with the 79 MB size of the /data partition on the Dream.
The android system, though, is installed at the /system partition, 70 MB big. Newer releases add new features, for example, in 1.6 the tts (text-to-speech) service was introduces. In higher capacity devices, there's a folder in /system called /tts (5.9 MB big) that holds the voice data for speech synthesis. On the Dream, however, though the feature is there, the voice data has to be downloaded from the market to be usable, and it's stored on your sdcard.
If future android releases can rely on external resources downloaded to sdcard (plugins, libraries, etc), then the life of the device can be extended, but space is running out and there's no way to add new features without removing others.
What they were talking about in the N1 conference was about the other partition, the /data partition, which stores your personal data, e-mails, mms, settings, and programs. I personally believe the sdcard should have initially been used for that purpose, giving more space to /system, and that way a wipe would require nothing but formatting your /sdcard, however, because of copyright protection of apps (which is useless against a root-user anyway) apps are kept internal, spaced robbed from /system, and sdcard used only for user's files.
What they're now trying to do is to (possibly) have apps now be moved to sdcard, but have those apps encrypted so that they can only be read from the particular system. That way the limit of apps you can install is as big as your sdcard.
I still think all phone ssd should be reserved for /system (and maybe a tiny bit 10 MB /data partition) and leave mms, e-mails, and other infos into xmls in the sdcard so that allows you to move from device to device and keep your data with you without having to re-customize.
jubeh said:
um, not really
The storage limitation they're referring to deals with the 79 MB size of the /data partition on the Dream.
The android system, though, is installed at the /system partition, 70 MB big. Newer releases add new features, for example, in 1.6 the tts (text-to-speech) service was introduces. In higher capacity devices, there's a folder in /system called /tts (5.9 MB big) that holds the voice data for speech synthesis. On the Dream, however, though the feature is there, the voice data has to be downloaded from the market to be usable, and it's stored on your sdcard.
If future android releases can rely on external resources downloaded to sdcard (plugins, libraries, etc), then the life of the device can be extended, but space is running out and there's no way to add new features without removing others.
What they were talking about in the N1 conference was about the other partition, the /data partition, which stores your personal data, e-mails, mms, settings, and programs. I personally believe the sdcard should have initially been used for that purpose, giving more space to /system, and that way a wipe would require nothing but formatting your /sdcard, however, because of copyright protection of apps (which is useless against a root-user anyway) apps are kept internal, spaced robbed from /system, and sdcard used only for user's files.
What they're now trying to do is to (possibly) have apps now be moved to sdcard, but have those apps encrypted so that they can only be read from the particular system. That way the limit of apps you can install is as big as your sdcard.
I still think all phone ssd should be reserved for /system (and maybe a tiny bit 10 MB /data partition) and leave mms, e-mails, and other infos into xmls in the sdcard so that allows you to move from device to device and keep your data with you without having to re-customize.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In theory your idea of using the sdcard for all userdata sounds great. However, what about the user who wants to have multiple sdcards for media storage beyond 16GB. Right now, I have like 4 8GB sdcards that just sit around collecting dust (full of tv shows formatted for my G1), because I run A2SD and can no longer swap cards.
The proper way is similar to how Symbian UIQ3 (not sure if other OS's used the same model) gives the ability to store on the removable storage. When you install an app it prompts you to install internally or to the media card. If you chose the external storage - that app is written to that card, where that app stores it's data is up to that app. This way, you have the ability to place lesser used apps, or larger apps, on your removable storage device. While maintaining the ability to swap cards and still have a functioning phone.
I for one, am not satisfied with 16GB of storage for my portable media appetite.
The only limitation is against OVER THE AIR UPDATES.
Dream has *TONS* of space.
Only 50% of the space that could be used for system images is actually used!
Actually LESS than 50% since the stock /system image isn't even full.
Whatever doesn't fit in /system can *VERY EASILY* be moved into /cache.
In building a newer system image, there is also no reason why ALL features must be included! Some features can simply be LEFT OUT.
Maps for example. Leave it out of the system image and force it to be installed from market.
Further compile-time optimizations can also be used to make the compiled image smaller than usual.
I've spent the past 3 weeks pretty solid working out how I want to transform the 3 Fire's I got for $35 for my boys, 10, 8, and 4. I figure I'd post where I've finally landed along with some other things I've tried both with success and failure, and hopefully save some people some effort. I'd suggest reading through this before you use it as a stepbystep guide to make sure this works for you. I apologize if it's a bit jumbled, but everything should be here for you to convert your Fire. Again, I'd suggest reading through the whole thing to come up with a plan of action for you.
Goal: Turn this Fire into a glorified gameboy, used ONLY by kids, not shared with parent(s) and child
On 5.1.1
Assuming you've purchased an SD card, you will want to repartition in preparation for moving files and content.
Pointers for this:
Make two partitions, 1 which is about 70% of the card formatted as Fat32, must be a PRIMARY partition.
Second partition will be the remaining space, make it ext2, must be a PRIMARY partition. (From what I can tell the reason people suggest using ext2, and not 3 or 4, is because with 3 and 4 there is some built in backup and recovery operations which is great for when you're running a full Linux operating system, but for our purposes all it does is cause more writes which in THEORY will shorten the life of your SD card)
I formatted the Fat32 partition as the first partition, and the EXT partition as the 2nd. Not sure if the order matters or not, but I've had no problems doing it this way thus far.
Reference: http://rootmyandroid.org/increase-internal-memory-phone.html/
Reference: http://rootmyandroid.org/how-to-use-link2sd-tutorial-guide.html/
Note:
During initial setup, don't bother with multiple user profiles (reasons explained later).
Using root junky's super tool (Thanks root junky, you made this all possible!!! http://rootjunkysdl.com/?device=Amazon Fire 5th gen&folder=SuperTool) do the following:
Root
Prevent OTA
Install Google Play
Install NovaLauncher (this is important if you're not going to use the built in Kids Mode in FireOS)
In Google Play Store download the following:
Link2SD (This is assuming you've purchased an SD card)
Kids Place - The VERY SIMPLE reason I went with using this app (which essentially becomes an alternative launcher) instead of using the built in FireOS's profiles and kids mode, is because the built in kids mode will ONLY allow you to use apps which you've downloaded FROM the AMAZON app store. I understand why they do it this way, I mean, the whole point of the fire is to keep you inside the Amazon ecosystem after all. But, I have MANY games I've paid full price for on Google Play that are appropriate for my kids. Since I can't put them into the kids profile built into the FireOS (If anyone can link me to a guide which is different, I'd love to hear about it) I couldn't use the built in stuff. In addition, the built in kids mode really is a pretty awesome feature on the fire, but the icons are freaking huge and kind of a waste of space.... going with this alternative method of Kids Place gives you smaller icons therefore you can "shove" more icons on a single view. Icons which take up half the screen are great, but if you're a dad like me who's going a little overboard and putting 100+ games on these things, it'll be a bit of a pain to scroll through them for your kids using the built in profile in the OS.
Note:
You can get Link2SD from the Amazon app store, but the version there is older than what's in Google Play and ultimately didn't work. Once I got the Google Play version, worked like a champ. NOTEx2: For whatever reason (this was frustrating for me to figure out), even though I partitioned 70% of the 64GB Samsung microSD to Fat32, and the other 30% I partitioned to ext2 (BTW I did the Fat32 first and ext2 second... not really sure if it matters the order or not but that's what worked first time for me so I went with it), when I launched Link2SD and it asked me which partition to use, I had to choose ext4 for it to finally work. Choosing both ext2 and Fat32 would both result in basically it saying: "yeah, you chose the wrong one punk" (or whatever it says).
Kids Place - similar to the one above, there is weirdness in the version on Amazon vs Google Play. On Amazon it actually claims the version there is slightly newer than Google Play, but when I'd launch apps on the one I got from Amazon it would kill the WiFi for that app. I realize that this is a built in option into Kids Place, being able to choose WiFi on or off per app (which is really cool), but the one from Amazon seemed to do it when and how it wanted instead of what I was telling it to do. Google Play's version had no such problems.
(( A word of caution using Link2SD's "feature" of being able to "Link Internal Data". DON'T DO IT. I've not been burned HARD CORE by it. The symptom is that if you POWER DOWN, and POWER ON the tablet, Apps go missing. Through reading and troubleshooting, it appears via this forum (http://androidforums.com/threads/link2sd-missing-apps-after-reboot.858565/) that the culprit is when you choose the Link2SD option to "Link Internal Data" to the SD Card. There's even a nifty batch way to enable it on ALL apps. Well, after powering off and powering back on the tablet (after I was COMPLETELY done putting on 150 games), when it came back up I only had like 15 apps on it. Everything else was POOF, gone. I've noticed sometimes after a power cycle like that the apps might take a few moments to 'come alive', but even after 15 minutes of waiting I had nada. Went in search and found I'm not the only one. I've now since completely redone (including reformatting the SD Card) all 3 Fire's and so far after multiple reboots, I've not lost a single app. So for now at least, this does seem to be the problem ))
You will need to spend the $2.35 on Link2SD Plus (striking out due to my caution above, that being said I'm glad I threw this guy $2.35 because my tablet would basically be worthless without the app), and after you install Kids Place, you'll need to upgrade to premium for $4.99. Here's why:
Link2SD - Plus - This is what allows you to automatically move files and content to the SD card when an app is installed. This is mega important to me because that piddly 5.x GB of usable space gets eaten up ridiculously fast otherwise. Dive into the settings once you have plus, and just go turn everything on. Auto move everything. Be sure to go into all menus and sub menus.
Kids Place - The premium features is key for me. For example: A) You can make this app launch upon reboot, thus it basically "forces" this into a kid only/friendly device. If your kids are sneaky, or bored, they'll try to break out of Kids Place. Then they'll delete apps, make folders, sabotage they're brothers devices, etc. B) You can change the name that's displayed on top from "Kids Place", to something else like their name, give them a fun nickname, whatever. For my 10 year old he won't feel like it's just a little kid thing. C) You can do this part without premium, but it's critical for me to mention it: You can change what the home "button" does so that it directs you back to Kids Place instead of the regular home launcher. The reason you need to install NovaLauncher above is because if you still have the stock firelauncher, you can NOT replace the home button with another launcher otherwise. [Word of caution, if you enable the 'background' premium feature, Kids Place is still running, just more in the background. Took me a few minutes to figure out that's what I had done. I kept thing something was wrong and wondering when whenever I launched Kids Place it kept asking me if I want to shut it down or go into settings.... it's because it was running the whole time already)
Once you've done all that, simply download apps (Amazon Underground still seems too good to be true, but I'm hopeful), sideload apps, get apps from Google Play, then go into the Kids Place settings and choose which apps you want (Manage Apps).
Other things worth noting:
SlimRom. So, this is cool. It's fast, and pretty awesome. For me however, at the end of the day, it didn't make sense to introduce something in addition that could go wrong. If you're like me and you have no intention of using this device yourself and you ONLY want this to be a device for your kids, I don't think SlimRom is worth putting in. If it's a shared device, it might be worth it. The only thing I really forgot to test when I had put SlimRom on one of the devices was how the Amazon App store would work, and whether or not the device would be recognized properly with the Amazon Underground portion.
That's it, I hope you find this helpful. I welcome any feedback or suggestions on how to make this a more gooder guide for anyone like myself who's first jump into amazon tablets has been these fires. They truly are AMAZING devices for the price.
hobojester said:
The only thing I really forgot to test when I had put SlimRom on one of the devices was how the Amazon App store would work, and whether or not the device would be recognized properly with the Amazon Underground portion.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seems pretty comprehensive guide for those using it the same way, very nice work
And when I had Slim on it worked fine with my amazon app store and underground apps. And the music and video ones for that matter. I couldn't get the kindle app to show my books but someone solved that by using older apk after I went back to stock.
@hobojester, THANKS so much for posting.
I purchased the $35 Fire Tablet for my 3 girls (9, 7, 5).
I've rooted at 5.0.1 and disabled OTA, disabled ads, Installed GooglePlay store, and loaded Nova launcher. Although I haven't taken it another few steps with Kids Place, I feel that I'll start with just locking down and hiding the apps via Nova Launcher will be enough for now. My kids are pretty savvy at navigating interfaces and even when they touch/exit an app, they know how to get back to it. I know there are holes with settings and NovaLauncher settings so when they figure them out, they can reenable certain functionality.
I'll look into Kids Place though, that might be my next step.
Also, about the whole SD card partitioning, I've installed a 32GB card and the tablet stated that it would start using the card as the default storage device. I'm guessing your method moves EVERYTHING to the card, and the default behavior for the Fire Tablet is to install some things on internal memory and 'other' storage is routed to the card? I've installed quite a bit of applications since I plugged in my SD card and it doesn't seem to be full... although I didn't check the storage stats before I wrapped the tablets.
Also, I've heard some good press on the Circle (with Disney) router, so I did order one for the home as yet another piece of the parenting puzzle:
[edit] sorry, didn't have sufficient permissions to post outside links. Google up: "Circle router with Disney"
Pond-life said:
Seems pretty comprehensive guide for those using it the same way, very nice work
And when I had Slim on it worked fine with my amazon app store and underground apps. And the music and video ones for that matter. I couldn't get the kindle app to show my books but someone solved that by using older apk after I went back to stock.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good to know about Slim and the Amazon store. Again, if I were going to use the tablet in a 'shared' environment where I'm using it AND my kids are using it, I'd totally use Slim. It was awesome. In this particular instance where this $35 device is a glorified gameboy, Slim is just something that is an extra layer of complexity that's really not needed and *could* get in the way. I have no intention of my kids even getting on the internet with this device. Not until there's a real need, and even then, I'd probably go get the K9 browser and use that.
TheTruthKC said:
@hobojester, THANKS so much for posting.
I purchased the $35 Fire Tablet for my 3 girls (9, 7, 5).
I've rooted at 5.0.1 and disabled OTA, disabled ads, Installed GooglePlay store, and loaded Nova launcher. Although I haven't taken it another few steps with Kids Place, I feel that I'll start with just locking down and hiding the apps via Nova Launcher will be enough for now. My kids are pretty savvy at navigating interfaces and even when they touch/exit an app, they know how to get back to it. I know there are holes with settings and NovaLauncher settings so when they figure them out, they can reenable certain functionality.
I'll look into Kids Place though, that might be my next step.
Also, about the whole SD card partitioning, I've installed a 32GB card and the tablet stated that it would start using the card as the default storage device. I'm guessing your method moves EVERYTHING to the card, and the default behavior for the Fire Tablet is to install some things on internal memory and 'other' storage is routed to the card? I've installed quite a bit of applications since I plugged in my SD card and it doesn't seem to be full... although I didn't check the storage stats before I wrapped the tablets.
Also, I've heard some good press on the Circle (with Disney) router, so I did order one for the home as yet another piece of the parenting puzzle:
[edit] sorry, didn't have sufficient permissions to post outside links. Google up: "Circle router with Disney"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad you can find this useful.
As far as the storage card piece, you are correct in that "my" method moves EVERYTHING. Some apps are "self contained" as I like to think of it, when you download it. Popular games like Geometry Dash have everything contained in the downloaded app (or the .APK file). That is just the app itself. You can tell the OS to auto put the "app" on the storage card, and that works out great, but it's a little misleading. The problem comes in when you have games like Knights of the Old Republic. That app itself is something like 40 MB or what not, but after you launch the app, it'll download this extra content, which in this particular case is 2 GB. The kicker: it'll ONLY store that "content" (as I call it) into what the device considers "External Storage", which is ACTUALLY on the INTERNAL storage. That whole emulated SDcard business Android does. It's all funky. For fear of sounding like a commercial, Link2SD fixes all of that. Linux (what Android is built off of (oh, and hi iPhone users, so is iOS for the record)) has this thing called "Symbolic Links". You can google it up more about it, but think of it as an uber shortcut. You create a symbolic link on internal storage to the actual physical SD card, and the program THINKS it's writing to internal storage when in fact it's writing to the SD card. The kicker: you can only create symbolic links if you're rooted. The nice thing about Link2SD, is that it'll symbolic link EVERYTHING. The "app", the "content", and all of the saved game data and what not (which take a game like MineCraft, can get pretty big if your kids (like mine) go crazy building worlds). And you can have it to it all automagically. But you will need to pop that SDCard out, put it in your computer, and get it re-partitioned (visit the links I posted in the original guide for more in depth details).
I have heard really cool things about the Disney router. For now, my kids don't really have any need (or business) getting on the internet unsupervised. When they do, I'll probably give them the K9 browser.
Sorry for the questions but I can't figure it out, searching doesn't find it, and I'm trying to get these wrapped.
Do I need to still select Fire OS" install supported apps to sd". Or do I do it all with LInk2DS? I haven't Rom'd these yet and I probably won't until we get back from vacation. They are only rooted with stock rom. I also don't need to do the whole kids place thing as my kids are a little older...Thanks for taking the time to write this all up!
Also I have partitions shown in my Disk usage app that are named "External", "SDcard1", system and "SD Card". I know "SD Card" is the exfat 2 part I made base on the size, but as for the "external" and SDcard1, they are both roughly 5 gb ( my sd was only 8 gigs so I made the FAT 32 5 gigs and the rest the exfat 2. But now I am not sure of the naming and I can't tell based only on size. So, is "External" really the built in amazon storage, and "sdcard1" is my microsd?
Like your thinking.
How are you getting past the "Apps with usage access" request for Kids Place?
howzitnow said:
Sorry for the questions but I can't figure it out, searching doesn't find it, and I'm trying to get these wrapped.
Do I need to still select Fire OS" install supported apps to sd". Or do I do it all with LInk2DS? I haven't Rom'd these yet and I probably won't until we get back from vacation. They are only rooted with stock rom. I also don't need to do the whole kids place thing as my kids are a little older...Thanks for taking the time to write this all up!
Also I have partitions shown in my Disk usage app that are named "External", "SDcard1", system and "SD Card". I know "SD Card" is the exfat 2 part I made base on the size, but as for the "external" and SDcard1, they are both roughly 5 gb ( my sd was only 8 gigs so I made the FAT 32 5 gigs and the rest the exfat 2. But now I am not sure of the naming and I can't tell based only on size. So, is "External" really the built in amazon storage, and "sdcard1" is my microsd?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This will be a good chance for me to point out (I'll edit the guide in a second): DO NOT LINK "INTERNAL" Data via Link2SD. It has caused apps to disappear and never come back. I actually had to start completely over on all there of my devices. That "option" to Link the Internal Data is only available when you purchase the Plus version of Link2SD, DON'T CHOOSE THAT OPTION!!!
Now, with that out of the way, Link2SD is clever in how it works, and I am barely out of the n00b stage on this so I'll give a disclaimer that I may be totally feeding you false information here, but here's how I understand it: First of all, what I did was leave the SD card settings inside the OS all 'defaults', which installs the "App" to the SD Card. Now with that, I believe what happens is Link2SD intercepts that 'transfer' and puts the actual apps on the EXT partition. There is the incredibly critical option in Link2SD to put all other data (except "internal" data of course) on the SD Card. That's what moves the really big parts of those big games and apps. So when the App is relocated, it's put onto that EXT part and the Content on your FAT32 part. To address your question regarding External, SDCard#, and 'where in the heck is the EXT' part.... the EXT partition is mounted and 'located' under the 'local' storage under something like the /data/sdex2 folder. Welcome to the world of Linux... on a computer Linux (if my really old dusty Linux knowledge still works) when you need to access the CD drive you have to MOUNT it, and than LINK that mount to basically a local folder (something like /MNT/CDROM). Your EXT partition is mounted the same way as a folder, and for whatever reason in an app like ES File Explorer you won't see it as another drive, you'll only see the FAT32 drive. Maybe that has something to do with it being FAT32, I'm not sure. ...... the long point here is that Link2SD intercepts or coordinates with the OS's moving of apps to locate the App data to your EXT partition (mounted to that /data/xxxxx folder) and all the other really big stuff to the FAT32 partition. Again, I may be way off here, but hey, makes sense in my brain right now .
Inside of Link2SD there's an option in the menu to see the storage consumption, and THERE it'll actually show you the EXT partition as well as the FAT32 partition.
If my kids were a little older and I truly didn't care about them mucking around in settings, potentially deleting things etc., I'd probably give SlimRom a go for that. I've been messing around with it some more and it is just simply more 'pure' Android OS so it'd give the more 'true' Android experience.... if you really care .
cogito808 said:
Like your thinking.
How are you getting past the "Apps with usage access" request for Kids Place?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not, simply because FireOS doesn't have that option. I just have to hit 'Cancel' and move on. If you were to put on SlimRom you'd have that option. From what I can tell the biggest thing we're missing out on by staying on FireOS and not having this option would be limiting time in Kids Place for certain apps and what not. For me personally, I'll just set a timer, but if it's something you want to use, I'd absolutely suggest putting SlimRom on there and then basically following the rest of the guide. Everything still applies.
If anyone cares, I set up SlimLP for my mom who is a bit less technologically advanced than I am and I put smart launcher on the device and just hid the apps I thought would be bad if she were to accidentally open them and not know what she was doing. (I thought his could be useful for some of the people here as well)
How do I avoid using the "Link Internal Data" feature? I do not see this option anywhere in the App.
Edit: OK. found it. I was looking in settings (before moving anything) but once I move an app the options come up.
chemie99 said:
How do I avoid using the "Link Internal Data" feature? I do not see this option anywhere in the App.
Edit: OK. found it. I was looking in settings (before moving anything) but once I move an app the options come up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I found out the hard way how bad this can be.... like... 6pm on the 24th, type of thing, RIGHT when I had finished it all up. I had some kind of heavenly help nudge me into thinking "you should turn these off completely, and simulate Christmas morning, see how long it'll take to fully boot back up".... and you can imagine my stomach drop when I went from having 150 games down to something like 3... it was painful. So, yeah, avoid that setting AT ALL COSTS!
How do you partition the SD card on the tablet? Also is this worth doing when you can install xposed SD card modules and be able to move obb files
Sent from my KFFOWI using Tapatalk
just wondering on the reason for 70/30 FAT32/EXT2. What gets installed in each partition?
tonyt3rry said:
How do you partition the SD card on the tablet? Also is this worth doing when you can install xposed SD card modules and be able to move obb files
Sent from my KFFOWI using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I"m not familiar with the xposed SD card modules so I can't help there. As far as HOW you do it, I linked to some articles in the first post that might help (Reference: http://rootmyandroid.org/increase-in...ry-phone.html/
Reference: http://rootmyandroid.org/how-to-use-...al-guide.html/)
chemie99 said:
just wondering on the reason for 70/30 FAT32/EXT2. What gets installed in each partition?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Basically the "app" gets installed to the 30% EXT2, and allt he "content" goes tot he 70% FAST32. Content will typically be data that gets downloaded after the app is installed. Take Knights Of The Old Republic for example, the "app" is like 50MB, but the "content" which gets downloaded upon the first time launching the actual program, is 2GB.
An Alternative Solution
I also gave my kids 3 Fire tablets for Christmas. My kids are mostly older (12,11,4) and the older two have had other Android devices. I went a different direction from the OP, which I'll discuss here for posterity's sake. This is a bit harder than the OP's method but ends up with a more conventional Android environment.
As background, I used FireOS on the Fire Phone for a few weeks, and ran into many problems. I installed CM11 on the Fire Phone and bought another in the final sale. You can read about that on the Fire Phone forum if you're interested.
Also, I've used Screen Time Parental Control for a couple years now, and while somewhat expensive it's great for monitoring without being too invasive. I can let the kids have a lot of freedom with their devices, without having to be worried about them either being on them all the time, or doing weird things. Screen Time nominally works with FireOS but in the end I did not use the tablets as-is long enough to try installing it.
For these tablets, I decided the easiest path was to install CM12. This avoided waiting for Amazon for security updates, and any FireOS incompatibilities, as I'd experienced with the Fire Phone. Also, the kids are familiar with CM, and frankly any replacement Android device will be easier in the future. After my experience with the zombie Fire Phone from Amazon I'm less concerned about CM/ggow/XDA bugs than I am Amazon's.
I decided to create separate user accounts for each child, as opposed to having both my Google account and the child's Google account** under a single user. I've done this before, but it's awkward to have to switch between accounts when using Gmail/Hangouts/Drive/etc., and sometimes things get mixed up.
Thus, for each of the three tablets I went through this process:
[I don't have the tablets in front of me, so if one of these steps doesn't seem obvious ask and I'll look up the exact names/buttons.]
1) Install CM12 using the well-documented methods
2) Boot into CM
3) Configure for my primary Google account
- Download interesting applications that have been purchased on my account
- Open SuperSU, enable multi-user access
- Open Contacts, select "ME", change name to "Dad" (or whatever)*
- Open File Manager
- Settings / Enable multi user access
- Open main Settings app:
- Set screen lock / PIN
- Users / Add user / OK / Set up now
4) "Switching to new user"
- Google Launcher always
- Log in with the "child's" account** in the wizard
- Open Contacts, change "ME" to the child's name
- Open File Manager
- Settings / Switch to Root access mode
- Browse to /data/app/
- Change into interesting packages and pick the .apk file
- Select "Install"***
- Repeat as necessary
Here I installed Screen Time Parental Control from the Play Store and went through the steps for Child device. Also any customization for the account should go here, then you can switch back to your regular user.
To switch user, drag down the system tray, pick the head image in the top right corner, and then the appropriate name.
Notes:
* This is in a wacky place, but this contact is how CM identifies the user name to display in the switch screen. If you don't see "ME" don't add it, just browse around; it's there somewhere.
** Apparently Google only allows accounts for people >=13. Thus, if you are reading from Google, know that these are my own accounts and my children happen to use them.
*** This will actually not re-download the application, but it makes a temporary copy while installing. Application user data is always separate between users, but for the most part download data is shared. For most applications things work on either user; however, Electronic Arts applications don't work with separate users, and Terraria will print an error (but still worked once the core data was downloaded with my purchasing account). I'm sure there are other apps that roll their own security and will be in this situation, but out of a very large family library these are the only apps with which I've had trouble.
Finally, a last note that Screen Time does not presently block creating new users from the system tray. In theory a youngling could create a user that would not have Screen Time limits, but then they wouldn't be able to delete it without getting in to Settings, which you should block anyway. Depends how devious your children are; for me I'm just waiting until they figure it out to do anything about it... just keep an eye on it if you go this route.
Hopefully this helps someone, eventually!
Best,
Tim
I got two fire tablets for the kids for Xmas, one is the kids edition (with the 1yr of apps,etc) the other is a standard fire. Used root junkies tool on both to block lock screen ads and OTA and hide Apps. They were both running OK, occasionally have the odd situation where you try to open an app and it looks like it is reloading it or redownloading it, not sure if this is because internal space has ran out and its redownloading on the fly but its quite frustrating.
Decided to flash slim LP rom on the standard tablet as there were apps that weren't available(better choice on play store and it wasn't tied into the 1year subscription).
So glad I did, was pretty straight forward to get it up and running and the latest build is so solid, fast and stable, was expecting it to be a bit quicker than fire OS as it had a lot less bloat but it seriously impressed me. So I have kids place set up on it to control apps and play time. I also installed hilocker from the play store to help simplify/lock down the lock screen. For example you can disable the status bar in kids place,but the child is still able to turn the screen off and on, they can then access the pull down toggles and mess with things, but with hilocker you can disable it which is great. Battery life is just as great if not better and your also up to date with all Google's security patches to boot.
It is a very good value tablet, as its just been reduced to just £40 in the UK. One thing that would be a major improvement is I just wished they had put 16GB of storage instead of 8GB. I know it has the sd card option which is great but in reality you only get around 5GB of actual internal storage for apps, a lot of which can't be moved to the sd card or still take up internal space when they are. Again I can't recommend slim rom enough as it really makes a big difference to the tablet (besides providing full play store access) and makes it perfect for consuming media, browsing, or just handier for when you want to use a bigger screen than your phone.
Sent from my InFocus M810t using Tapatalk
gsmyth said:
One thing that would be a major improvement is I just wished they had put 16GB of storage instead of 8GB. I know it has the sd card option which is great but in reality you only get around 5GB of actual internal storage for apps, a lot of which can't be moved to the sd card or still take up internal space when they are.
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@gsmyth, look into Link2SD if you haven't already. Between that and a 32GB MicroSD I don't feel especially constrained by the 8GB onboard.
tdcrone said:
@gsmyth, look into Link2SD if you haven't already. Between that and a 32GB MicroSD I don't feel especially constrained by the 8GB onboard.
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How are you formatting your 2nd partition for links2sd?. I keep getting 'unable to mount' error, trying to setup as ext4, which I thought was the standard on newer hardware. I believe I tried ext 2 as well. Without 2nd partition obb and data stay on internal. Thanks
I wish to thank the OP for this, as I am trying to use, and bought the recommended apps... haven;t had the time to set this all up, and it gets a little confusing having all these other devices, but eventually I'll get it.