Hi all!
Just an idea, would it be feasible to use say 2GB of RAM for a drive used to store pictures on, for even better performance? Or is the UFS 2.1 just as fast?
This is an idea for a custom ROM feature, hence the chosen forum section!
Kind Regards
TwinAdk
LPDDR4 is much faster, But as we know RAM is a volatile memory and what ever you do goes puff!!!
Unless we create a dump of the ram when rebooting/shutdown-ing
shazzy1 said:
LPDDR4 is much faster, But as we know RAM is a volatile memory and what ever you do goes puff!!!
Unless we create a dump of the ram when rebooting/shutdown-ing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good point! Possibly create a control panel to control the usage of the ram drive, and have the content moved from RD to defined destination when the app that saves the data (camera app, download manager, Chrome, Firefox, etc) is no longer in focus?
And then symlink between locations so the system is left clueless :good::victory:
Great ideas here!!
Sent from my NEM-L21 using XDA Labs
LOL! Almost the same question, 30 minutes earlier...
https://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-5/help/best-to-extra-ram-t3625570
Linux probably supports RAM drives out of the box, so I doubt it would be that much work.
What the heck are you doing with pictures on a phone that you require better performance than UFS 2.1?
Chaleman said:
LOL! Almost the same question, 30 minutes earlier...
https://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-5/help/best-to-extra-ram-t3625570
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, though that's general cache thoughts, this is the creation of a drive, usable by any app, or the user Great minds think alike!
ABotelho23 said:
Linux probably supports RAM drives out of the box, so I doubt it would be that much work.
What the heck are you doing with pictures on a phone that you require better performance than UFS 2.1?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm just thinking of the write speed that will increase. Then the content can be loaded off the drive when the user is leaving it idle. It will give an even better experience when writing stuff to disk. Do you see the potential that the users write command is done instantly, so the user can move on with things. The system can then handle the offload in the background when the user do not have to wait
I would love that feature!
Kind Regards
TwinAdk
Sent from my NEM-L21 using XDA Labs
Not sure if swap is still in use, but on my old Xperia (and a couple of others) swap was created as a RD and supposedly it helped a lot. With a beast like OP5 though not sure if that would help and if this is still in place and used .. I stopped following a couple threads when I broke that Xperia so kind of digging from memory
caki25 said:
Not sure if swap is still in use, but on my old Xperia (and a couple of others) swap was created as a RD and supposedly it helped a lot. With a beast like OP5 though not sure if that would help and if this is still in place and used .. I stopped following a couple threads when I broke that Xperia so kind of digging from memory
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On older phones I guess RD makes more sense, but as long as RAM is faster than disk (and you have RAM to spare) RD makes some sense :silly:
Sent from my NEM-L21 using XDA Labs
caki25 said:
Not sure if swap is still in use, but on my old Xperia (and a couple of others) swap was created as a RD and supposedly it helped a lot. With a beast like OP5 though not sure if that would help and if this is still in place and used .. I stopped following a couple threads when I broke that Xperia so kind of digging from memory
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Swap created as ramdisk? That doesn't make any sense. Mounting a ramdisk as swap is worse than useless.
davfiala said:
Swap created as ramdisk? That doesn't make any sense. Mounting a ramdisk as swap is worse than useless.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it does, if you use compression to sort of extend the size of the memory. If configured properly, it might bypass android's swappiness, but still keep the app's data in RAM for faster switchover. Not the most elegant solution, but it just might work. With so much memory that the OP5 has, that it can't really exhaust it, it's a bit pointless.
TwinAdk said:
On older phones I guess RD makes more sense, but as long as RAM is faster than disk (and you have RAM to spare) RD makes some sense :silly:
Sent from my NEM-L21 using XDA Labs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah, agreed, was just thinking aloud. I don't see that much into the internals of Android, but as you said earlier, some sort of quick cache might be worth a shot.
Running a ramdisk as a mount for /tmp is a common trick on Linux to make processes that write a lot of tempfiles run a bit faster. I don't know how Android handles tempfiles, but if it stores them all in one place like on GNU-style systems in should work as well. But I suspect not many Android apps write tempfiles anyway...
TwinAdk said:
Yeah, though that's general cache thoughts, this is the creation of a drive, usable by any app, or the user Great minds think alike!
I'm just thinking of the write speed that will increase. Then the content can be loaded off the drive when the user is leaving it idle. It will give an even better experience when writing stuff to disk. Do you see the potential that the users write command is done instantly, so the user can move on with things. The system can then handle the offload in the background when the user do not have to wait
I would love that feature!
Kind Regards
TwinAdk
Sent from my NEM-L21 using XDA Labs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Of course the write speed will increase. But for pictures, would it not be negligible?
ABotelho23 said:
Of course the write speed will increase. But for pictures, would it not be negligible?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, it would be :laugh:
Sent from my NEM-L21 using XDA Labs
using tmpfs would be much easier than a ramdisk.
off the top of my head you would need to work out a few things
if you wanted it to be 'persistent' you would need to run some kind of scheduled rsync or background process to sync the data (lsync) to a dir on the ufs filesystem
either way you open yourself to data loss if during the scheduled window, or during the lsync, the phone reboots or crashes
you would also need to write an init script to create the tmpfs mount and sync back the data from the ufs filesystem
What would be a good candidate for 'ultra fast data'? Maybe the dir the camera stores files? What about the cached data each app stores?... you would probably have to limit this to a certain set of apps because you could run into an issue with space depending on how large you make the tmpfs mount...is that even something possible? I can't remember I haven't look at where the cache is stored
A memcached style setup might be nice... But that's probably similar to how the "app priority" feature works.
I'm actually looking for a way to create a ramdisk on my OnePlus 3T.
Is there any detailed description/explanation of how to make one or if there are any apps available that can do it for me?
Respond asap.
LOS ER said:
I'm actually looking for a way to create a ramdisk on my OnePlus 3T.
Is there any detailed description/explanation of how to make one or if there are any apps available that can do it for me?
Respond asap.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry to bump up old thread, but maybe other are googling and directed here. So I better post my finding here and maybe other can benefit.
I have been searching for the holy grail for so long and finally found it. I am using RN5 whyred and trying to reserve 100 MB RAM for temporary storage and file processing for my Automagic flow. It is meant to reduce write cycle on the emmc. I have been trying to mount tmpfs on the /storage/emulate/0 and found out not working, the file still stored on emmc. Because I tried to reboot and the file still there.
I am currently using custom ROM AEX 6.7 Pie 9.0. When I use command mount, I can find tmpfs is mounted on /storage/self. So I thought to create a new folder inside it and chmod 777, /storage/self/ramdrive. Then I copy file to it using MiXplorer. And the speed is amazing.
I then check on the command free | grep Shmem
The size is increasing, means the RAM is being used for the storage. Deleting the file will reduce it, so it is working !
Testing copying file to internal storage, 750 MB takes about 12 seconds, while copy to the ramdrive takes about 5 seconds. Leave the file at ramdrive and restart the phone, the file disappear. So it is confirmed that the file is stored at RAM.
So for other, if you want to mount ramdrive, you need root. You need at least terminal emulator. But MiXplorer with root access can also create the folder. Try to check your tmpfs file first using
Code:
mount | grep tmpfs
I found several and use /storage/self. So I create additional folder there
Code:
mkdir /storage/self/ramdrive
chmod 777 /storage/self/ramdrive
This folder disappear at every reboot, so I use Automagic startup to recreate it at every reboot.
I then point my flow to save or process file at that path. By default the limit is half from the total RAM, which is 2 GB from my 4 GB RAM. I am thinking to find the script to limit the size, but rather than playing with the mount script, I better disciplined my flow to not store too much here.
Using the ramdrive, now I can lavishly store and delete temporary file there without worrying reducing my emmc lifespan.
I know, topic is old... But I found this discussion while searching for a solution to my problem, which is as follows:
I want to run a Dos emulator on my android device (to play windows 3.11 and dos games). I will do it with Magic Dosbox or even Limbo PC Emulator.
Point is: given the poor lifespan of sd cards and internal storage of mobile devices, it would be great if I could run such DOS "virtual machines" on ram disks, to avoid degrading the mobile's storage with all the read/write methods on the disk image (in case of Limbo) or in the folder (in case of Magic Dosbox).
So, I ask:
a) do Magic Dosbox have this feature? (I didn't find it on the documentation)
b) can I prepare a ram disk before running Magic Dosbox, to load a specific folder content or a specific disk image?
Related
Hi all,
I'm always low on memory on my phone, I run quite a few hungry apps so looking at suggestions now please. I'm a linux-person but this one baffles me on the right way to go ahead.
I'm on CM-4.2.3.1 pretty much as standard, no tweaks to note on it.
Advanced Task Killer shows me at generally around 17Mb available memory, but in my logs I often get:
Code:
11-12 13:33:43.102 I/ActivityManager( 322): Low Memory: No more background processes.
So I'm thinking I need to do something. I've not got swap enabled, nor have I got compcache as far as I'm aware, so what should I go for here and is there a simple guide on it? As I have done a few searches and its overwhelming the information that comes back.
Thanks in advance everyone
You could try the free app "automatic task killer" see if that helps. I've personally came to the conclusion that CM 4.2+ ROMs are RAM hogs themselves. Try flashing a ROM with the 10 meg RAM hack if it bugs you.
You're supposed to be low on memory.. That means your phone is using the it to the greatest efficiency.. Empty memory is wasted memory. Unless you're experiecing long load times and loads of caching, its normal.
goldenarmZ said:
You're supposed to be low on memory.. That means your phone is using the it to the greatest efficiency.. Empty memory is wasted memory. Unless you're experiecing long load times and loads of caching, its normal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
qft, this is typically how linux runs anyways.
Do you have an ext partition on your SD for apps2sd? How about a linux swap partition (enabled)?
mikedmeyer said:
Do you have an ext partition on your SD for apps2sd? How about a linux swap partition (enabled)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I second the suggestion for using a linux swap partition!
Agreed, and yes I have a swap partition correctly formatted, however thats the problem there are too many "guides" of how to enable/use the swap on CM, so if anyone can point me to the right entry (couldn't find it on the CM wiki either), or how to enable any of the other memory enhancements (compcache or whatever)
Thanks!
You can dl user.conf app from the market. explanations are given in the help section
Comment 559 by af9210, Today (2 hours ago)
will the feature require a certain class speed sd card
Comment 564 by [email protected], Today (28 minutes ago)
@559 - As with any software which needs to do a lot of I/O - the faster the card the
better.
Delete comment Comment 565 by af9210, Today (8 minutes ago)
@564 i understand... do you have knowledge about how it will be implemented..... for
instance do we need to create a separate partition ie ext2 ext4 etc?
Comment 566 by [email protected], Today (1 minute ago)
@565 - We've gone to a lot of effort to ensure you *don't* have to repartition / format your cards for this to work. We coexist with the existing FAT32 partition on the card to ensure compatibility with your existing cards/devices.
sounds pretty good development by the android team huh
sounds good but if i remember correctly the reason the community a2sd devs make it so you have to use an ext partition was to help prevent piracy, and of course have your phone usable when the sdcard was mounted by the pc. i wonder if google came up with a new type of copy protection.
godsfilth said:
sounds good but if i remember correctly the reason the community a2sd devs make it so you have to use an ext partition was to help prevent piracy, and of course have your phone usable when the sdcard was mounted by the pc. i wonder if google came up with a new type of copy protection.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
However Ext partitions don't stop you pirating.
I can still get ALL of the installed apps off my phone if I need to and that's using my phone. No special software needed as such (nothing that's not free on the market anyway).
Yup, sounds like a new encryption method.
Yep, noone can boot up an ubuntu cd and mount the ext partition...
More likely it's because fat32 can't handle linux style file permissions.
godsfilth said:
sounds good but if i remember correctly the reason the community a2sd devs make it so you have to use an ext partition was to help prevent piracy, and of course have your phone usable when the sdcard was mounted by the pc. i wonder if google came up with a new type of copy protection.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They could install protected apps onto internal flash - as they do now. Most of apps aren't protected, so we'll still have a lot of additional space.
My theory is that rather than a separate partition, it'll just create a file of xx amount of size on the mem card, then fill it up. It'll probably be somewhat of a safe measure, as it'll most likely be encrypted and of a filetype that isn't common (or it could even be some kind of internal compression method such as zip, but a self written program).
They said they wouldnt do it until they figure out a way to encrypt it.
Ill take it thats what they did.
Yeah, they did say it would not come till they hashed out some piracy measures, not that they will help whatsoever, but they did say that.
I don't understand what the big deal is.
Couldn't they have just done Apps2SD for all free apps and called it a day?
No one is purchasing 500 megabytes worth of apps.
Offloading all the free ones to the SD = BOOM.
Easy and would have absolutely zero consequences on piracy.
Current methods have no consequences on piracy, future methods have no consequences on piracy. Hopefully the gave up worrying about something they can never stop.
GldRush98 said:
Current methods have no consequences on piracy, future methods have no consequences on piracy. Hopefully the gave up worrying about something they can never stop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What is this word you speak of piracy, never heard of it
GldRush98 said:
Current methods have no consequences on piracy, future methods have no consequences on piracy. Hopefully the gave up worrying about something they can never stop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ever heard of cloud computing?
Paul22000 said:
I don't understand what the big deal is.
Couldn't they have just done Apps2SD for all free apps and called it a day?
No one is purchasing 500 megabytes worth of apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is a very bold statement to make.
Once you can install applications to your sdcard, what's to stop you from purchasing ONE program that is, by itself, 500 MB?
Has anyone encountered a problem as far as apps that are able to move to sd and then disappearing from app menu? As well as icons on homescreen turning to android generic icons? I can still access the apps from homescreen ,manage apps and astro but as i said the icon for the app on the home screen changes to somewhat of a generic looking android icon. One of the apps in question is titanium backup.
Now if i go to manage apps and place apps back to phone everything reappears in its rightful spot. Could it be a temp glitch in froyo? Some setting i might have missed? Any info would be appreciated...thnx
Yes it happened to me, every applications I moved on the sdcard suddenly disappeared from the menu. I had to move one of them on the phone to make them all reappear. As I don't have so much applications installed (~25), I moved them all back to the phone until this is fixed
Lemim0uth said:
Yes it happened to me, every applications I moved on the sdcard suddenly disappeared from the menu. I had to move one of them on the phone to make them all reappear. As I don't have so much applications installed (~25), I moved them all back to the phone until this is fixed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cool, thnx for the response. Least i know i didnt screw something up lol.
Drane said:
Ever heard of cloud computing?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
100% irrelevant to this thread and what I was talking about.
Hi, I've searched the forum but found no answer. Searched google and found contradictory answers.
Should I use a swap file in SD card?
What are the advantages and disadvantages?
Thanks
brk said:
Hi, I've searched the forum but found no answer. Searched google and found contradictory answers.
Should I use a swap file in SD card?
What are the advantages and disadvantages?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Advantage: Allows more multitasking due to more memory use from the sd card.
Disadvantage: Shortens the sd card life.
If you plan to use swap or A2SD, I recommend getting a class 6 sd card. Some people are opposed to swap, some people are all up for it. It's just up to your preference. For me, swap is just nice that an app doesn't close when I'm using another app.
koreancanuck said:
Advantage: Allows more multitasking due to more memory use from the sd card.
Disadvantage: Shortens the sd card life.
If you plan to use swap or A2SD, I recommend getting a class 6 sd card. Some people are opposed to swap, some people are all up for it. It's just up to your preference. For me, swap is just nice that an app doesn't close when I'm using another app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A good answer but slightly incomplete. Most sdcards have wear leveling so having swap on your card will do very minimal damage.
brk said:
Hi, I've searched the forum but found no answer. Searched google and found contradictory answers.
Should I use a swap file in SD card?
What are the advantages and disadvantages?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you want to have a swap file (swap.swp) this could possibly corrupt your fat partition. This is based on my own personal experience of course. I recommend use a swap partition honestly.
Just imagine mounting your sdcard to your computer to transfer files while your phone is still attempting to write to /sdcard/swap.swp. This can theoritically cause problems. And you don't want problems on your sdcard. A seperate partition is the safest way to go. But again... just my opinion.
Note that if you are using a rom based on Cyanogen's kernel (such as 5.0.7 or 5.0.8) it is NOT recommended to use swap at all. It will slow down your phone causing more problems than what it's worth. ('Swap grave' is how he put it.)
Binary100100 said:
If you want to have a swap file (swap.swp) this could possibly corrupt your fat partition.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How does that happen?
endolith said:
How does that happen?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If your system is writing to the .swp while you mount/unmount the sdcard it can corrupt the card. It's better to use the partition.
In addition if your system is setup to use the swap.swp on your fat32 partition and you mount it to your computer, what do you suppose would happen to your system since it can no longer have access to the .swp file?
Again... not a good idea.
I don't see how unmounting the swap partition is any different from unmounting the partition with a swap file on it.
Just say no!
endolith said:
I don't see how unmounting the swap partition is any different from unmounting the partition with a swap file on it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right, but other than when you shut down your phone, when does your swap partition get [un]mounted?
AdrianK said:
Right, but other than when you shut down your phone, when does your swap partition get [un]mounted?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you plug it into a computer, isn't the whole SD card mounted?
endolith said:
When you plug it into a computer, isn't the whole SD card mounted?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your computer's OS can only mount the filesystems it supports, for example OOTB Windows only supports FAT and NTFS, so it can't do anything with ext. Anyway, linux-swap is non-persistant, you can't mount it to view the contents, my understanding is that should you mount it on linux, the swap partition will be ignored.
AdrianK said:
Your computer's OS can only mount the filesystems it supports, for example OOTB Windows only supports FAT and NTFS, so it can't do anything with ext.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But the point is that they're all unmounted before the SD card can be shared with the computer as a mass storage device, so I don't see there being any difference between a swap partition and a swap file.
Besides, Swapper has a default "safe" option that unmounts swap before sharing SD with the computer and remounts it after disconnecting.
endolith said:
But the point is that they're all unmounted before the SD card can be shared with the computer as a mass storage device, so I don't see there being any difference between a swap partition and a swap file.
Besides, Swapper has a default "safe" option that unmounts swap before sharing SD with the computer and remounts it after disconnecting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wasn't aware that Swapper has such a feature but that doesn't change the fact that if your running say ~200mb of RAM with ~64mb of swap and with all the multitasking that you're doing you're using up most of it... so say you have only ~10mb free. Then all of a sudden you pull out your sdcard. What do you think happen will happen? Your phone was reading and writing to that card! Do you think that's healthy? If Swapper unmounts it before it shares the sdcard with the computer then it may be better for the sdcard but I don't see how that can have a positive impact on the device. However if you have swap on a seperate partition the only way to run into this problem would be to remove the card from the device. Even if you mount the sdcard to the computer the phone still has access to the swap partition just like it still has access to the ext partition (if it has one).
I don't know about you but I have a 16gb class 6 card and it's a pain in the butt to restore my data to the fat partition so I would rather not have anything read/write to it unless necessary and to have something constantly reading and writing to it is a really bad idea in my case... but maybe you have a ~2gb and reloading the data may not be annoying to you.
Anyway... stick with what works. I've tried them all and based on my own experience I suggest the separate partition if you are going to use swap. But hey... what do I know?
By the way... do NOT use swap on CM5 or CM6. It may help at first but you'll be enroute to digging "a swap grave" (quoted by Cyanogen himself).
Your phone will ONLY share FAT when mounted to PC
Ext and Swap are still running on the phone(app2sd how do you think apps keep working after mounting?)
Same deal with Swap...
I personally do not use Swap although i do have a 128mb Swap Partition.
Binary100100 said:
I wasn't aware that Swapper has such a feature but that doesn't change the fact that if your running say ~200mb of RAM with ~64mb of swap and with all the multitasking that you're doing you're using up most of it... so say you have only ~10mb free. Then all of a sudden you pull out your sdcard. What do you think happen will happen?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android routinely kills processes as part of its "task management", and the apps are expected to save their state using "Bundles" so that when you restart them, they restart in the same state they were last in. Is unplugging the swap more harsh than killing the app?
Once Android determines that it needs to remove a process, it does this brutally, simply force-killing it. The kernel can then immediately reclaim all resources needed by the process, without relying on that application being well written and responsive to a polite request to exit. Allowing the kernel to immediately reclaim application resources makes it a lot easier to avoid serious out of memory situations.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Even if you mount the sdcard to the computer the phone still has access to the swap partition just like it still has access to the ext partition (if it has one).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm. When you mount the SD card, the entire SD card is available on the computer, including the FAT, EXT, and swap partitions, but the phone can't access the FAT partition?
I can see the contents of the swap partition from the computer with "sudo cat /dev/sdb3", but the phone can still access it? If I run "free" on the phone, it still shows swap, and the used size still changes, so I guess the phone is still using it, but the computer can see it at the same time, too.
In that case, I understand why it would make more sense to use swap partition than swap file.
I don't know about you but I have a 16gb class 6 card and it's a pain in the butt to restore my data to the fat partition so I would rather not have anything read/write to it unless necessary and to have something constantly reading and writing to it is a really bad idea in my case... but maybe you have a ~2gb and reloading the data may not be annoying to you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have an 8 GB Class 6 and I don't understand what you're talking about. What do you mean "restore your data to the fat partition"? Restore it from what? What's the point of having an SD card if you don't want anything reading from it?
Anyway... stick with what works.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
By the way... do NOT use swap on CM5 or CM6. It may help at first but you'll be enroute to digging "a swap grave" (quoted by Cyanogen himself).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What does that mean? Where did he say that? In what context?
I'm using swapper with CM5, and it's like buying a new phone. It greatly speeds up the phone's responsiveness.
I dunno why you can see all three partitions. When I've got my swap and extra partitions setup and mount my SD to my computer, the only partition that shows up is the FAT one, using Windows that is.
As for using swap, a quick Google search will show you a number of threads stating that the only time you see a real benefit from it is on the G1 an older mytouchs with the lower RAM space. Actually most say that using compcache is the better way to go if you've got the extra RAM space.
Sent from my HTC Magic using XDA App
endolith said:
What does that mean? Where did he say that? In what context?
I'm using swapper with CM5, and it's like buying a new phone. It greatly speeds up the phone's responsiveness.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess nobody listens to the people that know what they are talking about. Then they always complain when it doesn't work properly. #Ironic
http://twitter.com/cyanogen/status/13986716217
http://twitter.com/cyanogen/status/13624854797
http://twitter.com/cyanogen/status/13980541397
http://twitter.com/cyanogen/status/13980541397
http://twitter.com/cyanogen/status/13979643918
Enough for you?
And I'm aware that 2.2 automatically kills idle apps, which is all the more reason that you do not need swap.
And your phone cannot access the /sdcard or /mnt/sdcard partition while it is connected to your computer as removable storage. Try it.
Try downloading something to your sdcard while it's connected as removable storage. You can't. Your phone does not have access to the sdcard. In fact... while it's mounted to your computer go to settings SD card & phone storage settings and tell me what it says under Total space and Available space.
Do NOT use a large .swp file because your phone is constantly writing to the sdcard! All it takes is a single instance of removing it without unmounting it and you will have corrupted the entire contents of the fat partition. That is what I mean by restoring the data on the sdcard. I use an ADATA 16gb class 6 sdcard and each time that I tried with the .swp file I ended up losing my data because of random kernel crashes, dead battery, unsafe sdcard mounting etc.
But if you are really convinced of otherwise then go on ahead but I'll tell you right now, I will refuse to help anyone that never listened to my advice the first time. If I give a warning and if someone doesn't listen then it's all on them. I will personally refuse to help them and I wouldn't blame anyone for doing the same. Cyanogen warned users not to use swap. So those that have issues shouldn't complain to him or anyone else because it's their own fault.
All quotes from Cyanogen on twitter. You should follow him and learn something.
@w3stbr00k I don't know.. none of my roms have swap support built in. You would have had to do it yourself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@misscocogold t3 is otw in an hour or so. Make sure you aren't using swap or task killers too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@singharvinder the new code actually uses swap more aggressively as a side effect
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@singharvinder are you using swap? Don't.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
DonJuan692006 said:
I dunno why you can see all three partitions. When I've got my swap and extra partitions setup and mount my SD to my computer, the only partition that shows up is the FAT one.
As for using swap, a quick Google search will show you a number of threads stating that the only time you see a real benefit from it is on the G1 an older mytouchs with the lower RAM space. Actually most say that using compcache is the better way to go if you've got the extra RAM space.
Sent from my HTC Magic using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can actually access the swap partition from a Linux based OS such as Ubuntu/Live CD.
When you mount the sdcard you also have access to the ext2,3,4 partition if it's available.
See what I get for being Windows exclusive? Edited my first post to be more precise with my wording.
DonJuan692006 said:
I dunno why you can see all three partitions. When I've got my swap and extra partitions setup and mount my SD to my computer, the only partition that shows up is the FAT one.
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In Linux, both the SD and EXT partitions are mounted, but I can see and access all three. I can see all three partitions in Windows 7 Disk Management, too, but of course Windows can only mount the FAT partition.
a number of threads stating that the only time you see a real benefit from it is on the G1
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I've got a G1.
Binary100100 said:
I guess nobody listens to the people that know what they are talking about. Then they always complain when it doesn't work properly. #Ironic
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I'm looking for truth, not rumor. I'm not going to blindly accept statements made without explanation.
Enough for you?
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Nope. I want to understand why it's a bad idea. Twitter posts aren't exactly comprehensive.
http://twitter.com/cyanogen/status/13986716217
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This is not a recommendation against swap. Someone was talking about disabling swap, and he said it's not his problem because CM doesn't come with swap enabled.
http://twitter.com/cyanogen/status/13624854797
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I read this as "If you're having problems with apps closing, disable swap and task managers. Maybe you have those configured wrong." That doesn't mean swap is inherently harmful.
http://twitter.com/cyanogen/status/13980541397
http://twitter.com/cyanogen/status/13979643918
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This thread is about speed and performance, not harm.
And I'm aware that 2.2 automatically kills idle apps, which is all the more reason that you do not need swap.
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Yes, this is the standard response in threads like this. "Android automatically manages tasks and memory, so you shouldn't try to second-guess it". But, empirically, swap makes the phone run better and faster.
If you switch to another app from the browser, for instance, the browser almost always gets killed, and then it has to reload the entire page from the Internet when you switch back to it. This takes wayyyy longer than reloading the state from swap, and causes problems when the web page is dynamic.
Many apps take much longer to start up than they should, or don't actually return to the same state when they're restarted, and swapping them out works better. I'm guessing the people who are happy with the stock system use their phones differently.
And your phone cannot access the /sdcard or /mnt/sdcard partition while it is connected to your computer as removable storage.
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Yes, I already agreed with that. Swap file is a bad idea since it's inaccessible when you mount on the computer, but swap partition still is. Agreed.
endolith said:
In Linux, both the SD and EXT partitions are mounted, but I can see and access all three. I can see all three partitions in Windows 7 Disk Management, too, but of course Windows can only mount the FAT partition.
I've got a G1.
I'm looking for truth, not rumor. I'm not going to blindly accept statements made without explanation.
Nope. I want to understand why it's a bad idea. Twitter posts aren't exactly comprehensive.
This is not a recommendation against swap. Someone was talking about disabling swap, and he said it's not his problem because CM doesn't come with swap enabled.
I read this as "If you're having problems with apps closing, disable swap and task managers. Maybe you have those configured wrong." That doesn't mean swap is inherently harmful.
This thread is about speed and performance, not harm.
Yes, this is the standard response in threads like this. "Android automatically manages tasks and memory, so you shouldn't try to second-guess it". But, empirically, swap makes the phone run better and faster.
If you switch to another app from the browser, for instance, the browser almost always gets killed, and then it has to reload the entire page from the Internet when you switch back to it. This takes wayyyy longer than reloading the state from swap, and causes problems when the web page is dynamic.
Many apps take much longer to start up than they should, or don't actually return to the same state when they're restarted, and swapping them out works better. I'm guessing the people who are happy with the stock system use their phones differently.
Yes, I already agreed with that. Swap file is a bad idea since it's inaccessible when you mount on the computer, but swap partition still is. Agreed.
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Well it sounds like you have answered the threads questions then. An expert such as yourself should have come along a while ago and stated this for the community. Now that you have discredited Cyanogen and all the other Senior Members and developers maybe I'll just direct all of my private messages regarding swap, compcache and userinit.sh scripts to you. Enjoy it!
Can someone explain to me what is inside the vibrant that is used as storage.
People refer to the internal memory card, why, is it an actual memory card or is it simply because apps cannot be stored there.
Why is the app storage space limited to 2gb if the internal memory is 16gb, and if all 16gb resides on the same medium can't it just be symlinked similar to what people do with apps2sd on other phones with no detriment in performance?
Calcvictim said:
Can someone explain to me what is inside the vibrant that is used as storage.
People refer to the internal memory card, why, is it an actual memory card or is it simply because apps cannot be stored there.
Why is the app storage space limited to 2gb if the internal memory is 16gb, and if all 16gb resides on the same medium can't it just be symlinked similar to what people do with apps2sd on other phones with no detriment in performance?
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There are 2 storage types soldered onto the vibrant. NAND (fast, small) and "flash" (16g, slow).
The nand is split up for various things like booting, firmware (/system), cache, etc. And - to solve lag with their own apps - 128 megs of it is split out for the built-in apps to use. (That is the 'method 1' fix - move all app data to nand, where it is super fast.)
The 16 gigs of flash is much slower than nand, and split into 2 sections:
- /data (mmcblk0p1) is android apps, app storage, settings, etc. (2 gigs of "application space"). This is the standard android-phone onboard storage, and not accessible to the PC.
- /sdcard (mmcblk0p2) is the 14 gig media/misc space. Standard fat filesystem, shown when you plug into the PC. (They basically subverted the standard android sdcard handling for this - solves some problems, but causes others.)
The removable sd is mounted to "/sdcard/sd".
^ awesome post man, care if I stick it in the sticky?
Disconn3ct said:
There are 2 storage types soldered onto the vibrant. NAND (fast, small) and "flash" (16g, slow).
The nand is split up for various things like booting, etc. And - to solve lag with their own apps - 128 megs of it is split out for the built-in apps to use. (That is the 'method 1' fix - move all apps to nand, where it is super fast.)
The flash is much slower than nand, and split into 2 sections:
- /data is android apps, app storage, settings, etc. (2 gigs of "application space"). This is the standard android-phone onboard storage, and not accessible to the PC.
- /sdcard is the large media/misc space. Standard fat filesystem, shown when you plug into the PC. (They basically subverted the standard android sdcard handling for this - solves some problems, but causes others.)
The removable sd is mounted to "/sdcard/sd".
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so RyanZA's lag fix, which creates a 1gb file system within the 2 gigs....why can't it be mapped outside of the original appspace since everything resides on flash anyway, the speeds should be the same, no?
s15274n said:
^ awesome post man, care if I stick it in the sticky?
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Sure. (I wanted to doublecheck some info, so it is slightly updated.)
Calcvictim said:
so RyanZA's lag fix, which creates a 1gb file system within the 2 gigs....why can't it be mapped outside of the original appspace since everything resides on flash anyway, the speeds should be the same, no?
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"mapped outside the original appspace"? Those words all make sense but not in that order
Data (and cache and so forth) all use samsung's proprietary RFS filesystem. (It has been described as "fat with wear levelling, unix perms and journalling".) The loopback mount fix basically bypasses all that and just shows rfs a large monolithic file. You lose reliability (journal) and flash protection (wear levelling, erase optimization) and so forth, but get speeds much closer to the raw flash. (Personally, I'm a fan of not prematurely destroying soldered on storage..)
One of the things to be tried is yaffs/jffs in place of rfs - all the advantages/protections with much better performance..
Disconn3ct said:
"mapped outside the original appspace"? Those words all make sense but not in that order
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I understand about the RFS, I just don't really understand why the appspace is limited to 2 gigs when there are 16 gigs on the same piece of silicon. Why is it not a matter of partitioning and mounting the other 16 gigs?
Calcvictim said:
I understand about the RFS, I just don't really understand why the appspace is limited to 2 gigs when there are 16 gigs on the same piece of silicon. Why is it not a matter of partitioning and mounting the other 16 gigs?
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First, it's not "the other 16 gigs". It is 16 gigs total - 2 for apps/data, 14 for media/etc.
How pissed would you be if only kies (and adb) could get to that storage? That's why - 14 of it is presented as vfat, so that it can be exported over usb to the pc. You might be able to adjust the split a little (eg 8/8) using modified pit files and odin, but I wouldn't even count on that..
Certainly you can't share the space - android security guarantees that only the app (well, and root, but..) can read the app's files. Not the pc, not other apps. So you need something vfat hasn't got (owners, permissions) and you need to not export it to the pc where those limits won't be enforced. (Finally, you only get one fs user at a time - if you have it on the pc, you can't have it on the phone. "Please reboot into usb mode" hasn't been OK since the late 90s...)
Disconn3ct said:
First, it's not "the other 16 gigs". It is 16 gigs total - 2 for apps/data, 14 for media/etc.
How pissed would you be if only kies (and adb) could get to that storage? That's why - 14 of it is presented as vfat, so that it can be exported over usb to the pc. You might be able to adjust the split a little (eg 8/8) using modified pit files and odin, but I wouldn't even count on that..
Certainly you can't share the space - android security guarantees that only the app (well, and root, but..) can read the app's files. Not the pc, not other apps. So you need something vfat hasn't got (owners, permissions) and you need to not export it to the pc where those limits won't be enforced. (Finally, you only get one fs user at a time - if you have it on the pc, you can't have it on the phone. "Please reboot into usb mode" hasn't been OK since the late 90s...)
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Ok, so if someone did modify the PIT file then it would be possible. It's not a hardware limitation, but just the way the firmware is setup.
What speed is the other 14Gb? How does it compare to standard microSD? Class 4 at least?
Calcvictim said:
Ok, so if someone did modify the PIT file then it would be possible. It's not a hardware limitation, but just the way the firmware is setup.
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Modify the pit, and the bootloader, and (possibly) the rfs partition scheme, and (possibly) the kernel.
People found a pit that changes the layout a little bit and they're getting a higher-than-normal percentage of bricks. (I don't know how high, but look at all the odin threads that warn against using the new pit..) It is doable, but not reliable yet. Did you already fill 2 gigs of app storage? Thats .. kinda nuts.
applebook said:
What speed is the other 14Gb? How does it compare to standard microSD? Class 4 at least?
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They claim class 6. With rfs, it is ok until you get to multiple requests - then it goes all thrashy instead of threading properly..
If it's around class 6, then I'm satisfied. Since that memory is for storing media, I have little use for anything much faster anyway.
Disconn3ct said:
People found a pit that changes the layout a little bit and they're getting a higher-than-normal percentage of bricks. (I don't know how high, but look at all the odin threads that warn against using the new pit..) It is doable, but not reliable yet. Did you already fill 2 gigs of app storage? Thats .. kinda nuts.
.
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I didn't fill the 2 gigs but I don't use the phone for media really, it's just apps and games and just wandering since it would be nice to have more storage for those things.
So what is the size difference between the Vibrants with the larger NAND and the smaller NAND?
What difference does this make in the real world?
Why would they put two different size NAND chips?
SamsungVibrant said:
Why would they put two different size NAND chips?
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Samsung does some weird things sometimes
Disconn3ct said:
"mapped outside the original appspace"? Those words all make sense but not in that order
Data (and cache and so forth) all use samsung's proprietary RFS filesystem. (It has been described as "fat with wear levelling, unix perms and journalling".) The loopback mount fix basically bypasses all that and just shows rfs a large monolithic file. You lose reliability (journal) and flash protection (wear levelling, erase optimization) and so forth, but get speeds much closer to the raw flash. (Personally, I'm a fan of not prematurely destroying soldered on storage..)
One of the things to be tried is yaffs/jffs in place of rfs - all the advantages/protections with much better performance..
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Click to collapse
So are you saying that samsung's filesystem (rfs) causes wear and tear to the flash drive? Do any of the lag fixes that replace the rfs filesystem (ext 2/3/4) cause wear and tear to the drive as well? I am personally not applying a lag fix for this reason, but if samsung's rfs does that already, might as well take the plunge with a lag fix...
I read somewhere that the nexus one uses a filesystem created for flash drives - it started with a y, probably the yaffs that you spoke of?
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
veol said:
So are you saying that samsung's filesystem (rfs) causes wear and tear to the flash drive? Do any of the lag fixes that replace the rfs filesystem (ext 2/3/4) cause wear and tear to the drive as well? I am personally not applying a lag fix for this reason, but if samsung's rfs does that already, might as well take the plunge with a lag fix...
I read somewhere that the nexus one uses a filesystem created for flash drives - it started with a y, probably the yaffs that you spoke of?
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
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I took him to mean that a loopback mount style lagfix, like OCLF, can cause premature deterioration.
Kubernetes said:
I took him to mean that a loopback mount style lagfix, like OCLF, can cause premature deterioration.
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That all depends on how samsung implemented wear leveling. It would be insanely stupid to do it in a way that would cause premature death of the flash with a loop file system though. Wear leveling is generally done at the block level so that file systems that have to write to fixed locations a lot like fat don't kill that block. As rfs is fat, I think it's unlikely that it will cause issues.
We can't use yaffs2 and friends without replacing the kernel driver for the flash. They don't work on block devices, they require raw flash access. I suspect it will also require a new secondary boot loader. I wouldn't attempt it without a dev phone and jtag access.
ttabbal said:
That all depends on how samsung implemented wear leveling. It would be insanely stupid to do it in a way that would cause premature death of the flash with a loop file system though. Wear leveling is generally done at the block level so that file systems that have to write to fixed locations a lot like fat don't kill that block. As rfs is fat, I think it's unlikely that it will cause issues.
We can't use yaffs2 and friends without replacing the kernel driver for the flash. They don't work on block devices, they require raw flash access. I suspect it will also require a new secondary boot loader. I wouldn't attempt it without a dev phone and jtag access.
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Ah... sorry for asking a noobish question and being off-topic a little, but if I were to use a lagfix, which one is best (for the flash drive)?
Thanks for the questions and the answers and for laying it out in understandable terms! A good read.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Busybox allows dd to create a large file on sdcard.
It allows mkswap to create swap space on the file.
(at this point I'm super excited)
But when I try swapon busybox fails with function not implemented.
Any tips on getting this to work? Someone must have tried before. Virtual memory on the sdcard might have potential, or at least provide hours of fun with custom sysctl settings.
what are you trying to run on the dx that requires so much memory you need swap?
bobabc said:
what are you trying to run on the dx that requires so much memory you need swap?
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Maybe he isn't trying to run a massive program, but add a windows like effect, prefetch, to speed up the phone?
For what I have read and heard, Android is relatively good at memory management, so it may not be a good idea to do that.
I think you can do some interesting things. If you have swap, you can perhaps encourage the kernel to swap out some rarely used processes like Xfinity, etc. (or at least some portions of it. Isn't it annoying how Xfinity always sticks around). Then you can tell the kernel to use more of the RAM for cache, thus making the phone faster. I know android already does a good job in managing memory and killing of less used processes but I think with swap we'd have a lot more flexibility.
Been doing some work with busybox and sysctl - you can read about it here: http://www.droidxforums.com/forum/droid-x-roms/16331-liberty-1-0-syssctl-config-4.html (I'm Marius on that forum).