Galaxy S-NAND chip, datadata partition, JB and ICS queries - Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

So quite a comprehensive list of stuff in the title but I believe this will help many people including myself. I've browsed through various ICS and JB threads and picked up bits and pieces regarding to my questions but I'd like to know more, so if developers or people could help me out it would be much appreciated.
First, I've read that the SGS has pretty bad NAND disk (at least compared to today's standards), and thus suffers from lag due to bad I/O performance, something which the CPU or RAM could not compensate for. I've bought my unit in early July 2010 so I don't see it any better than the many units that were produced later, seeing as my device is one of the very first batches produced. Is it true that the lag is coming from the NAND disk, and not the comparatively slow CPU and low amount of RAM, and that software can only do limited work to alleviate this problem?
Second, I'm confused about the entire existence of /datadata partition. This was non existent during the gingerbread days and was the "culprit" of the low memory notifications found in early ICS builds like teamhacksung and icssgs, but I understand it as "a fast partition that allows for faster data access compared to the /data partition, which is slow'. So is the /data partition entirely hopeless compared to /datadata?
How does /datadata work in the first place? Since it wasn't there (or was it?) during Gingerbread days, was it magically created with some witchcraft? And why are JB Roms being created without /datadata (other than no having enough system space)? Is it fast enough without the partition already?
I'm sorry for all these questions but I'm just so curious Many thanks in advance.

Not sure what Samsung originally used the /datadata partition for.
I don't think JB developers have decided whether to use /data or /datadata. I think it depends on if project butter makes /data fast enough. Elite has recently changed his latest beta rom from /data to /datadata so we'll see.
Using the small /datadata partition shouldn't be a problem if you install datafix from the Play Store. It moves all the big non-performance critical files (lib) to /data leaving the rest on /datadata, so you get the best of both worlds. You can also move selected apps and cache to /data too.

The butter project has nothing to do with the nand. vsync and tripple buffer is only for rendering
the benchmark of the onenand and the movinand like read/write and iops would be usefull to determain if the datadata partition on the onenand is necesary.
therefore the different posted benchmarks. at least thats what i got form it
is there a easy way to test the different nand chips on the phone more specific?
like hdtune test?
so the iops can be tested also with different sizes?

Vertron said:
Not sure what Samsung originally used the /datadata partition for.
I don't think JB developers have decided whether to use /data or /datadata. I think it depends on if project butter makes /data fast enough. Elite has recently changed his latest beta rom from /data to /datadata so we'll see.
Using the small /datadata partition shouldn't be a problem if you install datafix from the Play Store. It moves all the big non-performance critical files (lib) to /data leaving the rest on /datadata, so you get the best of both worlds. You can also move selected apps and cache to /data too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have indeed tried to use datafix but for some reason I get android.process.media stopped working every time I tried to use it (both in ICS and JB). Installing data scripts (like the one called SDatafix.zip) from the Development forum does help me solve the low storage problem but I do no gain control of what apps I want over at /datadata. Not sure if those data scripts are compatible with JB, so I'll stick with ICS for now.
Now that I think about it, performance does seem to be affected by disk speeds, not just in phones. My dual core i7 (nehalem, arrandale) notebook fitted with a 2nd gen SSD can open up chrome quicker than my quad core i7 (sandy bridge) all-in-one with a 7200rpm disk, and performance is consistent even with multiple applications open, while the 7200 rpm struggles to keep pace despite the superior processor (and same RAM). Guess the lag is really coming from the disk, or is it?

hey can i restore nandroid backup of one ROM to its higher release..???? like i backup REM-ICS V1.2 so can i restore it n REM-ICS V1.3..???

You shouldn't have any issues using the datafix app with ICS.
What I normally do is; install a stock gingerbread rom, followed by the ICS rom. Install the datafix app then install the script & reboot, recover everything from titanium backup, reboot again. Open the datafix app select everything I want on /data then install & reboot again. I don't have any force close issues by doing this.

Vertron said:
You shouldn't have any issues using the datafix app with ICS.
What I normally do is; install a stock gingerbread rom, followed by the ICS rom. Install the datafix app then install the script & reboot, recover everything from titanium backup, reboot again. Open the datafix app select everything I want on /data then install & reboot again. I don't have any force close issues by doing this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm, here's how I did my fix. I did a 3 wipe (data, cache, dalvik cache) and restored all my stuff via TB first, when the low notification icon comes up, I reboot my phone then go into datafix to clear out some stuff to /data and continue the restoring process until its finished. Its alright for the first couple of minutes but then that media thing keeps FC ing.
How are you supposed to choose what apps you want under /datadata or /data when you haven't restored them yet? Or is datafix somewhat integrated with TB and reads your TB backups in the SD card instead of the ROM so you can select what apps you want to move to data and so on? (in fact I'll try that right now after a nandroid backup).

ballsofsteel said:
Hmm, here's how I did my fix. I did a 3 wipe (data, cache, dalvik cache) and restored all my stuff via TB first, when the low notification icon comes up, I reboot my phone then go into datafix to clear out some stuff to /data and continue the restoring process until its finished. Its alright for the first couple of minutes but then that media thing keeps FC ing.
How are you supposed to choose what apps you want under /datadata or /data when you haven't restored them yet? Or is datafix somewhat integrated with TB and reads your TB backups in the SD card instead of the ROM so you can select what apps you want to move to data and so on? (in fact I'll try that right now after a nandroid backup).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you are getting force closes because your /datadata partition is too full before you run the script. TB works fine with the datafix, as long as you enable follow symbolic link in the preferences.
Another thing I should mention is it's probably a good idea to not recover everything from TB at once. Do it in 2 or 3 batches, restarting after each one, that way /datadata should never get too full.

Related

[Q] [Request] Need a way to boot 2nd partition (SDext) during boot time

Hi there,
So my N1 is rooted and has SuperOSR rom installed. The native app2sd that comes with the rom failed to work, so I disabled it and went back to the method I was using on CM7, Link2sd. I need a method to move apps/cache/lib files to sd-ext, as the tiny internal storage on the N1 is insufficient to hold even a 10th of the apps (and their data) that I have installed. And Link2sd has, at least in the past, been the perfect option to do so.
At first, all seemed well after installing and setting up Link2sd. Mount scripts were created with no problems, apps/cache/lib files all moved over to sd-ext without a hitch. Everything was going really well. Until I rebooted. Then, all hell broke loose.
The problem is this - for some reason, the second partition (sd-ext) is not being mounted during boot time. I'm not sure why, as this is exactly what the Link2sd mount scripts are supposed to accomplish. A Link2sd "mount warning" notice confirmed this problem, saying that "since 2nd partition was not mounted during boot time, linked apps will be invisible to the system until quick reboot". Indeed, every app that I had linked was not visible to the system, and most widgets on my homescreen showed only the message "problem displaying widget".
Luckily, a way to temporarily fix this is by simply quick-rebooting the rom. This will get the linked apps to show up again. But the problem is, widgets are still dead, input method gets reset (goes back from Swiftkey to native Android keyboard), and SMS gets reset back to the standard android SMS app. Of course, all of this can be changed back, but it takes time and effort to load each individual widget and restore each individual input/sms setting. It's really not practical every time you have to reboot your phone that you have to:
1. Quick-reboot the rom
2. Change input method back to Swiftkey
3. Manually restore every widget on your home screens
4. Change sms app back to Go sms.
So, my question is, how do I avoid having to do all this? I've already tried the "re-create mount scripts" option on Link2sd, but it doesn't matter. Still have the same errors upon rebooting phone every time. I'm pretty sure this means that the Link2sd mount scripts are either not being created correctly, or are being deleted every time the phone reboots. How do I fix this? Trying to get in contact with the developer of the app (bakpinar) has proven unsuccessful.
Does anyone know of any other scripts that I can flash/install that will successfully and consistently mount the 2nd partition (sd-ext) during boot time? I'm fairly certain that this is all I need, as everything else with Link2sd has been working correctly. Thanks in advance for any advice!
Ok, so since I haven't gotten any responses on this, I'm going to attempt two methods that i THINK might remedy this issue. The first one is this:
Method 1:
1. Full wipe and reinstall of SuperOSR rom
2. Format sd-ext to ext3 filesystem (found out that rom's native app2sd program wouldn't work due to my sd-ext partition being FAT32)
3. Enable rom's native apps2sd option upon booting.
4. Reboot
5. Install Link2sd from market, enable dex/lib file linking ONLY (native apps2sd program only moves app files, not dex or lib). Going to be interesting to see what link2sd says about the mounting scripts...
6. Reboot, collect results.
The 2nd method I'm going to try is this.
1. Full wipe and reinstall of SuperOSR rom.
2. Flash DTAPPS
3. Boot into ROM
4. Download and install test applications
5. Collect results
I'm not sure if either of these methods will work, however I know the 2nd method worked for CM. I will update a bit later as to which method (if any) fixed the issue. Sorry for the double post.
I commented to the ROM cook nelo360 a while back that there are some strange sd-ext mounting issues. If you look at the dmesg as it boots, it does post some strange error messages. Essentially, ext3 mounts as ext2, and ext4 mounts as ext3. Despite it not mounting as the proper format type, it still works.
Since the ROM is pulled off of AOSP, as CM is too, sort of, much of the same apps2sd apps probably work decently well.
Definitely need an ext3 or ext4 partition. As I'm understanding your post, that did not happen initially, and is crucial to many apps2ext to work, including the built-in one.
Really? Ext4 as 3 and ext3 as 2? Well that would explain why Link2sd was having issues. Hmm.
What I ended up doing was fully wiping the phone, flashing the rom, and then immediately afterwards flashing DTAPPS. Using the GUI interface found on the market, I moved apps to sd-ext and cache to sd-ext as well. The result has been mixed. While there was noticeably more space initially to install apps (something like 190mb internal), that space has declined at almost as fast a rate as when I had no apps2ext of any sort installed at all. This makes me think that while DTAPPS successfully moved some of the initially installed apps over to the sd-ext, it hasn't been moving any new ones i've installed or their cache files. I tried re-moving apps/cache with the gui interface and by using the old-fashioned terminal emulator method, but had no success. Still looking at about 100mb free space on internal. Considering that I only have about 1/4 of the apps installed that I usually have installed on my phone at any given time (I use A LOT of apps), it's become apparent that soon I am going to run out of space again.
As I can't find any method to fix this, I'm afraid I'm going to have to call it quits with this ROM and try something else. Which is a real shame, because stability-wise this ROM beats Cyanogenmod and other ROMS I've tried hands down, while not sacrificing many features. I guess for a user who doesn't use a lot of apps or need a lot of space for them, this ROM would be ideal. Unfortunately, I'm not that type of user.
One problem I've found is that with any automatic apps2sd/ext system is the control of what is actually on the SD vs. internal memory is hard to work out.
With the built in apps2sd, which you seem to have trouble with, not every app was transferred to ext. I found that with the built in system, my internal memory kept dropping until it hit 25 mb or so. However, it never really dropped below that. Everything I kept installing probably went to the ext partition. I installed a lot of apps, and it wasn't an issue. (But you're right, it may not be as many as you want).
I didn't have a great way to check this though. Root explorer showed both the data/apps/ folder and the sdcard/ext folder linked together, so it just listed everything together. I'd have loved a way to actually manually transfer whatever apps were on internal memory to ext, but never found an easy way to do so, or even to confirm what was in which directory.
So even though it looks like the internal memory is steadily and quickly dropping, if you continue to install, and have the two directories appropriately linked (sorry, I don't know what the difference between all the different kinds of scripting apps2sd are), I don't think you'll run out of space as quickly as you think you will.

Nexus One internal storage low

So out of curiousity I backed up all of my apps using titanium backup and installed the new MIUI Rom based on ICS. It kept crashing because for some reason the internal storage filled up. Now I re-installed CM7.1, but my internal storage is again almost full.
My question is, what can I do? I moved ALL my apps to my SD card before I even installed MIUI and before I installed MIUI, I had 170mb free. Actually while typing this I realized that I guess MIUI didn't remove CM7 when it installed or something... hmm. Anyway any help is appreciated, and be gentle this is my first post.
Also android.process.acore keeps stopping.
did you wipe data/factory reset,cache and dalvik cache atleast 3 times before flashing new rom???
Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk
Do it 4x, just to be sure
Each apk (program) on your system has a corresponding entry in the dalvik-cache that gets generated from the .apk. If your storage (/data) filled up things are going to be broken in all sorts of ways, including the inability to make the dalvik caches. Since you didn't format between ROMs, you'll also run into permission issues and settings that don't make sense in the new ROM. Cyanogen uses an alternate location (/cache) for the dalvik-cache for system apps, I don't know if MIUI does, but that could be some of the difference in space. Duplicating data for the same .apks in different ROMs could've also filled up your space. It's best to format all the phone partitions to not worry about this stuff. Usually you're safe not formatting /sdcard, but some ROMs are picky. Some ROM install scripts don't format /system and that leads to BIG headaches. If you format all the partitions, then you don't need to worry about clearing user data/battery stats/dalvik-cache because that was already handled when you formatted the storage that contained that data.
tl;dr: Fix permissions after installing a new ROM. If the old and new ROMs are different enough, everything will still be broken because you made the android gods angry. Sacrifice (format) /system, /data, and /cache (and sd-ext if you have it) *before* installing the new ROM and things should be fine.
Haven't used MIUI for awhile, but didn't think it had an ICS version. There is one in XDA, but it is not stable and I think requires blackrose hboot and differnet partition sizes for hboot. It also runs a2sd on reboot i think?
CM7 uses Dark Tremor beta4, that's what I use. It needs flashed after rom and scripts run to move apps. Check out their site
As suggested format all including system and format sd card with sdformatter, full erase and size adjustment on and set up 1gb ext 0 swap
copy sdcard and have a good nandroid first
rugmankc said:
Haven't used MIUI for awhile, but didn't think it had an ICS version. There is one in XDA, but it is not stable and I think requires blackrose hboot and differnet partition sizes for hboot. It also runs a2sd on reboot i think
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
MIUI has both blackrose and non blackrose version of ICS
Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk
right, but one is unstable and he can't keep his ics partition if flashing non ics one
I've tried the latest versions and both br and non-br ones seemed have problem with data connectivity. Some others have experienced the same. Thought the dev's investigating it. But, previous version, i.e. 2.3.2, worked fine.
Try non-br 2.3.2 with 185/85/166 partition layout, that was great.
Sent from my Nexus One
Having similar issues with ICS MiUI which really seems rather unstable (v2.3.2), and going to flash the latest update from a few days ago (v2.3.9).
Any suggestions on how to deal with some of the stock MiUI "bloatware" that comes with it and seems stuck on the system ROM? A2SD is supposed to be enabled, but unless stuff I dowload off market/play or restore is deemed systems apps, which I doubt is the case, I can't seem to choose to move them to SD card or in this case the "USB Storage" (Sorry, my postcount's too low to post on the actual MiUI Dev thread)
Also, as a sidetrack, does anyone know how best I can sieve through my contacts storage/DB? recently I think i might've accidentally synched with my FB countacts and it seems to have bloated up to 16-18+Mb which is alot from the previous 10-12Mb or less from what I recall. Is there an app or something to help 'manage" it better or do I have to manually go through and get rid of excess contact info on the phone or from my Google contacts list?
Thanks in advance for any advice you guys might have.

[Q] EXT2 cache partition a big fail for me !! :mad::mad::mad::mad:

Does anyone out there know what causes 4EXT CWM and Amon Ra all (with custom tools) all to fail in regards to seeing a formatted cache partition on EXT-2.
I have DONE EVERYTHING I can possibly think of, from using Gpart in Ubuntu, to the phone itself. Many times in the past I have made it would just leave my 2 Gig cache partition empty because NOTHING works EVER!...
Did I miss something, can you even have 4 separate functional partitions with the Nexus 1 ?
The closest I have come to something really functional is with 4EXT, it seems to go through all the stages but when I check alignment I only get the first 2 partitions (fat-32 and EXT-1) EXT-2 says it is unformatted for some odd reason! This has been performed using a full card wipe on an external source. Even still everything is seems to go as planned until I check the card. With 4EXT I attempt to force a ext3 or 4 format and it restarts the recovery ! When I check A2SDGUI it says I only have 15 megabytes for cache.
I have used black rose and set it to 220/15/201 (dla5244), tried the latest versions of 4EXT and wasted many hours before posting...
CAN ANYONE HELP !!
Download SD Formatter from here, run the program and choose under Options:
FORMAT TYPE: FULL (OverWrite)
FORMAT SIZE ADJUSTMENT: ON
This will format your µSD (be sure to backup your important stuff). When finished, try to make an ext4 partition with 4EXT recovery. You only need one ext4 partition (so no 2nd) and no swap.
Thank you for the fast response but I have tried that. Except I want this phone to work optimally and I have figured everything else out so it is hard to settle for mediocrity. I mean I know that 1 SD-EXT partition works... Even 1 + fat32 and SWAP but I can NEVER have the phone identify the SD-EXT2 partition... no matter what... In partition magic (terrabyte bootit) and of course Gpart in Ubuntu all indicate that everything is great. Except the phone doesn't use the partition and like I was saying before the 4EXT shows it as unformatted after it's format. When I force a format on the partition the software reboots !?!... And if I leave it claiming it's unformatted even though we may think it is, QND's MIUI can only see 15 megabyte cache partition !
But then why not just go back to stock roms and one partition? To your point it's hard to step back and use something less inclined for performance when it should work ? no ?
I know I am a NOOB BUT I also know that it seems like no one out there can offer CLOSURE on the matter. like "ohh that's because the N1 cannot identify a EXT2 partition" or "ohh... that's your SD card's fault it isn't aligned right etc."
I mean I can see others have had this problem and gave up, I don't want to give up unless it is a limitation of the hardware (?sd card?)
Another way to look at it is although beautiful and helpful for most... 4EXT should be focused on getting that to work, I would think... To your point everyone is confused and shouldn't have more than 2 partitions ? Doesn't seem right to me.
Anyways if you have any other ideas OR anyone else can think of a solution lets do it I want to invest time into this and make it work !!
Sincerely! !
Why should you have more than 2 partitions on your µSD? 1 fat32 for your pictures and videos and stuff, and if you don't have enough space for your apps, 1 ext4 for A2SD (maximum 1GB).
Swap is not necessary and in fact slows your system down. A thread about swap is somewere to be found here.
And why the 2GB cache partition? You already have a 15MB cache partition on your phone.. 220/15/201.
You really don't need more than 2 partitions on your µSD.
?
I am willing to accept that you are right that it isn't needed. But I am not using A2SD, I am using XPART. According to the guides I am read, the best way is with 3 or 4 partitions (Swap being the option). The Cache partition on the other hand makes sense because even with titanium backup I can see my 60 or so apps are storing a couple hundred megs in cache. So this way a dedicated partition for processing things once instead of multiple times would provide the fastest solution. Being that the n1 is not the top performer anymore (still my fave though ), any extra speed should help when I am using my phone day to day.
The QND MIUI mod by jbbandos has the following about XPART :
"You can use it with one FAT32 and one ext4 partition, as A2SD, which seems to be the more stable setup, but the recommended setup for speed is one FAT32, one large ext4 (for your data partition), one smaller ext4 (cache), and a swap partition. I'm not that much of a fan of a swap partition, as I am always afraid it will wear out the SD card precociously, but most people report it working well, and I prefer the single ext4 for stability, but YMMV. "
you can read more here :
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1084726
.......
Anyways that is what I want, and I will invest the time to get it. I believe that 4EXT is primarily in development to perform this function. But I have a problem, with the results. I realize that it may not be necessary but I would like to know the WHY as to why this doesn't work.
AS ALWAYS thank you for you help none the less..
Never used XPART, I didn't know they recommend this. I never used apps to ext scripts longer than a few days.
This is because I'd rather install 10 crappy apps less, than having a slower system. Then again, if I would use an apps to ext script, I would definitely go for stability .
Unfortunately I don't know what you could do now..
I found my previous QND build with XPROT using blackrose was good for like 7 months !!! I just wanted to update and get it working properly. I would HIGHLY recommend it as you phone sees like 1 gig of internal mem so all apps that have widgets are useful and don't need to go to SD. In my opinion it was more stable than stock !!! Honestly, great tool.
OH yeah and it is also much faster I have found !

[Q] Partitioning N1 using texasice's ICS w/xdata

Would someone validate my partitioning idea before I spend a bunch of time mucking about trying to make it work?
Some background: I am using a Nexus One with Evervolv/texasice's ICS ROM. The N1 has a small permanent memory, so even with the recommended partitioning, the system partition has only a few MiB free and the data partition is just over 200 MiB. So texasice has a re-written a2sd which has the ability to mount an ext4 partition on the SD card as the data partition (I don't know if this feature is specific to his rewrite or if this is a common thing). It works ok with a Class 10 card, although it's still a little slower than I might like and I get ANRs even for system apps.
With the xdata feature enabled, the >200MB data partition in the memory is wasted space, so I was thinking about re-partitioning to make the system partition most of the 400+ MB of memory and then using Titanium Backup to selectively move apps from the xdata partition to system, with its "Convert to system app" and also integrate the Dalvik cache into the system partition.
Does anyone see a problem with this plan? Will it work? Why have I not seen anyone else talking about doing it?
Thanks!
Wil
My background, in case that helps you gauge your response: I have 15+ years of experience with Linux systems administration & development, including some work with embedded systems, but am still very unfamiliar with the Android userland.
Works fine
So I went ahead and tried it--410 MB for system partition and then I used TitantiumBackup's "Integrate sys Dalvik into ROM" to move the Dalvik cache for system apps into the ROM--it worked fine and things are a bit snappier. I also converted some of my most-used apps to be system apps and get noticeably improved response times. One thing to note is that you should re-run the integration after converting an app to a system app because it doesn't do that automatically.
I am fairly confident that my observation of improvement is accurate, despite the lack of quantitative data and despite the fact that I upgraded the ROM from a2 to a4 at the same time--I ran several of the apps before converting them to system apps and then again afterwards (and after a reboot).
wcooley said:
So I went ahead and tried it--410 MB for system partition and then I used TitantiumBackup's "Integrate sys Dalvik into ROM" to move the Dalvik cache for system apps into the ROM--it worked fine and things are a bit snappier. I also converted some of my most-used apps to be system apps and get noticeably improved response times. One thing to note is that you should re-run the integration after converting an app to a system app because it doesn't do that automatically.
I am fairly confident that my observation of improvement is accurate, despite the lack of quantitative data and despite the fact that I upgraded the ROM from a2 to a4 at the same time--I ran several of the apps before converting them to system apps and then again afterwards (and after a reboot).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your experimental is interesting so, if you don't mind, posting your procedures and steps for other members to review. Have you tried to contact Texasice or any developer of your findings?
It just sucks that with most scripts you can't choose which apps you would like to move to sd-ext. I believe timbit made such script for samuaz' MedroidMod, and he would bring out a standalone version, but haven't heard anything about that since Donationgate..
Yep I requested that from Timbit a while ago and new did indicate that he'd consider it.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA

[Q/Dev suggestion] Space for another big ROM slot in internal storage?

Taken from CM12 thread as this started to become off-topic. The issue I'm trying to address is how to stuff a huge Lollipop ROM directly into internal storage, without creating a virtual slot, to increase system performance and have overall cleaner solution. Original inspiration: @Mentor.37's custom Safestrap for unused partitions, which has way too small /data for me unfortunately. (explanation)
sd_shadow said:
Septfox said:
This in mind, is there any way to repartition the internal (stock) storage to decrease the size of /cache/ and create a larger /data/ partition, or is it not possible without modifying the bootloader?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Code for mounting the unused preinstall and webtop partitions to SD storage http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=59253593
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This allows you to mount the partitions either as a new storage or to a specific directory only, in other words it does not merge the storages, just adds a mount point next to (or possibly if modified a bit on the top of) other storage. While this may be useful for taking some inherent load off /storage/sdcard0/ (i.e. mounting /dev/block/webtop to /storage/sdcard0/Downloads) for people not swapping their sdcards, it doesn't help in Septfox's intention of enlarging /data/.
I face the same problem as Septfox: I'd love to use the storage intended for running system for it, not virtually mounted storages created in the storage intended for storing media and support data. However, the outline of the storage is intended for way older and less robust system so even the /system/ is not quite enough (667 MB, which tightly fits CM12 with a small GApps package) and /data/ is also not enough for heavier use (3.22 GB). Therefore I would like to merge it with currently unused partitions: maybe join preinstall to system and webtop to data, making both big enough.
One alternative would be to mount the 1.4 GB webtop as /data/app, which currently makes about 2/5 of occupied space of my /data. Is this possible? At which point of system startup is the script in /system/etc/init.d executed (is it done by Safestrap or the ROM itself?), and at which point might the system first need to access /data/app that contains the APKs of user-installed apps? All the really needed stuff (compiled executables) is in the /data/dalvik-cache, right? Here I'm on a really thin ice, don't know much about Android's architecture, so sorry if this is a major bullsh*t - just throwing my idea in Technically what I'm talking about is such modification of the script:
Code:
#!/system/bin/sh
mount -o rw,remount /data # Not too sure about this
# - depending on whether /data is already rw or not.
# For that I would need to know when is the script
# executed. I'm almost sure this is not necessary
# though. In original script this was done to allow
# writing into /storage/.
mkdir /data/app
#mount -o ro,remount / - unnecessary, see above
#mount -t ext3 /dev/block/preinstall /storage/preinstall
# I don't see any use for small preinstall partition.
mount -t ext4 /dev/block/webtop /data/app
chmod 777 /data/app # not sure about this either,
# probably should be 771
Clean version:
Code:
#!/system/bin/sh
mount -o rw,remount /data # Unnecessary?
mkdir /data/app
mount -t ext4 /dev/block/webtop /data/app
chmod 777 /data/app # Possibly 771 instead.
Is that possible to run, or will it bootloop, what do you think?
Even better IMO would be to delete preinstall and webtop and shrink the Stock data down to maybe 200 MB so the original Stock system is still present, preventing the phone from bricking and accommodating Safestrap. The remaining space could be divided between Safe system (say 800 MB) and Safe data (over 4 GB). Are we able to do this somehow, maybe by customizing Safestrap a bit more? Or are partitions in /dev/block locked by bootloader? Also are all these and Internal storage located on the same physical chip, or are there two separate memories in the D4? Attached proposal of repartitioned layout Sizes taken from here and here.
Developers and experienced users, I would love to hear your opinion, mainly on whether repartitioning internal storage or at least mounting webtop to /data/app could work on D4. Thanks!
Addition to the original post:
I have a spare D4 with shattered screen and not working SIM slot that I bought for spare parts. Apart from GSM (or telephony altogether? I didn't try, as only option would be emergency call which I don't want to abuse, and we don't have CDMA networks here) it works fine though. I can try meddling with formatting/partitioning - it won't be too big deal if it gets bricked beyond possibility of SBF restore.
Replies so far, taken from the original CM12 thread:
sd_shadow said:
I don't think repartitioning is possible without high risk of hard bricking the device, and yes the locked bootloader does limit what can be done.
This is quite off topic, and you should start a new thread if you are going to continue.
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Good call, started new thread
lucize said:
tried to change the type of preinstall partition and the device would boot into fastboot: (invalid cg hab (cg: ebr, status: 0x0056)
so a recovery is needed, I'll try a resize if I can compile the tools in safestrap. but I think it would not work
later edit: used fdisk to resize in safestrap and it broke again so it can't be done
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Thanks for trying! What do you mean by changing type?
As I added here in the first post, I have a spare shattered but mostly working D4 I wouldn't be too sad to see bricked - I can try out more dangerous stuff if you point me in the right direction. I'd like to help testing different approaches to repartitioning if you have some potentially harmful ideas that you wouldn't try on your own phone.
Curious question aside: where is bootloader (and fastboot) stored? Is it sitting on some other small partition? Can we mount it to be read, or even to write there? What/where is that protection that keeps us from unlocking the bootloader?
Also, concerning mounting the free partitions to other system partitions: do you think it's possible to mount them as a folder in /data (whichever we use)? Does it matter what filesystem the partitions use? What part of boot-up runs the /system/etc/init.d/ scripts? Do you think attached proposals 2 or 3 are feasible? It would still have the stock system untouched for an emergency use and Safestrap storage, but its data would be shared with the safe system, with webtop mounted as /data/app or /data/data (1.4 GB should suffice I hope) which would leave us with nice 3.2 GB for the rest. Of course, preinstall's 600 MB for /system is hardly enough for CM12 with Pico version of PA GApps so the rest of used Google apps would inflate /data a bit - but still this is probably the best option we have now.
Actually, I find the stock /system/ to be adequate. Yea, it's a tight fit, but CM12+PA Micro Gapps slots in with 30-someodd megabytes to spare, and there shouldn't be any real need for additional space on top of that. Though, I suppose there could be trouble if CM starts including larger apps.
Init.d is done by the ROM itself, and has to be enabled at build time; CM12 actually has it shut off for whatever reason (Slimkat did as well, I would imagine CM11 also did). There's an app called "Universal Init.d" in the Store, but by the time it can get around to executing the scripts, it's obviously way too late to be screwing with vital partitions : \
Worth pointing out that Safestrap appears to have proper ADB access, you might be able to do something with partitions thataway. I don't know enough about partitions and mounting in Linux to take a jab at it. Woop, looks like that's already a no-go. Maybe the bootloader does a check or three to make sure the partitions are all in order, and throws a critical error if not.
If absolutely all else fails, there's still symlinking large apps into the newly-accessible partitions that can be done, either manually or with Link2SD/similar apps. It's a bit of a hassle, but an option nonetheless.
Well, stock /system is fine but I want to keep it untouched - mainly because I don't want to install CM12 as an update over stock JB, and also to keep myself from SBFing (at least in the long run) because of trivial issues. When this option is off the plate, the remaining partitions don't seem to offer enough space to run CM11 in a non-virtual slot (as Mentor.37 offers with his modified Safestrap with a "Safe" slot with 600M system and 1.4G for data).
Symlinking is an ugly solution - used it for a while, never liked it, mainly because symlinks broke once SD got unmounted or mounted as Mass Storage, with problems remounting afterwards.
Since we can modify the system freely, I'm sure that if necessary, we could make a neater solution than using an app to create symlinks after boot. Question how early in the boot process can we add some scripts (by flashing some zipped patch over the ROM) goes to more knowledgeable devs though...
first time I just used t option in fdisk to change partition type to whatever without changing size, the second time I resized some of them and every time after 1st reboot the M logo would appear for 1 second and from now on it would go straight into fastboot without M logo, so it seems that something in bootloader is verifying the layout or something and if is not good it would stop.
I don't think that it's possible to brick it for good, use rsd to recover
Regards
Thanks to @lucize for his trying, sadly it seems we can't repartition at all
@Mentor.37, is there a source to your customized SS 3.75 available? I'd like to try and mess around with it to put the Proposal 3 from my second post's attachment to work.
Could mounting and symlinking be done from Safestrap, or does the ROM do it itself? I have ideas of various cross-linking of folders on the partitions to kind of emulate repartitioning - but I'd have to try if it works and it would need to be done either before the system boot or shortly in the process. See attachment - that's a first draft I presume for this that the user keeps stock system only for keeping the phone bootable no matter what happens in other than stock slots, so stock data would be utilized only for root and safestrap, leaving most of its 3.2 GB free.
LuH said:
Thanks to @lucize for his trying, sadly it seems we can't repartition at all
@Mentor.37, is there a source to your customized SS 3.75 available? I'd like to try and mess around with it to put the Proposal 3 from my second post's attachment to work.
Could mounting and symlinking be done from Safestrap, or does the ROM do it itself? I have ideas of various cross-linking of folders on the partitions to kind of emulate repartitioning - but I'd have to try if it works and it would need to be done either before the system boot or shortly in the process. See attachment - that's a first draft I presume for this that the user keeps stock system only for keeping the phone bootable no matter what happens in other than stock slots, so stock data would be utilized only for root and safestrap, leaving most of its 3.2 GB free.
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I believe that it's impossible because symlinking "works" after kernel is loaded and safetrap take place (is loaded) before a kernel is loaded....
If I'm not mistaken, symbolic linking is a filesystem thing, something like a shortcut only more complex (after all, it's completely transparent to anything accessing it). ADB probably has commands to make links, terminal emulators in Android definitely can. I think the problem you face is making sure the mountpoint, path, etc are exactly the same both in SS and Android.
Probably better to just do both the mounting and symlinking under Android, so you can be 100% sure that everything matches. We already know /cache/ is unused most of the time under LP, and can (probably) even be unmounted while booted if needbe; why not experiment with it, rather than going straight for the other more important partitions, until you're sure what you're thinking will work?
Edit: Wikipedia has a big ol' writeup on symlinks under various systems, looks like a fun read.
rblanca said:
I believe that it's impossible because symlinking "works" after kernel is loaded and safetrap take place (is loaded) before a kernel is loaded....
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I guess then this could be implemented in some early booting stage of the system by some custom .zip being patched over, kind of the way Mentor.37's ramdisks are. Unfortunately I don't have nearly enough knowledge to do it.
What I hope could be done more easily is altering SS to maybe use not only shared cache but shared data as well - then webtop could be used for safe system, leaving more then enough space for it, and we still would have fairly usable 3.2 GB data for it. Maybe we could even assign preinstall as stock data? @Mentor.37, I'd really love to hear your opinion on this, or maybe even get your alternated safestrap's source so I could try it myself
Sorry guys, I'm dropping this. I tried CM12 in stock slot and it doesn't help the system as much as I hoped for, so there's no need for this from my side.
I also mistook the process of installing ROM in Stock. I thought I have to upgrade the stock system to the new ROM in order to keep Safestrap in it, but it turns out it's independent and when "wiping" stock /system it leaves the Safestrap there, so I can easily do a clean install of a new ROM in the stock slot
LuH said:
I tried CM12 in stock slot and it doesn't help the system as much as I hoped for, so there's no need for this from my side.
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About that, could you compare the difference regarding performance between CM12 on the safe slot and CM12 on the stock slot?
I currently got it running on safe slot but I'm thinking about trying to install it to stock slot, now that I sold my Lapdock and don't need Weptop mode anymore.
But I only would do it if it increases the performance of the D4.
Shani Ace said:
About that, could you compare the difference regarding performance between CM12 on the safe slot and CM12 on the stock slot?
I currently got it running on safe slot but I'm thinking about trying to install it to stock slot, now that I sold my Lapdock and don't need Weptop mode anymore.
But I only would do it if it increases the performance of the D4.
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I don't really remember unfortunately, been running it from stock slot for a while now. Before it definitely was way more laggy than now, but that's also when CM12 for D4 was in a VERY early phase.
It definitely increases the performance, I'm just not sure how much. I don't see any reason why leave original system in stock slot though, so no reason to run CM from the safe slot. I don't like the idea of mounting the ext fs with system running from it from fat storage, it's bound to generate some unnecessary overhead.
In case of any major screw-up, sbf is your friend and AFAIK can't get messed up itself It's a good idea to have the factory cable available though, just in case it for whatever reason dies on you with low battery.
Ok, still good to know, thanks! What's sbf?
Well when I got my D4 a few months ago, I thought installing on the stock slot would be dangerous (in terms of bricking) and since I had the Lapdock, I wanted to keep the stock ROM.
But since then I've read that many users have CM12 running on stock slot, so now I want to do that, too. It's just so annoying when the whole phone freezes for half a minute or so and I think that's mostly due to the limited memory (although I have 170-300 MB free most of the time).
Do I have to consider anything special or different while installing than on an install on safe slot?
Shani Ace said:
Ok, still good to know, thanks! What's sbf?
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see
Q12: What is a SBF?
Shani Ace said:
It's just so annoying when the whole phone freezes for half a minute or so and I think that's mostly due to the limited memory (although I have 170-300 MB free most of the time).
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Same here, I suspect it's also connected with throttled data transfer requests of multiple apps at once, but the RAM is IMO the biggest factor. In Linux RAM is almost always full and the "free" space is occupied by cache (filesystem cache or whatever else app's cache) ready to be deleted - maybe the phone is stuttering when freeing the "free" space for other use.
Weird is that my brother with almost vanilla L 5.1 on Nexus 4 has system consuming about 100M less RAM than my CM12 - device-specific drivers maybe?
Shani Ace said:
Do I have to consider anything special or different while installing than on an install on safe slot?
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If you mean on stock slot, just remember that you need to have some system installed there even in order to boot into safestrap - delete old, install new and ONLY then reboot, otherwise you're facing sbf Learned the hard way It doesn't brick your phone (meaning you can unbrick it), but it's lengthy and annoying...
@sd_shadow: Thanks, now I know. Feels kinda stupid having asked one of the FAQ's - can't remember when that happened before.
LuH said:
Same here, I suspect it's also connected with throttled data transfer requests of multiple apps at once, but the RAM is IMO the biggest factor. In Linux RAM is almost always full and the "free" space is occupied by cache (filesystem cache or whatever else app's cache) ready to be deleted - maybe the phone is stuttering when freeing the "free" space for other use.
Weird is that my brother with almost vanilla L 5.1 on Nexus 4 has system consuming about 100M less RAM than my CM12 - device-specific drivers maybe?
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Ah that's interesting, didn't know that about Linux before. Well I always imagined that when there's little memory left, the drive somehow gets slowed down because there would'nt be enough space for some temp files or executions. But I don't really have a clue.
On the other hand, different devices showing different and inconclusive results like that is something I already experienced many years ago. ^^
LuH said:
If you mean on stock slot, just remember that you need to have some system installed there even in order to boot into safestrap - delete old, install new and ONLY then reboot, otherwise you're facing sbf Learned the hard way It doesn't brick your phone (meaning you can unbrick it), but it's lengthy and annoying...
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Yeah I know, I had read about it before. But you can't really miss all those hints everywhere, so I think the community takes good care of spreading that time-saving information.
Actually thanks for encouraging me, because last night I flashed CM12.1 and everything onto the stock slot! Today I installed and configured most of the things I needed (including int/ext storage swap) and I have to say, it really runs better! It might not be as smooth as with a more recent smartphone, but it's definitely snappier than CM12 on the safe slot was (now it's gone and will rest in peace^^). It may sometimes take a few seconds, but most of the time it's very fluid, a great, noticeable improvement.
Additionally, now that I don't have to household with the memory anymore, I installed all the apps that I had left out on the safe slot install and even installed a couple of huge games from the Play Store (NFS:MW, NBA Jam, Batman Dark Knight, Injustice) onto my microSD card and it still runs almost without any hick-ups! I haven't tested the games yet, though.
EDIT: It really seems to have something to do with the amount of memory left on /system. After all that installing I was down to ~ 200MB (which would've been normal on the safe slot) and the phone started lagging a little bit more. But after moving some games and apps to the SD I have more than 500MB 600MB - okay after deleting the cache it's 1,26GB - free on /system and the phone runs smoothly again.
Shani Ace said:
EDIT: It really seems to have something to do with the amount of memory left on /system. After all that installing I was down to ~ 200MB (which would've been normal on the safe slot) and the phone started lagging a little bit more. But after moving some games and apps to the SD I have more than 500MB 600MB - okay after deleting the cache it's 1,26GB - free on /system and the phone runs smoothly again.
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I guess you're talking about /data, not /system (different partitions, /system is usually read-only and system is installed there with stuff you flash from safestrap, everything else goes to /data or /sdcard). Yup, when /data is becoming full, you're gonna experience some strange behavior.
/data is the first "Internal storage" in Storage settings, /system is not shown there, /sdcard is the second "Internal storage" and /sdcard-ext, or "SD card", is the actual microSD in default CM12 setup. I guess you have the last two switched though.

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