Guys,
I want to understand Android a bit better.
I'm running LeeDroid 2.2d A2SD, so all my apps are running on the SD
1) Now what is the difference between \System\app & \Data\app ?
2) Which of those two is redirected to the SD card?
3) Is there some good reasons to put an application in \system\app instead of \data\app, performance maybe ?
Thanks for the gurus that can answer these questions
/system/ is the system partition, under normal conditions, users do not have write access to this partion. Obviously rooting and s-off will allow write access to this partition, /data/ is the user partiton, it holds all downloaded apps in /data/app and all user data and settings in /data/data. When you use app2sd+ /data/app/ and the dalvik cache is moved to /system/sd/app and /system/sd/dalvik-cache. (the ext partition). Now although you can manually move apps to /system/app, these apps will not be updatable by normal methods, the only way to update apps on the /system/ partition is to manually replace the old .apk with the updated version. One great way ive found to increase space is to change the partition tables of the mtd partitions on your device. Basically reducing the size of the /system/ partition and adding that reclaimed space to data, there is a tut in the development section on this!
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk
QuestiOn
Ok so it is best to put launcher pro and beautifull widgets on the /system/app directory so that it can be loaded from memory instead of SD card.
So I tried to copy the launcherpro apk from /data/app to /system/app after putting the system directory in RW mount with root explorer.
But it doesnt seem to happen and after one minute the phone reboots and nothing has been done ...
Probably because launcher pro is running..
Question 1: How can I write the launcher pro and beautifull widgets apk to the /system/app directory
Question 2: What happens to the settings/data from launcher pro?
Related
I've been looking at the root folder using Astro and there are several files/folders. Can any be deleted, without causing any problem? I'm running out of space and am hoping some are just temporary files etc...
For example I've spotted the APK files are in \system\app. I never use the Peep or Teeter apps. Can I safely delete their APK files?
Thanks
p.s - I am using an unrooted HTC Desire.
bradavon said:
I've been looking at the root folder using Astro and there are several files/folders. Can any be deleted, without causing any problem? I'm running out of space and am hoping some are just temporary files etc...
For example I've spotted the APK files are in \system\app. I never use the Peep or Teeter apps. Can I safely delete their APK files?
Thanks
p.s - I am using an unrooted HTC Desire.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you cant delete them using astro, we only have write access to /system in recovery, use adb in recovery to delete them
edit, without root you cant delete anything lol
bradavon said:
For example I've spotted the APK files are in \system\app. I never use the Peep or Teeter apps. Can I safely delete their APK files?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In addition, deleting anything from /system won't actually gain you any more space for applications anyway due to the way that the filesystems are partitioned.
Regards,
Dave
Thanks guys. I take it you mean we've got write but not modify access to the \system folder? So we can write to existing files but not delete them.
I wasn't just asking about \system though but any files/folders in the Root folder. Are there any at all, that can be safely deleted? Or are you saying you cannot delete a thing without rooting?
Not that it sounds like it will make any difference, due to partitioning.
Thanks
Ok to put it as simple as possible:
- no you cant pretty much delete a thing apart from sd without root
- we cant do anything in the system partition while the system is booted due to the nand protection
- we can modify /system while in recovery (using adb)
- when you are running out of space it is on the /data partition, which have a fixed size so deleting from /system or anything else won't help
And at last my advice to you is to go root and install a2sd easy as pie and i've never had space problems since.
Thanks for the informative reply mortenmhp
I have just rooted my 2.1 Desire, trying to remove two of the mms.apk and one other mms file in the /system folder so I can install a different mms.apk, however when I try to do it, it says I dont have the proper permissions. Its rooted, I see the Super User icon in applications.
Any suggestions?
Please read a little before asking questions. It is commonly known, that we dont have full root access on the desire yet.
Due to the nand protection you cant edit the system partition while the system is bootet. You have to use a custom recovery image either via fakeflash or installed by unrevoked. Then you can edit the system partition by using adb commands.
Edit: which i also stated quite clearly 2 posts above yours several months ago
Is A2SD better than the Android 2.2 implementation? Which as far as I can tell just moves the APK (not apps/data) to the SD Card.
Thanks.
Well it is kinda off topic here but in my opinion yes it is better. I'm running a2sd+ atm. and you can make it move /data/data as well.
In froyo there have been some complications though when remountingSD after using it as mass storage. But you can read more about that elsewhere(i would provide a link but I'm writing from my phone)
So the conclusion must be that it is down to personal preferences
Thanks because the official implementation is something of a cop out. On WM you could run the entire App/Data etc... on an SD card.
My Desire's ROM is full. I have rooted the phone and using root explorer to remove garbage from the ROM. There are many apps in /system/app. Each app has a .apk file and an .odex file. Is it safe to move the *.apk files to my sd card to save up space? Or are they needed to run the application?
Thanx
norad73 said:
My Desire's ROM is full. I have rooted the phone and using root explorer to remove garbage from the ROM. There are many apps in /system/app. Each app has a .apk file and an .odex file. Is it safe to move the *.apk files to my sd card to save up space? Or are they needed to run the application?
Thanx
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Think you may need to read a fair few of the posts in the forum if you are asking is it safe to remove apk's.
A fair answer is yes and no.
Some you can some you can't.
Removing the wrong ones will cause havoc with your phone.
Why not try flashing one of the custom Roms on here.
Thanx Raze.
I believe that the operating system either *needs* or *doesent need* an apk file in the system/app folder for the app to function correctly.
My question is: Does android 2.2 *need* or *not need* the .apk file of an app to exist in the /system/app folder in order for the app to function correctly? Isnt the odex file enough?
Since apk's are package files, my impression was that maybe they are not needed after the app is installed.
deleted .apk file = uninstalled app
deleted important.apk file = havoc on your phone
norad73 said:
My Desire's ROM is full. I have rooted the phone and using root explorer to remove garbage from the ROM. There are many apps in /system/app. Each app has a .apk file and an .odex file. Is it safe to move the *.apk files to my sd card to save up space? Or are they needed to run the application?
Thanx
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You won't get any advantage from that; freeing space on the system storage partition won't lead you to have more room for your apps on the internal storage of your device: those are two different partitions. If you want more space on the internal storage partition you should flash a custom, resized partition table (you need s-off, look on the related topic for the howto) and (if you didn't do that yet) partition your sd, so that you can use a2sd scripts to move your stuff there. That's the best you can do if you wanna have more room for your apps, everything else won't help much imo
norad73 said:
Thanx Raze.
I believe that the operating system either *needs* or *doesent need* an apk file in the system/app folder for the app to function correctly.
My question is: Does android 2.2 *need* or *not need* the .apk file of an app to exist in the /system/app folder in order for the app to function correctly? Isnt the odex file enough?
Since apk's are package files, my impression was that maybe they are not needed after the app is installed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My understanding (please correct me if i am wrong as i am so used to windows phone) is that the odex file is simply the integrity of the apk. lots of roms now are de-odexed so you can push or zip-flash a file into its place and it will still function. if the rom still has the odex files this is not possible as the phone will check the apk against the odex file and bootloop. The apk is the install package and the woking part of the file itself. Your best bet would be to flash a rom with A2SD installed in it. This accesses a fat3 partition on your sd card which the android os sees as extra internal space. I'm running LeeDroid 2.2d A2SD version. I have more apps installed now than when i was on a stock rom (motonav, psx4droid, angry birds, snesoid etc) and my phone still says i have 85mb or 52% of my space left
Thank you guys, now it is clear.
I keep getting a storage space low warning on my Desire, and I am trying to find out how to free up some space. My phone is rooted, my sd is partitioned, and most of my apps are installed on the SD with apps2sd.
Any apps still installed on the phone do not support installing on the SD. I have removed almost all apps and left only a very few that cannot be moved.
EDIT: Just realized that HTC Mail data was taking up 65mb of the phone memory.... deleted it and now my phone can breathe again
you are rooted? well if you use a2Ext you dont have to move your Apps to SD.
Moved to Q&A as not development.
Please do not post such questions in development.
Check those articles:
Safe to remove apks:
http://androidforums.com/droid-x-al...t-apps-apks-removable-non-removable-root.html
http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/index.php?title=Barebones
Custom MTD Partitions (resize data, system, and cache):
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=806321
gents,
I wonder in which folder the downloaded market apps go before the get installed.
Additionally the question rises if one can delete those files or do they get deleted automatically after installation??
HorNet505 said:
gents,
I wonder in which folder the downloaded market apps go before the get installed.
Additionally the question rises if one can delete those files or do they get deleted automatically after installation??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They are run from the location they are downloaded to on the phone. So when you download a file from the App Market it will be stored in the folder, installed and run from said APK. If you move it to SD it moves the file from internal to external. If you uninstall the file if it sits on the phones memory it will automatically delete the file.
Not quite. They are stored on the cache partition. They are not always deleted, but they do not take up app space as the partition size is fixed. And when the space is needed on the cache partition, eventually they are deleted.
Is the cache folder visible to me? What's it called.
I got the problem that, despite all my apps are moved to my SD card, the updates fill up my internal memory. I understood that the updated apps are as well moved to the SD card. This is my default setting as well i
Downloaded apks are gets stored in /data/app. You need ROOT access to locate them. Root Explorer will let you access these files.
ip2op01 said:
Downloaded apks are gets stored in /data/app. You need ROOT access to locate them. Root Explorer will let you access these files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let me make a correction here: installed apps are stored in /data/app (requiring root for write permissions). System apps are stored in /system/app (requiring S-OFF or Recovery mode for write permissions). Downloaded apks are stored in /cache/download, which is why in partition tables, where the cache partition is >5 MB, you should symlink the download folder to a folder in the sdcard, to be able to download apps larger than 5 MB. Otherwise the market will return the error "Insufficient storage available." or something like that.
Not that all of that really matters, seeing as this is a year old thread...
Please use the Q&A Forum for questions Thanks
Moving to Q&A
Finally I managed to get S-OFF and move the rest of my apps from /data/apps to /system/apps (instead of SD) (with simply Root Explorer and reboot) but there is this huge HTC_IME.apk which is my favourite keyboard but I can't activate it when it's moved to /system/apps, it force closes.
Is there a way to make it work from the /system partition?
I'm also working on to understand how to move the /dalvik-cache to /system or /cache but despite the symlink /data/dalvik-cache recreates after reboot. Should I really apply that script to /system/etc/init.d or is there any other way?
Thank you in advance.
I'm not S-OFF, so I can't really say about moving the dalvik cache to /system, but I do know there are scripts to move it to /cache (make sure your cache partition if big enough!) or to the sd card. Do a google search and you should find everything you need
About the HTC IME, I don't use this keyboard, but this is what I found while moving some of my apps to /system: some apps (such as Adobe Flash or SoundHound) install libraries which they require to work. This libraries are found in /data/data/package_name/lib, where package_name is the name of your app. For most apps, you can just copy the libs to /system/lib (not in any folder in lib), but I haven't managed to get Flash to work from there, although everything else works fine. I suppose there is another option to make a symlink from the lib folder in /data/data/some_apps_folder to /system/lib if the app won't find the lib after you moved it to the folder in /system, as I've read in some thread, but I haven't tested this, so I can't say if it works or not.
Good luck!
Thank you, I moved dalvik-cache and applied the script - it works, with Adobe Flash and some basic apps installed (a few of them moved to /system/apps including the 5MB HTC_IME.apk with its lib file) I have now 60MB free space (compared to the 15MB I had before. wow/lol). I think it's quite enough to get the feeling of freedom when it comes to trying out just a little more apps without getting a full storage warning.
I was also thinking about repartitioning the internal storage but I'm afraid it's better to leave it as it is because of warranty - just in case.
Hi there,
I'm a friend of many apps, thus I have 32343452 folers on my sdcard.
Is there an easy way to change the standard folder from /sdcard/ to /sdcard/appcrap/ ?
I don't know what to search for...I always end up at hits for app2sd :/
Thanks in advance.
Regards
Staati
Nope, you'd have to take it up with the developer. It's hard-coded into the app, but some of them have settings to change the SD data folder
Well I thought about remounting it somehow... mount a subfolder as /sdcard/ or something like that.
Is that not possible?
If you have root access, you can get apps that force apps to sdcard but the usual reason if a app dev dosent want you to install to sd is because certain features wouldn't work like widgets etc. Theres also a script somewhere that automatically installs to sdcard
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