Develop Bugs

Question about internal memory

OK, the box says 512MB storage, but thats shared obviously. When I open Linda File Manager, It says Applications: 42M / 145M, indicating I've use 42megs out of 145megs... My question is what and how is it determining my total internal memory is 145megs?

wouldn't it be nice if these companies would tell us how much memory we have for programs instead of these numbers that include what's used for the system, etc., etc.? and it's not just htc, they pretty much all do it........'blah blah blah, comes with 1 GIG of ram' , lol....then you get home, install 3 apps and are out of memory.....greatly exaggerated of course, but you get the idea

Thats true. I'm not really griping about this one though since Froyo will seem to take care of that. I'm just wondering how it came to 145...

It's just the portion of RAM HTC partitioned for us to use for apps. I don't know if there is rhythm or reason for it but I guess 145 is the magic number they gave us.
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Sent from my White T-Mobile MySlide

Or it could be due to all of the bloatware T-Mo threw on the handset taking up the rest of the space, although it seems like those pre-installed apps shouldn't be taking up THAT much space.

i was expecting more memory for programs but can live with this for now.....not like there's much choice, haha

It looks like the 512MB is partitioned into /system, /cache, and /data.

Ramdisk/swap

What are the possibilities of using our 2gb of ddr program storage and re allocating it as system ram?
Even if it isn't pure flash (slow speed) I imagine it would be better then nothing, we could always store programs on the sdcard.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

android53 said:
What are the possibilities of using our 2gb of ddr program storage and re allocating it as system ram?
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very good, this post actually explains how to make a swap file (on /cache which is fast nand!).
if you want a swap partition you could a) use part of the 2gb /data partition for a new swap partition which you create in a project-voodoo like manner -> not very easy to do as you would have to repartition /data before boot OR b) just make a 2nd partition on your external sd card to swap on. a lot of people (me included) actually did this with their htc magic.
but to be honest i don't think that you will gain any speed improvements with this, on the contrary your system will be slower an more laggy... i found swap even worse on the magic with ~90mb of user-available-ram. if you want to try it nevertheless, it think the swap file on /cache would be a good start!

jodue said:
very good, this post actually explains how to make a swap file (on /cache which is fast nand!).
if you want a swap partition you could a) use part of the 2gb /data partition for a new swap partition which you create in a project-voodoo like manner -> not very easy to do as you would have to repartition /data before boot OR b) just make a 2nd partition on your external sd card to swap on. a lot of people (me included) actually did this with their htc magic.
but to be honest i don't think that you will gain any speed improvements with this, on the contrary your system will be slower an more laggy... i found swap even worse on the magic with ~90mb of user-available-ram. if you want to try it nevertheless, it think the swap file on /cache would be a good start!
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If we go for b, will the sgs detect and use the swap partition or do we need to do something else.. I still use my htc magic along side my sgs
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

i have tried using a swap file, but i didnt c any improvements, and the usage was about 500kb only

I recall that on liquid we managed to use a ramzswap module, which fakes a zipped swap partition in ram. It causes cpu to work a bit more, but it was still efficient.

Elvoski said:
If we go for b, will the sgs detect and use the swap partition or do we need to do something else.. I still use my htc magic along side my sgs
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Click to collapse
you would have to repartition our external sd to have a second (linux swap) partition.
then use mkswap to set the partition up and after that call swapon. swapon has to be redone every time you restart but you could place it in a playlogos1 script to automate that.
captive said:
I recall that on liquid we managed to use a ramzswap module, which fakes a zipped swap partition in ram. It causes cpu to work a bit more, but it was still efficient.
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compcache?! ... i guess this would also be a good trade off for our galaxy s because the cpu is definitely not the bottleneck here...
btw. a good read about swap & compcache from the cyanogenmod wiki: swap & compcache

android53 said:
What are the possibilities of using our 2gb of ddr program storage and re allocating it as system ram?
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
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Click to collapse
Bad, bery bad idea, MoviNand is not in any way releated to DDR. It's waaaay slower.
Also, RAM is designed for virtually unlimited data read/write counts.
NAND memory is not.
What would be the benefit of using swap space? Nothing. Data is being read/written in filesystem in the end. No improvement in performance. (It could be seriously degraded).
This behavior is totally against Android core design principles. Android doesnt use swap because it doesnt need to. Programs not fitting into "RAM" are being closed with their state remembered. When program is re-launched it is loaded from filesystem and its state is being restored.
If we had "swap" space, it would become really messy. Just imagine:
System wants to close program X, resident in swap, it needs to:
- restore program from swap to RAM (talk about additional ram needed)
- close program, resulting writing state to FS.

i was talking about this sort of thing with Ryza and Voodoo guy they said it was too much work
i'm forward with the idea of using a Swap drive in RAM or external SD
to prevent over usage on the internal SD

This means external SD would need to be powered up at all times -> battery drain (it is present with APPS2SD - or whatever this name was)

Wuld this mean that we would have extra ram available for running apps...like SGS task manager will show more than 311Mb RAM ?
If this is the case then I am very interestied, since I don't care about speed so much. I just need to run an app that currently can not run due to out-off-memmory (needs 130Mb of RAM) for pure presentation purposes

There is a app in market called swapper2 which can make use of the swap partition or creates a swap file for use. I had been using this app since my HTC MAGIC and now on SGS.
I'm currently using swap partition that had been created earlier in my class 6 SDCard. Works on both eclair or froyo kernels on SGS. So far I am not complaining, with swappiness 20, there is not much of memory hog or lag due to opening too many apps or single memory hogging apps (like flash on browser) on my XXJPK, the swap memory gets allocated and deallocated as you can tell from the swapper info feature.
But the battery effects is something to think about though, sdcards are cheap so I don't mind sacrificing it. The other way is to create a swap file on the rfs and use it if you value your sdcard. The screenshot provided is a normal usage of my device with a few apps running at background (Still gonna be 300+ RAM, nothing magical about it though) and I had also used minfree tweak on the kernel.
You can try and see if it helps in terms of performance for a few days. I cant vouch for the swapper a lot as I'm using it myself - I am more uncomfortable without it though. What Xan said does makes sense but there are rare times when the things that doesn't makes sense gives us surprises.
A good read up and comments from people who had tried and used it in different scenarios...
http://zerocredibility.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/why-android-swap-doesnt-make-sense/
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk

Insufficient Memory Problem (Just rooted)

Hello, I am a total noob and could not find a similar problem listed. I just rooted mt3g slide and can't install more apps due to insufficient memory. Seems I have 416mb dedicated to ram and very little left for use to install apps. I moved as many apps as I could to the sd card yet the amount of space I have is really low. I am running CM6.1. Any help would be appreciated and thank you.

Are you using DarkTremor's apps2ext or Froyo's built in apps to sd feature?

I'm using the built in feature of froyo. I don't have any issues moving the apps just not enough room to install new ones.
Sent from my Droid using XDA App

mcm123 said:
I'm using the built in feature of froyo. I don't have any issues moving the apps just not enough room to install new ones.
Sent from my Droid using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Open termnial emulator and type the following as it appears:
su
df
And paste the output here. It should show the sizes of your different partitions, although if you are still s-on these should be normal. Try clearing your app caches and stuff, how many apps do you have installed anyway?
Sent from my T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide

There are 57 apps in the app drawer and a total of 110 (system apps included) apps. I attached the SS requested.

mcm123 said:
There are 57 apps in the app drawer and a total of 110 (system apps included) apps. I attached the SS requested.
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Click to collapse
That shouldn't give you low space, but it could I suppose. You have 148 mb for memory, I have 320 or something, since I repartitioned my phone. Since you have less than half the space I do, and I have 159 app elements, (77 user apps). That gives me about 80 mb of free space. I suggest you hop over to this thread to repartition your phone. If you are running cm6 or cm7, just follow the 140mb system 1.5 mb cache scheme, it gives you BOATLOADS of room for user apps, as you can probably gather by the fact that I have 77 user apps.

MusicMan374 said:
That shouldn't give you low space, but it could I suppose. You have 148 mb for memory, I have 320 or something, since I repartitioned my phone. Since you have less than half the space I do, and I have 159 app elements, (77 user apps). That gives me about 80 mb of free space. I suggest you hop over to this thread to repartition your phone. If you are running cm6 or cm7, just follow the 140mb system 1.5 mb cache scheme, it gives you BOATLOADS of room for user apps, as you can probably gather by the fact that I have 77 user apps.
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Click to collapse
Thanks. This worked out really well. Have CM7 RC1 running with tons of space. Did have to play around with the cache setting - I'm using 140mb system 20mb cache. Thanks again!

mcm123 said:
Thanks. This worked out really well. Have CM7 RC1 running with tons of space. Did have to play around with the cache setting - I'm using 140mb system 20mb cache. Thanks again!
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Click to collapse
No problem, glad it worked out

[Q] Ram doesn't add up? (Not the usual question)

Hello,
So I just recently got my Nexus, and I'm really really loving it. I had a question about the RAM. I'm on stock un-rooted and I noticed I had a little less that 700 MB ram. I know that's for system or gpu or whatever so I'm ok with that.
What I'm confused about is, I'm currently using 400 MB of it. If I combine the totals from the "Running Apps" section plus what is in the "Cached" section, it doesn't come close to the total 400MB being used.
So where is the extra Ram being used from? How can I free some of it up?
I've been reading that task managers are a no-no for ICS, so I'm more curious about which apps are killing my ram.
Thanks in advance

ellimistx99 said:
How can I free some of it up?
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Click to collapse
Why would you want to?
killing my ram.
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Click to collapse
Killing it how? Using it to make you phone react faster?

beren28 said:
Why would you want to?
Killing it how? Using it to make you phone react faster?
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Click to collapse
Well sure in theory make the phone run faster. I imagine having more free ram available to be used in the cached application section and not the "running application section" will help make apps load quicker too. My friend had a desire and the amount of ram she had did drastically effect her phone performance.
But also because I'm curious about where is that extra 200 or so MB of ram is being used from?

Linux shares ram within apps/processes in a very complex way where even the experts have difficulty explaining exact tallies on ram levels. This is why different apps report different free ram values like os monitor vs system panel vs stock settings etc. So i wouldnt wprry about how android OS shows your ram value in settings, its not gonna add up and its a tricky question to ask.

RogerPodacter said:
Linux shares ram within apps/processes in a very complex way where even the experts have difficulty explaining exact tallies on ram levels. This is why different apps report different free ram values like os monitor vs system panel vs stock settings etc. So i wouldnt wprry about how android OS shows your ram value in settings, its not gonna add up and its a tricky question to ask.
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Click to collapse
Hmm alright. So basically it's not something I should worry about? It's quite a large discrepancy. I guess I'll worry about it once I have errors that are "low ram" or something to that effect.
Thanks anyway

It's the discussion like there was in the galaxy s forum. The not displayed ram is used by the kernel it self and by the GPU. And besides it's a good thing to have a full ram in Android, because then many apps are pre loaded in the ram and can start faster this way.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA

ellimistx99 said:
Hmm alright. So basically it's not something I should worry about? It's quite a large discrepancy. I guess I'll worry about it once I have errors that are "low ram" or something to that effect.
Thanks anyway
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its always been like this on my android phones, i wouldnt worry. For example if you kill all current apps, you wont see free ram increase at the exact level of the total of all closed apps. Too much overlap and ram page sharing i think.

Don't worry about it. Some ROMs e. the stock ROM, don't have a seperate RAMDisk.
So, basicly, the ROM dumps some cached processes on to the RAM directly "clogging" it. If you however, have a custom ROM, eg. CynagonMod, the system uses half of the RAM it would use as a stock ROM, because cm uses a RAMDisk, which uses a minimal amount of space, on the device's memory.
But, there's absolutley nothing to worry about
Enjoy the phone and leave the RAM, as it is

Can anyone here tell me how to partition my sd card to create 1 ext4 partition to increase internal memry, 1 simple fat partition for daily use, and most importantly gto create 1 swap partition to increase my RAM and how to use it as RAM in galaxy fit ... Plz provide me a tutorial
Sent from my GT-S5670 using XDA

abhinav2196 said:
Can anyone here tell me how to partition my sd card to create 1 ext4 partition to increase internal memry, 1 simple fat partition for daily use, and most importantly gto create 1 swap partition to increase my RAM and how to use it as RAM in galaxy fit ... Plz provide me a tutorial
Sent from my GT-S5670 using XDA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Galaxy Nexus doesn't have an SDcard. You can't partition it up like that.
Also, think you're in the wrong forum.

[MOD/EXPERIMENTAL] almost double your RAM

So, it turns out the /preload partition is 500 megs of almost unused space, just to show us a video of Asphalt. So, how about turning it into swap space to almost double the effective amount of memory you have? To use this mod, you must be rooted, and have busybox installed. I recommend the stericson busybox installer https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=stericson.busybox&hl=en
I would like feedback on whether or not it actually speeds up the device, especially when running graphics-intensive games, and also effects on battery life.
How to install:
1.Be rooted.
2. Get busybox. If you don't already have it, you can get it here https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=stericson.busybox&hl=en
3. You must have init.d support. This is built into my NardROM but you can also flash the file attached to this post.
4. Flash the script installer, attached below. NOTE: This will wipe your /preload partition. You can make a nandroid before you perform this step but CWMR doesn't back up /preload. Back up anyway
5. If it's successful, you will see something like the following screenshot when you open a terminal window and execute "free". Notice the swap being used. If you don't have swap enabled it will read 0 available.
To disable the mod:
1. Delete the script from /system/etc/init.d
2. Reflash your Asphalt video from a backup
To disable init.d:
1. Delete /system/etc/install-recovery.sh, /system/etc/init.d (entire folder), /system/bin/sysinit, and /system/xbin/run-parts
Disclaimers:
Using nand memory as a swap can significantly reduce its life. Your phone's internal memory will wear out in years rather than decades
A lot of people argue using Android swap works against the built in memory management of the Dalvik machine
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1504774

This is awesome, glad to see people spending time on this device
Tappin' Typin'

'' /vendor '' also has 590,56 Mbyte of space..
what kind of data is there? there are some folders called ''multi_pose_face_landmark_detectors.3'' and ''yaw_roll_face_detectors.3'' ? is this the carrierIQ stuff?
After deleting everything on that partition it says 395,95 mb used, 194,61 mb free.

ludacris1 said:
'' /vendor '' also has 590,56 Mbyte of space..
what kind of data is there? there are some folders called ''multi_pose_face_landmark_detectors.3'' and ''yaw_roll_face_detectors.3'' ? is this the carrierIQ stuff?
After deleting everything on that partition it says 395,95 mb used, 194,61 mb free.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think it's device-specific info for face unlock to compensate for various things like the angle you're holding the phone at and the distance away from your face. And if you'll look a little more closely, you'll find /vendor is symlinked from /system/vendor, it's not actually a separate partition. You should probably put those files back if you want face unlock to work.

Technically I just downloaded some ram
Sent from my SGH-I927 using xda app-developers app On Ics

FYI, this could be a potential source of serious slowness. Swap isn't anywhere near as fast as real RAM.
I wouldn't do this unless you're legitimately having issues you can directly attribute to running out of RAM. It may be useful as Android marches on and demands more and more RAM but for ICS we're already a good clip above the recommended specs.

Same thing I was thinking. I have more than enough RAM but if by some miracle we get something past JB that uses a lot of RAM I'll do this. Nice work on it though!
sent from my captivate glide running ICS (NardROM 0.4 Rooted)

roothorick said:
FYI, this could be a potential source of serious slowness. Swap isn't anywhere near as fast as real RAM.
I wouldn't do this unless you're legitimately having issues you can directly attribute to running out of RAM. It may be useful as Android marches on and demands more and more RAM but for ICS we're already a good clip above the recommended specs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Waiting for the comparison,then

mewatashiakumoi said:
Waiting for the comparison,then
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Click to collapse
So with this hack having been out a couple months now, how are the reviews? Performance increase? Fewer slow downs?

pm2gonzales said:
So with this hack having been out a couple months now, how are the reviews? Performance increase? Fewer slow downs?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1) this is not a hack, this is a simple tweak
2) swap file is ALWAYS has a performance decrease effect, no matter what (desktop PC, android phone). The only reason of use is when the device has no enough RAM, and the background processes shall be kept elsewhere
3) android has it's own RAM managing system and methods, simply stick to that as only that will gives you the best performance and user experience
4) "slowdown" occurs when the device runs out of free RAM and starts closing background applications to give everything to the foreground app. When you close the heavy resource use foreground app witch caused android to close every possible background apps, the phone reloads them (launcher, live wallpaper, app drawer, widgets, user apps, etc...) and this is what causes a temporary slowdown, and this is unavoidable, no matter if you use swap or not.