[Semi-DEV] MTD Partitions on DHD-Too large cache - Desire HD General

Hey guys(mostly devs,would post in dev section but you know,it's not "right").
I was monitoring something that had gone haywire on my phone with OS Monitor and I found something rather odd.
The /cache partition on the Desire HD is roughly 300Mb,while ONLY almost 19Mb were used.Summing it up,it's more than 250mb of space going to waste.So I thought,especially when coming from a Desire(512mb nand anyone? ) and with all Sense 3 roms coming up,/cache could get smaller with some of the "wasted" space going to a slightly larger /system partition and mostly to a larger /data partition,which might be big enough for most,but for those of us that just forget their devices have certain limits,it would be cool.And in many cases A2SD won't be needed.
So?What do you say guys?If many of us gather we could attract developers' attention.Or at least I hope so!
Regards
Apostolis

Not possible to change partitions size so far on Desire HD. And wont be possible probably

mike1986. said:
Not possible to change partitions size so far on Desire HD. And wont be possible probably
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh...And may I ask why is that so?HTC's security?If yes I think I'm a step closer to buying the Galaxy S 2 and not the Sensation...
Anyway,thanks mike!
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

mike1986. said:
Not possible to change partitions size so far on Desire HD. And wont be possible probably
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It should be, it was done on the desire without even touching the bootloader, all it took was a script to modify cwm and the boot.img
Sent from my R800i using Tapatalk

AndroHero said:
It should be, it was done on the desire without even touching the bootloader, all it took was a script to modify cwm and the boot.img
Sent from my R800i using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep,that's what I was thinking,but the level of security on the DHD is far worse(Worse for us that is! ) than it is on the Desire.I wouldn't know,development isn't my speciality,so Mike will know better.If only you could clarify a little Mike...
Or we could contact Firerat.Isn't he the guy that started the whole MTD partition thing?

Wanna push that thing up!
Now on CM12+ i think its more interesting and four years later maybe someone knows a bit more?
Is there something new?

Related

Data2Ext Hack Blows Benchmarks Out of the Water

http://www.androidpolice.com/2010/12/11/data2ext-hack-blows-benchmarks-out-of-the-water/
Pretty big news out of the XDA-Forums today – forum member and resident genius Ownhere has come up with a ‘data2ext’ hack that allows users to enhance the way Android handles OS-specific data and memory. Put simply, this hack allows users to change some partition settings in order to greatly increase performance.
Originally created for the HTC Desire, the hack delivers some outstanding performance improvements and is a must have if you own the device. For more technical information, you can click here. A word of warning, though: this hack is not for the feint of heart as it is fairly difficult.
Interesting..
Pretty nice...3000 points in Quadrant is huge. Maybe we can get something similar to our devices as well...Santa Claus is approaching
not today's but they are great...if the hack doesn't destabilize the device or harm safety...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=859419
Wow, I hope someone will implement this for Legend!
qzem said:
Wow, I hope someone will implement this for Legend!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here...
I read the post howto for desire and it looked sooooooooooo complicated...
This will be fairly easy to implement... but things could go very bad using this mod. Like for instance if you make a sudden power-off... filesystem may stay in such state that it cannot be mounted on the next boot and for novice users this could mean that wipe should be made to resolve this situation.
Sent from my HTC Legend
BlaY0 said:
This will be fairly easy to implement... but things could go very bad using this mod. Like for instance if you make a sudden power-off... filesystem may stay in such state that it cannot be mounted on the next boot and for novice users this could mean that wipe should be made to resolve this situation.
Sent from my HTC Legend
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This problem should only be there if you really disable journaling. From the original post:
As you see, the best speed is: mount real ext4 device with loop option, disable journaling. The best balance of performance and safe is mount real ext4 device with loop option, enable journaling! We don't need a loopfile but just change mount option.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As long as journaling is enabled this should be quite safe. At least thats what journaling is for
If someone will implement this, it would require microSD card class >= 4, to use this hack. Am I right?

Glacier internal storage question

I'm coming from the G1. You could run "cat /proc/mtd" to get the layout of the internal storage device.
It looks to me like the glacier is using /dev/block/mmcblk0 for internal, and mmcblk1 for the sdcard.
'fdisk -l' shows 60 partitions on mmcblk0... Is that even correct? Can someone give me the quick explanation of the how the Glacier is handling its internal storage device?
Thanks
(and I did try search first)
Ohsaka said:
I'm coming from the G1. You could run "cat /proc/mtd" to get the layout of the internal storage device.
It looks to me like the glacier is using /dev/block/mmcblk0 for internal, and mmcblk1 for the sdcard.
'fdisk -l' shows 60 partitions on mmcblk0... Is that even correct? Can someone give me the quick explanation of the how the Glacier is handling its internal storage device?
Thanks
(and I did try search first)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are correct mmcblk0 is internal and mmcblk1 is the sd. I discovered this when creating an ext partition, it seems that a2sd scripts rarely support it by default (a la g2). Also, clockwork doesnt seem to properly support sdext dalvik clearing, which is specifically a complication for regular ROM flashers.
I'm not sure about the exact number of partitions on the RAM/Internal storage blk.
Sent from my MT4G using XDA App
do i see a super wipe being built>?
I sure hope so! Used it regularly on my g1
Sent from my RoyalGlacier using XDA app
Looking into it...
It appears to be a complete rewrite at this point if I want it to actually be writing zeros to the disk at a low level. The statically linked 'erase_image' executable uses the /proc/mtd file to get the partition boundaries and that file is now blank.
I could probably toss together a script that will run "rm -rf" on all the mounts, but I assume anyone with 10 spare minutes can do that...
I will just need to do some more research into how the Glacier is setup. Unfortunately (for you guys) my baby is able to crawl now, so when I'm home I spend alot of free time chasing her around and keeping her out of the cats' drinking fountain.
Ohsaka said:
Looking into it...
It appears to be a complete rewrite at this point if I want it to actually be writing zeros to the disk at a low level. The statically linked 'erase_image' executable uses the /proc/mtd file to get the partition boundaries and that file is now blank.
I could probably toss together a script that will run "rm -rf" on all the mounts, but I assume anyone with 10 spare minutes can do that...
I will just need to do some more research into how the Glacier is setup. Unfortunately (for you guys) my baby is able to crawl now, so when I'm home I spend alot of free time chasing her around and keeping her out of the cats' drinking fountain.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very cute kid. She yours?
Sent from my HTC Glacier using XDA App
Yea, i used it on my G1 pretty much daily with all the flashing that was going on at its prime. Great tool. Good luck man, looking forward to it.
OuncE718 said:
Very cute kid. She yours?
Sent from my HTC Glacier using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
She better be! I didn't pay all that money to have her genetically engineered in a lab for her to end up being someone else's kid....
Ohsaka said:
She better be! I didn't pay all that money to have her genetically engineered in a lab for her to end up being someone else's kid....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol, sorry, i tamper with all the samples and mix em up and it is now a coctail of samples the we implanted... you lucked out and got the same race!!!
michaelmcelveen913 said:
lol, sorry, i tamper with all the samples and mix em up and it is now a coctail of samples the we implanted... you lucked out and got the same race!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You mean shes gonna stay that color?!?!??!

How possible would it be to use Firerat's MTD partition tool?

I found this thread in the cdma hero android dev forum:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=754805
Also, this one in the Evo 4G dev forum:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=855424
Which ultimately leads to this thread, which was the base for both of the threads above:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=717874
And it got me thinking: who wouldn't want more app "/data" space? While we have the "Move to SD" option for a lot of apps, it would be nice to just have more space for our apps to begin with.
I would love to do this. Especially since I have over 300 megs of unused system space that could be re partitioned to data. Unfortunately, all those devices use mtd partitions, while our phones use emmc. So if it could work, it would require a huge rewrite of the code involved. And I'm not one hundred percent sure it could work even with re writing
Sent from my PG06100 using XDA App
I have already tried it , FAIL. Worked well on my Hero.
Sent from my PG06100 using XDA Premium App
from what ive toyed around with and looked at...its going to be a heck of alot of work because your dealing with emmc partitions, and messing with emmc partition sizes are a pain in the face to do correctly without an some sort of a magical anti-brick spell or case...
newkidd said:
from what ive toyed around with and looked at...its going to be a heck of alot of work because your dealing with emmc partitions, and messing with emmc partition sizes are a pain in the face to do correctly without an some sort of a magical anti-brick spell or case...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lol,I guess I should consider myself lucky! I sent a pm to dev asking if it would work. No answer so far that was about 2 wks ago. I'm sure somebody a whole lot smarter than I might take up the cause.
Sent from my PG06100 using XDA Premium App
We may get some life breathed into this just yet. With the devs hot on the trail of rooting the Evo 3D, we *should* be able to piggy back off their work, since the Evo 3D uses the emmc partitions, as well.

sweet

not sure if anyone remembers me here but ive moved on the the motorola photon and gave my wife my hero which she wanted fully stock
unrooted.............. well today she finally cracked and begged me to fix her phone, so i rooted it and put cm7 on it with data2ext 1gb mod needless to say she is super happy and now is curious about the different roms and mods for her phone...... so looks like ill be lurking around here again..... wohoooo knew it had to happen sooner or later by the way anyone due for an upgrade soon i highly recommend the photon incredible phone does everything you tweak others to do straight out the box.... thanks to all the awesome devs here for opening my wife's eyes big smile here guys have a great one
what's data2ext mod? I googled it but didn't find anything on what it dose.
zeroshot said:
what's data2ext mod? I googled it but didn't find anything on what it dose.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its a set of scripts that change the mount points so that your data partition gets mounted to a ext2/3/4 partion on the sdcard instead of internal storage.
zeroshot said:
what's data2ext mod? I googled it but didn't find anything on what it dose.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
allows you to have way more storage space gave my wife 1gb of app storage
o I did it that way before, didn't seem to be any different then apps on the sd.
Just seems more automatic and cleaner to me flash zip input code into terminal reboot and everything is all good
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium

Xoom out of AOSP due to partitioning (Motorola simply didn't plan for the future)

Some other threads discussing "full partition" problems loading custom ROMs onto the Xoom led me to some digging around. The short story is that Motorola only allocated 236MB to the system partition on the Xoom, and the current JB stock build (JZO54K) occupies nearly 231MB.
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Given that various features were not included in the JB update when compared to the Nexus 7 and Galaxy Nexus, it's all starting to make more sense why. When Honeycomb rolled out for what is now thought to be a public beta test of the Android tablet form factor, the system partition likely had plenty of space for growth. Dial the calendar ahead several months, and ICS emerges with a footprint that is nearing the Xoom's capacity. And the first item to go - face unlock. It's all good, no one really uses it for actual security but is a cool novelty to show your non-Android/non-ICS friends. Then comes Jellybean. And it's BIG. The Galaxy Nexus system.img file is over 400MB for toro (obviously apples and oranges due to its use as a phone, but you get the idea). So, to make it work for the Xoom, a lot of the frills are stripped away - new wallpapers, sound search as a system app, on-device voice search, Google hot word to start a search in Google Now, etc. It all just doesn't fit inside the partition that Motorola assigned in early 2011. Sad when you realize that there is a giant 32GB flash memory chip built in. And I suspect the Nexus S is faced with the same problems - hardware will work, but the system partition is just too small.
And now we hope for custom ROMs for 4.2 that can fit inside that tiny system partition. Based on the current size of CM10 for wingray, I'd say Team EOS has the best possibility from the size standpoint. That shiny Nexus 10 is looking better and better...
Sent from my Xoom using xda premium
I was under the assumption that re-partitioning was possible?
TheStickMan said:
I was under the assumption that re-partitioning was possible?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Possible, but Motorola would first have to write an updated boot loader, and the OTA would have to move existing files to the new blocks. Probably an OTA nightmare. I recall HTC skipping updates to ICS for this reason.
Sent from my Xoom using xda premium
They can skip the unnecessary **** like google now and keep it as clean as possible and 4.2 will fit
romdroid. said:
They can skip the unnecessary **** like google now and keep it as clean as possible and 4.2 will fit
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I personally use Google now and really find the information helpful. However you are correct-get rid of the Motorola crap like Cordy and Dungeon Defender, and the Google apps that no one uses like Currents. Make Maps, Earth, and other Google products optional instead of being system apps and it will probably fit. I do think both CM and Team EOS will need to strip lot some of their own system apps to make it fit.
Sent from my Xoom using xda premium
I am obviously no Dev. But, is it not possible for any of the Devs here to write a new bootloader and partition for the Xoom? Or at least modify the current one? Seeing as it is unlocked. I only ask because well, the Xoom is such a very nice peace of hardware, as old as it is. The shear fact that it is virtually a pure Google device, has a metal housing, mSD slot, and is all around a cool device. One could hope for such a monumental mod.
Another thing, is it possible to boot off of a mSD card and install the OS on there? Not that that would be such a hot idea due to read and write problems. But an option either way?
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
Jaytronics said:
I am obviously no Dev. But, is it not possible for any of the Devs here to write a new bootloader and partition for the Xoom? Or at least modify the current one? Seeing as it is unlocked. I only ask because well, the Xoom is such a very nice peace of hardware, as old as it is. The shear fact that it is virtually a pure Google device, has a metal housing, mSD slot, and is all around a cool device. One could hope for such a monumental mod.
Another thing, is it possible to boot off of a mSD card and install the OS on there? Not that that would be such a hot idea due to read and write problems. But an option either way?
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
More power to the Dev that could make this happen, but modifying the boot loader can be a quick journey to a bricked Xoom.
Sent from my Xoom using xda premium
Having owned the Advent Vega and used many home brew ROMs it was very common to change the partition layout to make the ROM fit. An issue used to be when using nvflash from a PC as it would not account for any bad nand blocks. But, in the main it worked.
Owning the Skate phone that too has the opportunity to change the system / cache / data partition layout to fit the custom ROMs.
Whether that would be an option supported for the Xoom I do not know.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
The nexus s has a system 528mb system partition.
There is no hardware limitation at all for that device.
You could. make a case that its amount of ram makes for a bad user experience though. It has around 345mb available. But they put 4.1 on it so there is a no reason they shouldn't have supported 4.2 IMHO.
Looks a like a case of we don't want to bothered supporting that old device to me.
So let me get this straight, there is literally no way we can repartition our system storage space to anything different? Even with an unlocked bootloader and such?
alex94kumar said:
So let me get this straight, there is literally no way we can repartition our system storage space to anything different? Even with an unlocked bootloader and such?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't with certainty say there is" no way", but from what I've read on this recently it isn't easy. The boot loader has partition info so it knows where to look for the files to make the device function. Modifying the boot loader could brick the device. I've also become aware of symlinks that enable moving files from the system partition into the data partition to save space-no idea how this works.
Sent from my Xoom using xda premium
let's get a developer in here and find out then!
Nexus One has had a fair few partitions changed in its life span. Up to Gingerbread with stock, ICS and JB had different .... Someone reach out to some nexus one dev perhaps to see if the same sort of thing could be applied here?
Sent from my HTC EVO 3D X515m using xda premium
Nexus One devs rely on the Blackrose bootloader to allow repartitioning. The Blackrose author would be the one to contact if you needed a pointer on where to start to at least figure out IF it's doable or not on the Xoom (the two don't have the same bootloader, obviously).
Somewhere over in the dev section Big Rush Dog said it would lead to certain brick and couldn't be done. They also said youtube HQ wouldn't work on armv6 due to lack of omx libs, but that got hacked (eventually) and we got that. so may be possible but not without hard work and bricked devices
albundy2010 said:
The nexus s has a system 528mb system partition.
There is no hardware limitation at all for that device.
You could. make a case that its amount of ram makes for a bad user experience though. It has around 345mb available. But they put 4.1 on it so there is a no reason they shouldn't have supported 4.2 IMHO.
Looks a like a case of we don't want to bothered supporting that old device to me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am going to go out on a limb and say that the RAM could end up being a non issue. Reason I say this is because it can be replaced with other RAM chips from another device. Say the Thunderbolt or whatever. The only question I have pertaining that would be. Does RAM for mobile devices follow a specification as far as pin outs is concerned? If they do, and as long as the voltage and frequency threshold are the same if not similar to a degree. Then we could upgrade those. I know that not all people hers would be willing to try such a feat. But I would. And if it worked, I would be willing to help others out in that area.
I believe it is safe to say that I am not the only person that is passionate about how cool devices is. Its age and lack of NFC does not bother me. The thing is solid and has mSD. I can not tout how important that one feature is to me. Its funny, we live in a world where there is supposedly this "Green" movement. Yet no one is pushing these companies to make the hardware they make last longer or make them upgradable. I understand the whole making money model. But we are either ruining this planet or we are not. It is not both ways. You are either "Green" or not. A woman can not be some what pregnant. She either is or is not. These corporations don't give a rats ass about the future generations or their home.
I don't know, it is a bit sickening
. And I as usual, am ranting on like a crazy man. Oh well.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
Winesnob said:
I can't with certainty say there is" no way", but from what I've read on this recently it isn't easy. The boot loader has partition info so it knows where to look for the files to make the device function. Modifying the boot loader could brick the device. I've also become aware of symlinks that enable moving files from the system partition into the data partition to save space-no idea how this works.
Sent from my Xoom using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mount it in Linux and rebuild the partitions with lvm... it's not too difficult. If you've ever owned a Touchpad, you might have followed one of my guides to get Ubuntu running in a triple boot, doing this is necessary. But unfortunately there is no Novaterm for Android, so the easiest way would be through ADB shell while booted into recovery.
Also, the bootloader has nothing to do with resizing partitions. It just directs your device to the desired partition to boot from. For example, GRUB tells your PC whether to boot into Linux or Windows.
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk 2
Jaytronics said:
I am going to go out on a limb and say that the RAM could end up being a non issue. Reason I say this is because it can be replaced with other RAM chips from another device. Say the Thunderbolt or whatever. The only question I have pertaining that would be. Does RAM for mobile devices follow a specification as far as pin outs is concerned? If they do, and as long as the voltage and frequency threshold are the same if not similar to a degree. Then we could upgrade those. I know that not all people hers would be willing to try such a feat. But I would. And if it worked, I would be willing to help others out in that area.
I believe it is safe to say that I am not the only person that is passionate about how cool devices is. Its age and lack of NFC does not bother me. The thing is solid and has mSD. I can not tout how important that one feature is to me. Its funny, we live in a world where there is supposedly this "Green" movement. Yet no one is pushing these companies to make the hardware they make last longer or make them upgradable. I understand the whole making money model. But we are either ruining this planet or we are not. It is not both ways. You are either "Green" or not. A woman can not be some what pregnant. She either is or is not. These corporations don't give a rats ass about the future generations or their home.
I don't know, it is a bit sickening
. And I as usual, am ranting on like a crazy man. Oh well.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think most folks in the Xoom forums would agree that RAM is not an issue; we're mainly discussing the system partition size in storage memory. If this was in reference to the Nexus S, I only mentioned that device in the OP since it was dropped from AOSP at the same time as the Xoom.
Sent from my Xoom using xda premium
MikeyCriggz said:
Mount it in Linux and rebuild the partitions with lvm... it's not too difficult. If you've ever owned a Touchpad, you might have followed one of my guides to get Ubuntu running in a triple boot, doing this is necessary. But unfortunately there is no Novaterm for Android, so the easiest way would be through ADB shell while booted into recovery.
Also, the bootloader has nothing to do with resizing partitions. It just directs your device to the desired partition to boot from. For example, GRUB tells your PC whether to boot into Linux or Windows.
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is helpful. So to make sure I understand, the boot loader isn't looking for specific blocks, but for the partitioned folders?
Sent from my Xoom using xda premium
Winesnob said:
I think most folks in the Xoom forums would agree that RAM is not an issue; we're mainly discussing the system partition size in storage memory. If this was in reference to the Nexus S, I only mentioned that device in the OP since it was dropped from AOSP at the same time as the Xoom.
Sent from my Xoom using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good call on that. Not sure where my head was at when reading your other post. I apologize for that. Though, the whole upgrading the RAM chip thing in my opinion is something I would like to under take. More RAM could help in the performance field. Imagine having 3 maybe 4 gigs onboard this thing? Heck 2Gigs would make a killer difference. Any way, I'll jump off the RAM topic. Another subject for another day and post. Thanks for the head check.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app

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