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Hi there, I've messing arround a while with moving system apps to sd-ext, but it seems impossible to me.
I'm using a rooted .42 with CWM installed and the uSD is a 32 GB class 6 with 3 partition:
- main: FAT32 -> +30 GB
- sd-ext: ext3 -> 1 GB (also tried with a ext2 and ext4)
- swap: linux swap -> 64 MB
I'm kinda desperate to have it working, tried a lot of scripts and software and cannot make it.
Any suggestion?
Only custom kernel can support moving apps to sd-ext(ext2,3,4) like Doomlord's kernel. Since you have locked bootloader, you cannot flash custom kernel. So no matter how you partition your sdcard right now, your stock kernel won't recognise it. My advice, unlock your bootloader and flash a custom kernel that supports sd-ext partition. I currently have 1 gig ext4 partition and it's more than enough for all my apps.
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System app to sd-ext? You mean dalvik cache?
You can move user apps (stored in /data/app).
Root your fw. Then you can use Link2SD to move user apps to ext2.
I'm using that right now.
If you would like to use a2sd script, add init.d support as described by iridaki and use script from htc desire oxygen rom.
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@Rycon33 Thanks mate, I'll look forward to it, but the main problem is that I have an operator locked device, so I guess that I have to pay, even if I get the IMEI unlock code from the operator, am I right?
@vr5411 I'm not looking to move certain apps to the sd but to mount /data/app in an special sd partition called sd-ext. But thanks anyway
karlitos_ said:
@Rycon33 Thanks mate, I'll look forward to it, but the main problem is that I have an operator locked device, so I guess that I have to pay, even if I get the IMEI unlock code from the operator, am I right?
Click to expand...
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Not really sure about that coz here in my area even we get our phone thru carrier on contract, we can just easily unlock it personally in fastboot after we got our code from Sony Ericsson website. Maybe in your area it's a different case.
I think there's a thread somewhere in dev section for those really operator-locked phone that cannot be unlock easily and yes I think you need to pay for the unlocking.
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You can use Link2SD on locked bootloader too.
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Hey,
I've got Arconium ICS rom installed on my Xperia Arc. I'm running low on internal memory, and while trying to find more space on the device I've found this:
Code:
Filesystem Size Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/block/mtdblock2 225.0M 1.1M 223.9M 1% /cache
So my question is - what is the cache partition used for on ICS? How big should it be? I found this in the description of some Nexus HD ICS rom:
Cache partition (/dev/block/mtdblock4) is only used by CWM.
Cache partition size is not important because the data partition (/dev/block/mtdblock5) is used as the cache space when running Android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Of course partitions path varies, but the info seems to be relevant.
And a final question - fdisk doesn't seem to work (getting "fdisk: can't read from" error) - how do I go about changing partition table?
To my knowledge (based mostly on HTC phones), in normal use the cache partition is used for downloading apps prior to installing, and for downloading OTA updates (which is why it's so big).
If youre running custom ROMs then this partition doesnt need to be anything like this size, because youre not going to be installing OTA updates. HTC desire owners resize this down to as little as 5meg (though this seems low to me, IMO it should be at least as big as the biggest app youre ever likely to install, so i'd say 25-50 meg is a safer bet.
Now, i have no idea how CWM works, so if this is using the partition to perform installs or nandroid backups or something then your probably wouldnt want to make it much smaller.
There is also a lot of space which could be freed up on the system partition, particularly if youre using a stripped down ROM.
All of the above is all well and good, if there is a way of changing the Arc's partition table. I have no idea how this is done, or if it is even possible. So would love someone who knows about this stuff to respond. BUT: i very much doubt FDISK (you mean windows fdisk?!?!?) is the answer - at the very least i'd expect that you'd need a specially modified kernel in order to boot with a modified partition table. The fact that it fdisk with an error instead of giving it a try is probably the only reason your phone still boots.
All of the new ICS roms talk in their instructions to partition your sd card. Some also have a non partition version for those that wish to not partition but those releases take longer to come out.
So why should I partition? I am asking in a general I really want to know why as on all of the rom release pages it just says to partition but no one every talks about why. Why do the newer roms require partitions while the 2.x Android roms never needed this.
Can't anyone let me know?
A lot of ROMs in 2.x support DarkTremor which allows many of the ROMs files to go onto a separate partition on the SD Card. This speeds up the phones response time as you run various apps.
This is most likely why the ICS builds are asking for you to partition the SD Card since they are automatically enabling this which is unlike the 2.. builds in which it was an option.
Doc
DocEsq said:
A lot of ROMs in 2.x support DarkTremor which allows many of the ROMs files to go onto a separate partition on the SD Card. This speeds up the phones response time as you run various apps.
This is most likely why the ICS builds are asking for you to partition the SD Card since they are automatically enabling this which is unlike the 2.. builds in which it was an option.
Doc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is this new automatic thing part of ICS or just something differently the rom developers are now doing?
Was DarkTremor built into the 2.x roms? When I first moved from stock to Cyanogen all I remember doing was wiping and installing the zip file, never did anything extra.
LordJezo said:
Is this new automatic thing part of ICS or just something differently the rom developers are now doing?
Was DarkTremor built into the 2.x roms? When I first moved from stock to Cyanogen all I remember doing was wiping and installing the zip file, never did anything extra.
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Click to collapse
I believe that this is something being put in by the developers. The ICS you get from HTC, LG, Samsung etc.. does not have this.
DarkTremor was built into a lot of the 2.x roms and would only become active if you you had the SD Card partitioned properly. It is in Cyanogen but it is something that you did not need to use if you did not want to.
There are some good tutorials out there if you want to give it a try. The big advantages are that it speeds up your phone and frees up precious space on your internal memory.
Doc
I believe the simple answer is that ICS has a bigger footprint and therefore requires more internal system capacity. The phones that come stock with ICS have more system capacity than our EVO 4G. A2sd and an ext partition effectively expand the system partition so that these larger footprints will work on our phones.
Non-a2sd versions take longer because the dev has to figure out how to get ICS working with "insufficient" capacity.
Another development to look at is firerat's mtd mod that allows one to reconfigure the system, cache, and consequently data partitions.
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dcharleyultra said:
I believe the simple answer is that ICS has a bigger footprint and therefore requires more internal system capacity. The phones that come stock with ICS have more system capacity than our EVO 4G. A2sd and an ext partition effectively expand the system partition so that these larger footprints will work on our phones.
Non-a2sd versions take longer because the dev has to figure out how to get ICS working with "insufficient" capacity.
Another development to look at is firerat's mtd mod that allows one to reconfigure the system, cache, and consequently data partitions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! That was exactly what I was looking for.
When people use in in GB roms is it just them trying to optimize things better by freeing up system memory by utilizing sd space?
LordJezo said:
Thanks! That was exactly what I was looking for.
When people use in in GB roms is it just them trying to optimize things better by freeing up system memory by utilizing sd space?
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Yes, that's what I think.
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That is why I partitioned my drive (to move apps to my sd card and to free up space on the phone). I am on the MikG ROM.
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1TonyC said:
That is why I partitioned my drive (to move apps to my sd card and to free up space on the phone). I am on the MikG ROM.
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Why would you need to partition the sd card to move apps? That's a built in feature of GB.
Or do you mean system apps?
I was constantly getting alerts that I was running out of internal memory. This was after I transferred as many apps as I could to the sd card.
So I partitioned my sd card and flashed the MikG ROM. No more memory problems .
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Partitioning for apps2sd is not to move ur apps to SD card. It will automatically install ALL apps downloaded from play store to the SD. No need to move anything! Its like adding internal memory to our phones! I was hesitant at first but now I wouldn't do it any other way. I noticed a nice increase in performance on ics roms and I can now download whatever the hell I want and not worry about bogging down my internal memory
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Rather than posting a new thread, I'll ask my question here since it is somewhat relevant to the conversation.
I'm at work while I was updating to jmztaylor's latest nightly, so I do not want to backup my SD onto my work computer. Can apps2sd be flashed at any point after flashing the ROM or does it have to be at the same time as flashing the ROM?
Jaxp3r said:
Rather than posting a new thread, I'll ask my question here since it is somewhat relevant to the conversation.
I'm at work while I was updating to jmztaylor's latest nightly, so I do not want to backup my SD onto my work computer. Can apps2sd be flashed at any point after flashing the ROM or does it have to be at the same time as flashing the ROM?
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Click to collapse
It can be done later.
Captain_Throwback said:
It can be done later.
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Great, thanks for the info!
The main difference between the built-in moving of apps and the partition is where the apps go.
With GB's moving (a2sd) the .apk file is moved to a directory on your SD card called .android-secure. The big con to this is that if your SD isn't mounted (for example, if you're moving files from your computer, or on the initial error check on boot), you can't access these apps. You also cannot use any widgets an app might have if it's been moved to .android-secure.
If you have a partition (ext3 generally) then it's a different story. Generally, what happens is that the /data/app directory in your internal storage is symlinked to your partition, /ext. (I think it's /ext/data/app, but I can't remember and haven't used the sd partition for a bit). Pros to this one are much more space, since assuming you have the space and your SD is fast enough you can also symlink your appdata and dalvik-cache. Plus, you are able to use widgets because Android thinks the apps are installed to the internal data. One major con is that you can potentially reduce your SD card's life, since it will be reading and writing a lot more from that portion of it.
And a symlink explanation: In a sense, it points one directory to another area of the filesystem. When I was partitioned Root Explorer showed my symlinked /data/app as this: "/data/app > /ext/data/app". It's a way to have parts of the filesystem "appear" in other areas without having to copy/paste. I've used it to get a few directories to sync to Dropbox without having to keep spare copies of my files in the main Dropbox ones.
Be careful. I just did it an hour ago and everything disappeared from my sd card. So pissed.
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What are partitions..
SLB9884 said:
Be careful. I just did it an hour ago and everything disappeared from my sd card. So pissed.
Sent from my PC36100 using xda premium
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That is because when you re-partition your card (or hard drive,etc..) it basically wipes it. What you are doing is redefining the very volumes that take up space on your card and giving them a starting and ending block address based on the size of the card and the defined size of the partition. You can think of it has a two pieces of glass and you are pouring colored sand in. You pour red in and get your data partition, then you pour in green and get your swap partition so on. Eventually all partitions are defined and ideally will make the most use of the total space on your card.
So when you partition, it's very low level and requires abandoning all data and prior formats on the card unless you are using some special software that attempts to adjust the sizes of the partitions.
Somewhere at the beginning of your card is a small sector that lists all the partitions and their starting/ending blocks, plus other relevant informationj.
So if you plan to partition, you need to back up the data first to your pc or what not.
Storage
Because its an entire system you'll want to to save space on your card, make a backup of any important files because its gonna wipe it and you cant undo it
Here's a couple of great guides for a2sd. Once I finally did my phone performed much better.
http://therootofallevo.com/2011/04/10-step-guide-properly-set-darktremors-a2sd/
http://androplasty.com/2011/08/mini-guide-how-to-re-partition-your-sd-card/
Okay, so I'm sure almost everyone read on the XDA portal that the Xperia T has an empty 300 MB partition. So the developers made that partition the recovery partition.
So, I'm wondering why we can't get a recovery partition.
The Xperia S has 32 gigs of inbuilt storage, and that's quite a lot. It's divided, though, so you only get around 24 gigs for the 'sd card'.
But what if we take 300 MB from those 24 gigs?
We could create a whole new partition, just like the Xperia T has!
Any ideas if this would work?
I'm no developer, just thinking out loud... Might help a developer
Not sure it works like that, I don't think internal storage can be re partitioned to be used like that. I think they were able to get it to work on the T because Sony had left 300mb of un partitioned space on the phone. Doomlord said he'd try and get it to work on the S so it might be possible.
What I want to know is this, Xperias have a recovery FOTA partition but access to it is blocked after the boot loader is unlocked, so why is access blocked and is there no way to regain access to it?
fareeed said:
Not sure it works like that, I don't think internal storage can be re partitioned to be used like that. I think they were able to get it to work on the T because Sony had left 300mb of un partitioned space on the phone. Doomlord said he'd try and get it to work on the S so it might be possible.
What I want to know is this, Xperias have a recovery FOTA partition but access to it is blocked after the boot loader is unlocked, so why is access blocked and is there no way to regain access to it?
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FOTA? Whatever that means, as long as it's a partition, I hope we can use it...
I hope Doom really succeeds, we need that partition!
someone755 said:
FOTA? Whatever that means, as long as it's a partition, I hope we can use it...
I hope Doom really succeeds, we need that partition!
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Firmware Over The Air
Wait, there's a separate partition for that?
Okay, I know what FOTA means... When it comes to OTA updates, but an entire partition?
Cool...
So why not just contact Sony and ask them for some help? They are the 'developer friendly company', no?
I don't think we can write to or boot this partition as it is.
Maybe not, but, seriously, why not partition the SDcard...?
It CAN be partitioned and left there abandoned, the question is, can we get it to boot?
Better yet, why not COMPLETELY format the eMMC chip and partition it from scratch? Then we can make it like an HTC device, with the gazillion partitions before boot
Hello i have One questione. It's possible build pit file that increase data partition such as i9100 for example?
Yes but only by a few 100MBs only if you are using a custom CAF/AOSP based rom as they use a lot less space on the system partition. Also this is very dangerous as if you mess anything up the phone will be completely unrecoverable bricked so do this at your own risk but it is quite pointless, you could just get an sd card and use that as adoptable storage on Marshmallow