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Hey guys,
I'm going to try making an Android ROM. It will be a bare-bones WM ROM with the necessary Android files built in.
It will run Haret at start up, but you have the choice to not run it if you don't choose to. (in case Android acts up).
I'm booting up Android right now from my ROM (not SD card).
I'll let you guys know how it goes
PLEASE REPLY WITH THE SIZE OF YOUR DATA IMAGE!!!!
awesome, sounds good.
I'm definitely game. Let us know when you've got it up!
How big is everyone's data file?
i just wanna be clear on what you're doing here. so, you could take your SD card out and still run android, correct?
regardless, this isn't really an android ROM. it's just a slim windows ROM. the only speed-up i could see, would be when winmo is loading up. once haret begun, it should be the same speed as we're currently used to.
data.img is 128mb.
128 MB here
128 Mb for me!
Okay, I think they are all set to 128MB, and then say how much is free. Right now it has space for the 128MB.
I am going to make it copy the files from the SD card to /Program Files/Android, and then have Haret start (with the option to run or not).
I am not seeing a super large speed boost, but it is a little faster, and seems to be more stable.
craig0r said:
i just wanna be clear on what you're doing here. so, you could take your SD card out and still run android, correct?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct
craig0r said:
regardless, this isn't really an android ROM. it's just a slim windows ROM. the only speed-up i could see, would be when winmo is loading up. once haret begun, it should be the same speed as we're currently used to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is a little faster (since it isn't using the SD card), and is a lot more stable for me.
Would it be feasible to run a script in WinMo to check to see if there is a newer version of the android files and prompt to update them if the files are newer?
what filesystems are you using for the system and data? Are you using file-backed storage or direct access to the memory device? You won't see as much of a speedup if you are using file-backed storage...
You also will want to modify initrd to change the memory settings, I can do that for you if you like...
derekwilkinson said:
Hey guys,
I'm going to try making an Android ROM. It will be a bare-bones WM ROM with the necessary Android files built in.
It will run Haret at start up, but you have the choice to not run it if you don't choose to. (in case Android acts up).
I'm booting up Android right now from my ROM (not SD card).
I'll let you guys know how it goes
PLEASE REPLY WITH THE SIZE OF YOUR DATA IMAGE!!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you putting a yaffs2 partition on the nand flash for data or using a loop mounted file on top of tfat. How about the system image? There should be a significant speedup from using the nand flash. Also, how are you passing the partition information to the kernel?
craig0r said:
regardless, this isn't really an android ROM. it's just a slim windows ROM. the only speed-up i could see, would be when winmo is loading up. once haret begun, it should be the same speed as we're currently used to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True, it isn't an android rom... but most of the slowness we're experiencing is due to a slow bus interface to the SD card, and slow write speeds to the SD.
If properly accessing the internal memory, there should be significant speed increases.
EDIT: By the way, if you are just using an ext2 data.img sitting on the tfat partition, you are likely to see bad things happen to your internal memory.
ext2 doesn't do wear leveling, and the internal flash controllers also don't do wear leveling. TFAT is set up to do it, but if you are just reading it as FAT, it won't do it... you want to access the memory directly and set up a yaffs2 partition.
vilord said:
what filesystems are you using for the system and data? Are you using file-backed storage or direct access to the memory device? You won't see as much of a speedup if you are using file-backed storage...
You also will want to modify initrd to change the memory settings, I can do that for you if you like...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Honestly, I just made a super small ROM so it could run the Android files more stable (since it isn't on the SD card).
How can I have direct access to the memory device?
well to start, how do you get to the files now?
I'm going to guess that you turned on kernel support for the internal memory, which makes it show up like a block device, then you are mounting the windows TFAT userdata partition, then mounting system.img and data.img as loop.
What you would do for direct access isn't all that different...
Right now you have a *very* small windows rom, which leaves a large space for userdata. You'd need to force the tool to leave an open space at the end of the flash, then you'd use a linux tool to mkfs.yaffs in that open space. It is similar to a hard disk (with a different partition table), except that you want to use yaffs or jffs2 to enable wear leveling.
vilord said:
well to start, how do you get to the files now?
I'm going to guess that you turned on kernel support for the internal memory, which makes it show up like a block device, then you are mounting the windows TFAT userdata partition, then mounting system.img and data.img as loop.
What you would do for direct access isn't all that different...
Right now you have a *very* small windows rom, which leaves a large space for userdata. You'd need to force the tool to leave an open space at the end of the flash, then you'd use a linux tool to mkfs.yaffs in that open space. It is similar to a hard disk (with a different partition table), except that you want to use yaffs or jffs2 to enable wear leveling.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I took a Vogue ROM, stripped everything out, and copied the Android files from my SD card to the device.
Did you change the initrd and zImage at all? I would think you'd need to change them to tell the loader to look at the internal memory instead of looking at the SD card...
soo when will this rom be ready? also will the base system be winmo 6.1 or 6.5?
fixxxer2008 said:
soo when will this rom be ready? also will the base system be winmo 6.1 or 6.5?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I get everything running as fast as possible.
I'm about to write the scripts to make everything work easier
(like copy your current default.txt and data images to the device so you keep your data) and maybe automatic updates (haven't decided how i'll make it work yet).
I have a question that is more android-in-general than Nook specific. I am trying this out on my Nook first, as it is an unbrickable device, before tinkering with my target device (a phone). My phone also does not have Clockworkmod recovery support, so a bricked device would be fatal.
I am attempting to increase the memory available for installed apps. My phone has limited space, but a bunch of pre-installed junk that I thought I might be able to get rid of in order to make more space for more apps. Knowing that simply deleting these pre-installed apps from the /system folder does really nothing, I set about making and editing an image file from the /system partition, then reflashing this image back to phone. As I am trying this on the Nook first, here is what I did:
1. Adb into the Nook and dd the system partition to a system.img file on the sd card.
2. Copy the system.img file to my desktop and mount the image.
3. Edit the image, removing the LiveWallpapers.apk file (a hefty ~3M file), then save the result back out as a new system.img.
4. Copy the new system.img to the sd card, then adb back into the Nook and dd the system.img from the sd card back to the system partition.
Everything appeared to work fine. The Nook boots, runs fine, and the LiveWallpapers.apk file is nowhere to be seen. Problem is, there is no difference in the available memory on the device.
In retrospect, I suppose I should not have expected there to be a difference. I am under the impression that the system partition is a read-only partition, and that extra space on this partition is not available for installation of apps. I am guessing that in order to increase the memory available, I would need to resize the data partition.
So, ultimately, my question is whether or not this is correct. Do I need to resize the data partition in order to actually get more memory available for apps, or is there an easier way? If I would need to resize the partition, how would I go about doing this, and would I need to take this extra space away from the system partition (the extra memory would need to come from somewhere, I imagine). I would envision removing bloatware from the system partition, shrinking that partition as I would no longer need that much space, and giving that extra memory to the data partition. Bear in mind that I need to do all of this through adb as I will not have Clockworkmod recovery on my target device.
Alternatively, I could be out my gourd and none of this makes any sense. Feel free to let me know if this is the case.
Thanks!
You've got it right.
The Nook emmc has partitions for boot, rom, system, data, and media. Originally data was 1g and media (/emmc under CM7) was 5g, newer models have reversed this. Data is where apps and their data go.
There are threads here about repartitioning newer Nooks with lots of good discussion. It sounds like you are capable (or want to be capable) of creating a custom partition scheme; there's enough info there for you to do that.
Experimenting with an 8g SD card might be a good place to get familiar with the tools. The "size-agnostic" installer will use a pre-partitioned SD if it finds one IIRC.
Good luck!
Sent from my NookColor using xda premium
xdajunkman said:
I have a question that is more android-in-general than Nook specific. I am trying this out on my Nook first, as it is an unbrickable device, before tinkering with my target device (a phone). My phone also does not have Clockworkmod recovery support, so a bricked device would be fatal.
...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just wanted to re-iterate the importance of what you said here.
I have sent several people off to buy Nook Colors who were interested in developing for android, for this very reason.
Nothing else you can get your hands on ( to my knowledge ) is as safe of a dev-tool as the Nook Color, because of the first boot to sd-card.
It doesn't matter what you do to it, at the end of the day you'll have a working device unless you throw it down the stairs or something.
Bonus points for running an sd-install directly, because when you hose it you just reflash a new microsd card.
Can't reformat the card because windows only reads the boot partition? No problem - if you still have your Nook Color with it's stock software just boot it up and pop the microsd card in. The B & N software in the Nook Color will just format the card, without a care in the world for any existing partition schemes or whatnot.
You're on the right track for what you're trying to do, as the previous poster has pointed out, so just wanted to give you another vote of confidence letting you know you're doing all the right things for all the right reasons.
Thanks for the replies!
You know, I actually did the repartition of my Nook using the CWR zip file. I hadn't thought to go look through the original thread for the manual instructions. As you pointed out, I found the directions here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=13971291&postcount=110
The only problem is that his instructions require that you boot from the SD card in order to manipulate your interal memory. This is fine and good on the Nook, but not possible with my phone. Any idea what would happen if I tried to repartition the internal memory while booting from the internal memory? Seems that this would not be possible....or at least wrought with peril. I think that my phone can boot into a fastboot mode, but have not tried that...anyone know if this would help?
Perhaps I am just playing with fire here and need to settle for cramped memory space on my phone. I am just too accustomed to my 5GB of available app space on my Nook.
Thanks again.
Well, after some more Googling, I think I might abandon the repartitioning bit. I think I am likely to brick my phone, even though I think I could do it manually on the Nook. In addition, it appears that many phones are set up so that the kernel resets the internal memory partitioning on boot....so I might also need to mess with the kernel to get this to stick. This is beyond my skill set and really not worth my turning my phone into a paperweight.
I thought of a bit of a workaround, however. As I can extract and edit the image of the system partition, I will simply install the apps that I will eventually want on my phone on my Nook instead, extract the apk's from the Nook, then insert them into the system image file from my phone. Reflashing the system image then puts these apps into the system partition instead of the data partition, effectively saving me hoards of space on my data partition. A bit laborious, but for several core apps that I know I will want and that are memory hogs, I think it will be worth it.
Anyone see any problem with this approach?
Hi, I'm rocking the latest CM7 nightly, which doesn't support WebTop, so I have a 1GB+ partition just taking up space of my precious storage (which is very limited since I only have a 2GB SD card for now). I just read this article, could this be used to get rid of the webtop partition (and possibly shrink the /data as well)?
+1
Sent from my MB860 using XDA
nm, was thinking erase and not deleting the partition.
CaelanT said:
nm, was thinking erase and not deleting the partition.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I saw it in the update email, lol
even deleting the partition, the memory of it won't be relocated to anywhere else, DONT DO THAT IF YOU ARENT A DEVELOPER WHO KNOWS WHAT IS DOING! =)
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
You need to be able to edit the partition tables somehow, deleting the webtop partition and expanding the sdcard partition. Not sure how we can get a utility on the phone to do it. Id imagine it would be best to do it from a recovery so you wouldn't be using the internal storage partition while trying to do it. I don't think any simple and easy solution exists for this.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
I'm not a dev, but I'm quite knoelegable in general stuff (like partition maps, filesystems, etc) and a fast learner. That said, your right on that I probably shouldn't just go out and try it, and since I don't want to lose my little baby to a hardbrick, I was never planning on trying anything out. I posted the link to see if anyone had tried that method on an Atrix, or if someone knoelegable (or with a bunch of high end smartphones lying around) could try. I also must admit I haven't really read the thread & post linked in the article: I have a very busy week and this isn't something to do in a rush.
I'm also interested in this. I'll be following this thread to see if a solution comes up.
Silly suggestion: how about taking the card out and hooking it up with a proper PC. Copy the contents out of it to a temporary location. Then reformat the card to the full capacity and then re-copy all the items back in after. Reformat may have some issues if you are using Windows to try and rid of the EXT partition, but there are plenty of Partitioning programs out there that will kill it (including the native command prompt one called Diskpart).
bchliu said:
Silly suggestion: how about taking the card out and hooking it up with a proper PC. Copy the contents out of it to a temporary location. Then reformat the card to the full capacity and then re-copy all the items back in after. Reformat may have some issues if you are using Windows to try and rid of the EXT partition, but there are plenty of Partitioning programs out there that will kill it (including the native command prompt one called Diskpart).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We are talking about the internal storage (which is not removable as far as I know), not the MicroSD card.
adriangb said:
We are talking about the internal storage (which is not removable as far as I know), not the MicroSD card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The OP: "Hi, I'm rocking the latest CM7 nightly, which doesn't support WebTop, so I have a 1GB+ partition just taking up space of my precious storage (which is very limited since I only have a 2GB SD card for now). I just read this article, could this be used to get rid of the webtop partition (and possibly shrink the /data as well)?"
Notice the SD card comment..
bchliu said:
The OP: "Hi, I'm rocking the latest CM7 nightly, which doesn't support WebTop, so I have a 1GB+ partition just taking up space of my precious storage (which is very limited since I only have a 2GB SD card for now). I just read this article, could this be used to get rid of the webtop partition (and possibly shrink the /data as well)?"
Notice the SD card comment..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, but the webtop partition is on internal storage (unless you are using webtop2sd).
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
bchliu said:
The OP: "Hi, I'm rocking the latest CM7 nightly, which doesn't support WebTop, so I have a 1GB+ partition just taking up space of my precious storage (which is very limited since I only have a 2GB SD card for now). I just read this article, could this be used to get rid of the webtop partition (and possibly shrink the /data as well)?"
Notice the SD card comment..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That was only to point out a possible reason for which I would want to do this, since I probably wouldn't care too much about 1GB of internal storage if I had a 32GB SD card.
U can format the partition by fastboot erase webtop command but other then that u cant use that space for other purposes and as far as i can tell there are certain number of partitions in atrix system (ever one is for some specific thing).
SO my suggestion is DO not completely delete the partition insted make it so small (as small as possible) and reallocate all of the free space to system partition (where user and preinstalled apps are installed. this way no natural order of flashing and backup will be disturbed and we will get extra space for applications and stuff.
Possible problems (unable to flash SBF through RSDlite) {Who flash thins via RDS now any ways ?}
if flashed rom with webtop (bluer bassed ROMs) then there is strong possibility that webtop partition so small unable to flash webtop causing aborted flasing process.
xateeq said:
U can format the partition by fastboot erase webtop command but other then that u cant use that space for other purposes and as far as i can tell there are certain number of partitions in atrix system (ever one is for some specific thing).
SO my suggestion is DO not completely delete the partition insted make it so small (as small as possible) and reallocate all of the free space to system partition (where user and preinstalled apps are installed. this way no natural order of flashing and backup will be disturbed and we will get extra space for applications and stuff.
Possible problems (unable to flash SBF through RSDlite) {Who flash thins via RDS now any ways ?}
if flashed rom with webtop (bluer bassed ROMs) then there is strong possibility that webtop partition so small unable to flash webtop causing aborted flasing process.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True, I hadn't thought of that. CWM flashs could probably work fine, or be modified to do so, but sbf I don't know, and sbf is useful to recover from a softbrick (I had to do so once, I don't remember th exact circumstance thou).
Some dev who knoes what he is doing would have to check this and see if there is a possible workaround (like the one you gave).
Sent from my MB860
in soft brick u can access fastboot so no need to flash SBF just flash recover and from it mount storage as a mass storage on pc and copy rom and flash. i do it all the times.
last time i used rsd was to flash unlock bootloader sbf.
xateeq said:
in soft brick u can access fastboot so no need to flash SBF just flash recover and from it mount storage as a mass storage on pc and copy rom and flash. i do it all the times.
last time i used rsd was to flash unlock bootloader sbf.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I know, I don't remember what tje exact circumstance was, but maybe I just had the sbf laying around, it's irrelevant to the thread anyways (as is this post). I was just trying to point out that it's just better if we can keep the sbf fladhing capibility, even if it's only to be able to return it under warranty (althou I'm pretty sure you can also flash stock ROMs under CWM, granted someone made a zip out of it).
Maybe there is a way of tricking the phone into thinking the webtop partition is an sd card after it's re-formatted. Like formatting it into a fat32 partition and have some command to mount it.
i will never use webtop, its just some space useless to me =[
i have found a purfect solution to webtop extras space problem.
BUY A BIGGER CAPACITY MEMORY CARD
Every thing els dont have to change, give developers some time they will find some webtop replacement and we r gona love it.
ok people i really need your help on this one i accidentally reasize a partition in my internal sdcard and i cannaot reasize it again what i need to know is if there is any program for windows that would allow me to see all my internal partitions and modify them
i imagine i can do it with ubuntu but im having a hard time mounting my iconia to ubuntu
besides that my tablet boot normally i just dont have the same amount of memory available because is being use in another partition
please whoever can help ill appreciate it thanks
I got this prob too 126mb, do u know how it happened?
Hello,
I really like my G2 but i have one annoying issue:
When using one of those great custom roms i end up with pretty much free space on internal storage (system partition).
Since i'm having the 16GB-version i have ~10GB of usable space and currently ~7GB wasted space.
When using OSM-Maps 10GB is not much so i hope there is a way to utilize the free space on internal storage.
I have several ideas but i'm no dev and i hardly know about linux and even less about android.
So thats what i thought of:
Idea 1: Change partition size.
Well i think not a good idea but on my old HTC HD2 i could choose how the storage is partitioned. Don't know if this is possible on G2 and if changes there are not to risky.
Idea 2: Create a virtual SD-Card.
I know that this is possible somehow because i can do that with androidx86 on my tablet. So why dont write an app or zip-File-Patch that creates a custom-size virtual sd-card on internal storage/system partition. Problem is that i can't do that. Help of a dev would be needed.
Idea 3: Redirect folders.
On Linux and Windows it's possible to create "virtual folders" that are just links to the real folder that is stored somewhere else. Pretty handy on windows to move music-library to sd-card with full functions for example.
I think i've seen such things on android too when browsing my device. So why don't move for example the DCIM-Folder and others to internal storage this way?
But again a dev would be needed.
Idea 4: Copy some stuff with root and file explorer.
Thats maybe the simpliest way but i don't know how and where i can copy things. For example i've around 4GB of music on my device and if i can still access it i would have no problem to move it to internal storage somewhere. Maybe to ringtones folder or something like this.
But i'm not sure where i should put it to be on internal storage and access being still possible.
It would be great to further discuss this ideas with you and find some kind of solution.
Well i was able to evaluate on Android 4.2.2 that you can put your music folder into the system/media folder but it was only possible with aroma file manger in recovery.
Then the free space on internal storage gets decreased and the available storage gets increased. This means my files are now inside the system partition.
But there are problems:
Even with root total commander was not able to write things to this directory and even after setting permissions in aroma-fm after reboot i cant write there. So handling is painful.
The music app doesnt find the music now
Found that tool then to create a "link" on sdcard that links to the folder in system/media but that fails because it cannot link to this path.
Tool: http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s2/themes-apps/tool-directorybind-data-to-externalsd-t1410262
Overwhelming interest ...
Wrong section??
Well I've found your thread! Did you get anywhere with this?