For stock based roms, some of the custom ones out there have installed all apps in preload/symlink/system/app and symlinked those to system/app EXCEPT for superuser.
But is there a point to that?
Like is it better to have apps installed in system/app?
Or does it usually not matter, but is superuser the lone app that can't run if symlinked to?
I'm asking this because i've trimmed down my rom to a size where everything (including the apps) wil fit on /system with about 25MB space left, but i'm wondering if there's any point to doing that. And if I do, what else will the preload partition be used for?
There should be no difference. In my custom roms all system *.apk are moved to /preload (actually /system/app is symlinked to /preload/symlink/system/app...
But in "standard" method - maybe superuser is left on /system to avoid issues with updating that app...
Related
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
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?
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.
maybe a daft question but what is the benefit from deleting system apps,wallpapers etc.
does it speed up things , create more space?
anybody no
Speed up things? Not really, it is a linux based device, not windows But depending on what you delete (e.g. running unnecessary apps).
Removing factory stuff will create more space.
And what to remove? It depends on the ROM what you use. If it is a HTC Sense based ROM, then there is a list over at Leedroid's site what can be remove.
cheers, what will it create more space for tho? can u say obtain apk files of apps from the market and install then as system apps therefore creating more space for downloaded apps on internal memory?
Just cut and paste apks from /data/app into /system/app, preferably large apps that rarely get updated and your unlikely to uninstall.
Or
Use titanium backups "convert to system app" feature.
Don't forget they will disappear when updating your rom.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
i can convert to system apps in titanium, then backup the rom , extract the boot and system image and run it thru disxda kitchen and that will create a rom with the titanium backups in system apps .wont it??????
Not all apps convert well as system apps in titanium. Also I think you'd need to be s-off to do that.
Why not just run your rom.zip through dsixda, then drop the .apk's you want into the system/app directory and pack it up again?
sounds like a plan dan!
rootSU said:
Not all apps convert well as system apps in titanium. Also I think you'd need to be s-off to do that.
Why not just run your rom.zip through dsixda, then drop the .apk's you want into the system/app directory and pack it up again?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i used this method time ago and it works...
I've never seen anyone else ask for this, so I may be the only one who's interested, but I'm curious to know what I'd have to do to enable live wallpapers in Tiny's CM10.1 ROM (or any other ROM that's had that capability removed).
I know the System partition is pretty much maxed out, and I suspect LW support was yanked to help solve that problem. Maybe that means that something else would have to go from the System partition to add LW support back in.
If that's the case, then I probably wouldn't choose to do it. (I suspect there are probably components currently in Sys that I don't care about, but I also suspect that carving them out and shoehorning the LW into their spot might be more technical than I want to deal with.)
I'm just curious to understand. Thanks!
Livewallpaperspicker.apl is really small..I don't remember explictly removing them but the actually live wallpapers are larger, sometimes over a couple mb.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
So if I found a copy of the .apk (are there different versions, or if I find some random one for a different phone is it probably okay?) and had (or created) enough room to stick it in the /system/app partition, that would restore the LW capability?
Do 3rd-party LW's live outside the /system partition so that the livewallpaperspicker.apk is the only thing that needs to fit?
Were the original Sense LW's in the /system partition? Are there versions that can live outside of there? (Maybe I'm lame, but I kinda miss my stock Magic Smoke...Lol!)
MysticCobra said:
So if I found a copy of the .apk (are there different versions, or if I find some random one for a different phone is it probably okay?) and had (or created) enough room to stick it in the /system/app partition, that would restore the LW capability?
Do 3rd-party LW's live outside the /system partition so that the livewallpaperspicker.apk is the only thing that needs to fit?
Were the original Sense LW's in the /system partition? Are there versions that can live outside of there? (Maybe I'm lame, but I kinda miss my stock Magic Smoke...Lol!)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think it's both LiveWallPapersPicker.apk and LiveWallpapers.apk. I think you need to stick them in and reboot.
I'm testing copying a livewallpaper to /data/app. All LW's would be in /data/app as they are user installed if they're in the play store. /system/app only contains ROM files and those installed by a flashable zip like gapps.
About Sense, I'm positive that all the LW's from there are in /system. Not sure if there are version that can live outside there.
tiny4579 said:
I think it's both LiveWallPapersPicker.apk and LiveWallpapers.apk. I think you need to stick them in and reboot.
I'm testing copying a livewallpaper to /data/app. All LW's would be in /data/app as they are user installed if they're in the play store. /system/app only contains ROM files and those installed by a flashable zip like gapps.
About Sense, I'm positive that all the LW's from there are in /system. Not sure if there are version that can live outside there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So, all you need to do is copy LiveWallpapersPicker.apk to /system/app and place the ones you want in /system/app or /data/app. As long as it's for Android 4.2 it should work. I had issues as I tried the CM10.1 files and I am running CM10 on my Inc at the moment. Once I used CM10 files it worked.
Tiny, Thanks for the Livewallpaper.zip in CM10.1 forum works fine!
Schwinn555 said:
Tiny, Thanks for the Livewallpaper.zip in CM10.1 forum works fine!
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Click to collapse
You're welcome!