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Hi everyone,
A relatively noob question here.
I am running the Official ROM 2.76.405.5 on an unbranded Hero, and want to give Linux-Swap a try. But I don't want Apps2SD; I might move certain apps cache to the SD after rooting, but like the Apps themselve on the internal memory though. How can I go about it? What do I need to do?
1) Can I format my SD card so that it has a fat32 and a linux-swap partition but NO "ext" partition?
2) If I do make an EXT partition, what patch/fix should I do to make only swapping work, without Apps2SD? Modaco's Hero patch as well as his custom ROMs come with Apps2SD. Is there a way to get rid of it?
3) Will I need "busybox" to make swapping work? Or is "Swapper" alone going to be enough?
4) If I make my custom update.zip file from Modaco's Hero patch.zip, from which I delete A2SD, and then falsh that update.zip via the recovery mode, will it work?
5) And what swap size do you recommend? Some people use as large as 256MB... while the default in most cases is 32MB. Is the larger the better?
Please help a non-developer here. Many thanks in advance!
OK, I have done it and it seems right. I made all three partitions (fat32, ext3, and linux-swap) and then pushed busybox by Modaco's method via "adb shell". That means I have the ext3 partition but no Apps2SD, so my apps would stay on the internal memory. Am I right?
Now I have also installed Swapper and so far it has not given me any error. Via Advanced settings, I have told it to use Swap "partition" instead on swap file. My swap partition is 256MB
My questions now are:
1) If I kill swapper by taskkiller, will swapping end?
2) How much swappiness should I choose?
3) How do I know that it is working and what improvements should I expect to see? How can I test that my phone is functioning faster??
Please reply
Would anyone like to share their comments on this, please?!?
One more thing, Hero comes with a 288MB RAM, but the total available system memory (RAM) shown by Swapper app is 197MB. Why such discrepancy??
Your views will be much appreciated!
Very well asked questions. Some masters respond to them please so we don't disturb you about these questions within every thread of yours
to format your sdcard (i'm assuming you know how to use parted and have only 1 partition) resize your fat32 partition, for example, with my 7948 MB sdcard:
Code:
(parted) resize 1 0 7850 (where 7850 is the maximum size of your sd-card minus the amount you wish to allocate for swap, in this case, 98 MB)
wait for it to finish re-sizing, doing it this way prevents data loss, after it's done;
Code:
(parted) mkpartfs primary linux-swap 7850 7900
(parted) mkpartfs primary linux-swap 7900 7948
(parted) rm 2
(parted) resize 3 7850 7948
(parted) quit
you basically create two linux-swap partitions (the second partition can be anything, but I use linux-swap because it can be any size in MB) so that the third one gets asigned a p# of 3, then remove the second one, and then resize the third one to take up the whole space left after your fat 32 partition, that way you don't waste any space. You can always
Code:
(parted) print
to make sure your fat 32 partition has a p# of 1 and your linux-swap has a p# of 3
About why there's only 197MB left on your device? Radio and GPU take the other 96 MB and the system has no access to that memory. Don't worry, it's still enough for you to run hero, pity us dream users with only 96 MB working RAM.
===edit====(answer more questions)
If by "official rom 2.73.405.5" you mean the one you can download from MoDaCo, then I don't even think it has root. There are four 2.73.405.5 roms there, the RUU, which you should avoid like the plague, the Official one which is only the RUU but packaged in OTA format, the Official one with Radio update, and the Official rooted one. You wan't to use the rooted one. Also, you do need busybox (you're already done it). I think that in the official rooted there are no scripts running at boot, so you won't get A2SD forced upon you (always a good thing, soon as I buy my Hero I'm using that build too as a base for my build), no compcache, no swap-file usage, nothing, just a stock rom with root. Anyway, you already have busybox, and that's all swapper requires, so you're good. For extra credit, you could learn how to unpack boot.img and edit the init.rc to call on your own script from bin and have it do swap automagically instead of using swapper (plus you can do nifty things like using mmcblk0p2 instead of p3, among other things).
I don't know how swapper works exactly, but I think all it does is echo settings to the VM to set up swap, so killing the app should do nothing (it's just a front-end to what other roms do automatically) and swap should stay working after you kill it. You can try, just kill the app and then open up the terminal and type
Code:
$su
# busybox free
that will tell you how much memory you have and how much swap you have, you should still have swap even after killing swapper.
About swap size?... depends who you ask. If you ask me, you have a hero with 198 MB working ram and you shouldn't even have to bother with swap at all. If you still want to, maybe try to set up a 32 MB compcache setup (you have enough ram where compcache makes sense) with a swappiness of 0 (this keeps the memory pages for Rosie in swap and even after heavy usage, you can always go back to rosie w/o reloads).
Having a swap-file on your sdcard makes no sense if you don't have a class 6 sdcard as it will hurt performance, so, if you do, anywhere between 64 MB and 198 MB (to match the whole working memory space of the device) with a swappiness of 60 should suffice.
I wish I had a hero...
Thanks jubeh, thanks soo much. It was really helpful After reading your answer, I completely understand how to make only fat32 and linux-swap partitions and save space by not having an ext3.
I am afraid I don't quite understand the compcache thing; I think I have to do more reading/homework on this before I ask further questions
I did install the Official ROM which I downloaded from HTC website as an RUU >> flashed Amon_RA's recovery image via flashrec >> rooted by pushing "su" and "Superuser.apk" via ADB shell, and then also pushed Busybox (from Modaco's 2.2 ROM, I think it is version 1.5.1).
I am using a Sandisk 8GB class 6 card... it is fine so far (except the photo thumbnails not being generated in the ".thumbnails" forlder, but that's a different story). I have noticed that after the ROM upgrade, a folder called "rosie_scroll" get automatically created on the SD card... may be it's a kind of built-in swap?!?! Am not too sure.
Moreover, at the moment, I have set swappiness to 60. When most of the apps are open, the hero functions quite well but I see that about 190-194MB of the internal memeory is being uesd at times and heavy use and the area of occupied swap partition gradually increases. I think it is because only thise apps will swap which are kind of sleeping or dozing in the background. Am I right?
Just another question, if you unzup MCR 2.2, you see in the xbin folder, a file called "dexopt-wrapper", an addition to busybox. What does it do? Its function?
Will having lots off apps open in the background and swapping them continuosly have a deleterious effect on the battery life??
Thanks again
Best regards.
having many apps open means using ram a lot. if you add swapping, it means not only ram sucking battery, but also reading/wirtting sd, which is pretty much battery sucker itself.
so yes, if you want to lengthen your battery life, keep your apps loaded atst to a minimum.
if what you want is a comparison for battery life between swapping and not swapping.. you should check if you have your phone always on or off and some other factors (keeping ram alive in hibernation mode wastes more battery than static sd memory, ie).
Thanks sik_gerar I understand where you are coming from.
Hey,
I've noticed a very weird and particular problem with my Apps2SD on VillainROM 6.2. I've partitioned the SD card as recommended with no swap space and 512MB for ext2 partition and the rest left fat32 one. It is said that it should work automatically.
But after installing ~100 apps maybe less I'm left with 15MB of internal storage left and an information that I cannot install nothing no more due to low space.
I've run appscheck or whatever that script's called (you know the one) and it says: "apps2sd is working without dalvik-cache"
Clearly it should be working then but it's not. I understand that the space should be going down a bit one way or another but having installed less than a 100 apps I should not run out of it especially that most of them were quite small. That said I just wanna add that Android Commander shows up ext2 partition greyed out when I access my mobile with it - so, it sort of prooves that there's something wrong.
Is there a way to fix it, so I could fully enjoy my phone?
1. About Swap
I've used latest nAa kernel and minicm7 for a while, but something bugs me..
It says that nAa kernel has "Swap" function. CUrious, I tried several methods.
Firstly, I tried to use swapper from android market. Seems like it's no use, since typing "free" on terminal emulator shows "0" for swapping (swap data is created already on my SD card). Not working, I uninstalled it.
Then, somebody told me to use swapper 2 since it's working nicely on him. Strangely enough, my market said it's not compatible with my phone.
Third, I tried to create a linux swap file on my SD card with 200 MB size using partition manager. And my phone runs lag like hell. So, I finally delete the partition again and wipe factory reset etc.
My question is : How do I turn swap things on ?
2. About Ext4
Until recently (before I created linux swap partition on my SD card and finally erased it again), I never create an ext4 partition on my SD card. Now, I'm trying to use it. What is the difference between using an ext4 partition and not ?
Thank you very much for your answer
StardustGeass said:
1. About Swap
I've used latest nAa kernel and minicm7 for a while, but something bugs me..
It says that nAa kernel has "Swap" function. CUrious, I tried several methods.
Firstly, I tried to use swapper from android market. Seems like it's no use, since typing "free" on terminal emulator shows "0" for swapping (swap data is created already on my SD card). Not working, I uninstalled it.
Then, somebody told me to use swapper 2 since it's working nicely on him. Strangely enough, my market said it's not compatible with my phone.
Third, I tried to create a linux swap file on my SD card with 200 MB size using partition manager. And my phone runs lag like hell. So, I finally delete the partition again and wipe factory reset etc.
My question is : How do I turn swap things on ?
2. About Ext4
Until recently (before I created linux swap partition on my SD card and finally erased it again), I never create an ext4 partition on my SD card. Now, I'm trying to use it. What is the difference between using an ext4 partition and not ?
Thank you very much for your answer
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here's the problem.
Apps2SD
SD swap files
SD cache files
All this adds up in total bandwidth use.
And then the speeds when reading and writing from the card are not really up to the task.
Even my Big x10i was not up to the task with a class 8 SD
The best would be for developers to partition a small piece of 'internal' storage to allow for a swap file.
OmegaRED^ said:
Here's the problem.
Apps2SD
SD swap files
SD cache files
All this adds up in total bandwidth use.
And then the speeds when reading and writing from the card are not really up to the task.
Even my Big x10i was not up to the task with a class 8 SD
The best would be for developers to partition a small piece of 'internal' storage to allow for a swap file.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I see then...
So, you're suggesting me to not use swap files ? ok then, thank you for your explanation and opinion
i have comb, 3.3 1.1.
i go to storage view in settings.
it shows, 13 gigs, 12 available.
in the internal view it shows total 1.8 and 122 mb for media.
i get a notification saying low on space..
i cannot instal any app.
whats up?
new-to-it said:
i have comb, 3.3 1.1.
i go to storage view in settings.
it shows, 13 gigs, 12 available.
in the internal view it shows total 1.8 and 122 mb for media.
i get a notification saying low on space..
i cannot instal any app.
whats up?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Out of 16 gigs built in storage, 13 is set aside as regular sdcard storage while 2 gigs is used for "internal data" and 1 gig is not used at all. If you use the NVflash from the teamdrh ICS rom you can re-format it to have 4 gigs internal and 12 for storage.
The easy thing you can do since your are still on honeycomb is to install app2sd and move some of your data files to the "storage part" (13gigs) which will free that space up in your "internal data" (2gigs) or you can go through and uninstall any apps you no longer use.
i have 4 apps right now, the rest are the google stuff apps crap, which i assume cant go anywhere in fear of them not knowing when i fart..
but
without using the app2sd-(i cant fit it right now)-i can go to settings and move apps, but- where it sez move to- it sez move to usb then after moved it sez move to tablet.
redeyedjedi said:
Out of 16 gigs built in storage, 13 is set aside as regular sdcard storage while 2 gigs is used for "internal data" and 1 gig is not used at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, no space is wasted like this--certainly not 1G. Use the busybox df instead of the system df. This has confused other users before.
If you use the NVflash from the teamdrh ICS rom you can re-format it to have 4 gigs internal and 12 for storage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is incorrect. Nvflash works on the NAND chip, not on SD cards. To repartition SD cards, use CWM, or this easy method if you want to keep existing data.
---------- Post added at 12:44 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:30 AM ----------
new-to-it said:
i have comb, 3.3 1.1.
i go to storage view in settings.
it shows, 13 gigs, 12 available.
in the internal view it shows total 1.8 and 122 mb for media.
i get a notification saying low on space..
i cannot instal any app.
whats up?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This has been reported on GtabComb-b3.3 by some other users, but, I was never able to get to the bottom of the problem. Most users will just repartition their SD cards and make the problem away before I can get to troubleshooting the problem.
Get me a logcat, dmesg and other outputs after you've tried to install an app from Market. See this post for the commands to run.
---------- Post added at 12:47 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:44 AM ----------
new-to-it said:
i can go to settings and move apps, but- where it sez move to- it sez move to usb then after moved it sez move to tablet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is the correct behaviour. Move to USB moves apps to /sdcard. Move to tablet moves the apps back into /data.
I meant to say you could use CWM to make 4 gigs. Where did that 1gig go?
redeyedjedi said:
I meant to say you could use CWM to make 4 gigs. Where did that 1gig go?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The missing 1 gig is the symlink I am working on that is set aside for data/cache and data/dalvic cache. Since the transition to make ROMs larger and our nand being only 512m that was put within either the ROM, CWM, or the boot.img so that everything will run without chopping away at the System to make it lighter, the way I do. If you Flash the nand with the older 1.2 NVflash and the older 1.2 ROMS that 1 gig will return and cache will return to its proper placement within the set stock partitions.
See, what you guys have latched on to is the total size of the /sdcard partition; but, that, is a red herring:
Partition sizes are fixed by CWM when you repartition the SD card--it is not changed in any other way. And, since the size of the internal SD card is fixed, and since all CWMs versions partition the SD card the same way each time, the total sizes of the both partitions cannot change drastically. Therefore, barring filesystem corruption--unlikely here because the only symptom is an inability to install new apps, the 13 GB value being reported has got to be an artifact of rounding, as I mentioned above. Plus, that 1GB is supposedly part of /sdcard, so no space is going to be deducted from /data (where apps usually live) anyway.
redeyedjedi said:
Where did that 1gig go?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nowhere. This is an artifact of the rounding out process. See above.
As usual, I just can't understand what Nobe's trying to say. Going for the most straight-forward reading, however:
nobe1976 said:
The missing 1 gig is the symlink
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope. The maximum size of a symbolic link on all the standard filesystems seen on the gtablet is only 255 bytes--not 1G.
I am working on that is set aside for data/cache and data/dalvic cache. Since the transition to make ROMs larger and our nand being only 512m that was put within either the ROM, CWM, or the boot.img so that everything will run without chopping away at the System to make it lighter, the way I do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wrong ROM, wrong partition, and, wrong bootloader.
First of all, the user's clearly stated that he has GtabComb-3.3 and a 1.1 bootloader--not any of the ICS/JB ROMs which require a different nvflash package. Second, even if the entire contents of /cache were in /data, it still wouldn't cause any reduction in the size of the /sdcard partition, which is entirely separate. See description above.
If you Flash the nand with the older 1.2 NVflash and the older 1.2 ROMS that 1 gig will return and cache will return to its proper placement within the set stock partitions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Changing the bootloader won't fix the user's problems--except as a side-effect of re-installing the ROM from scratch.
We'll have to wait until the user comes back with the various outputs and do some more tests to really find out the cause of the user's real problem: Why can't he install any apps even with enough space on /data? He also can move apps to and from the SD card just fine, apparently.
I didn't mean for miss information on this OP's problem. The 1 gig issue that redeyedjedi is seeing is in fact within the updated jellybean and ICS ROMs only. I should have made that noted. To my understanding after the busy box command you and I went through later this year is that it does impact the data partition on the updated firmware only. I soon realized that after messing with a certain /etc file that it looks to be a virtual swap placement. Busybox reads now 4 gig of data with a 4096/0 partition set in recovery after replacing that file with he that sets proper cache within /dev partition. The fact that it still shows up on standard df means that the ROM somewhere is still showing something there if I am correct or could be a ghost or something. Correct me if I am wrong please.
Sent from My SmOoThA$$ Gtablet.
nobe1976 said:
The 1 gig issue that redeyedjedi is seeing is in fact within the updated jellybean and ICS ROMs only. I should have made that noted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No.There is no 1G issue. It is just an artifact of how the partition spaces are displayed in the ROMs, and in the system-supplied df command on all Android versions. It is to avoid this sort of confusion that I ask users to use the busybox df command which displays its values (total space, free space, used space) in 1-K blocks.
To my understanding after the busy box command you and I went through later this year is that it does impact the data partition on the updated firmware only. I soon realized that after messing with a certain /etc file that it looks to be a virtual swap placement. Busybox reads now 4 gig of data with a 4096/0 partition set in recovery after replacing that file with he that sets proper cache within /dev partition. The fact that it still shows up on standard df means that the ROM somewhere is still showing something there if I am correct or could be a ghost or something. Correct me if I am wrong please.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Gladly--if only I could understand what you were after. Can you make your questions precise, mate?
So I put Carbon on my wife's tablet after not touching it for over a year. Amazing that I can come here and get exactly what I need. What a great community!
I do have a question. I have a 16gb model and a 16gb card. I can see and use the card, no problem.
Using astro or other file manager, the directories seem weird. That's not a problem. The problem is, I can only use 1gb of internal storage - is there a way to get at the balance of that? Or is it lost forever?
Sounds like your NT has the BN's old 1GB allocation for the user-media partition instead of the new 8GB.
To get a 8GB allocation, you can restore the NT to stock ROM and take it to a B&N store to have the repartition done; or you can (Google) search for a repart.img SD-based tool which also does the repartition (and in the process restore the NT to stock ROM). Either way, you can use CWM recovery to back up your current Carbon ROM before the operation and then restore it afterward.
Ah, I completely forgot about this little point. Thank you for the reminder and the options!
One more question from me about this, does it make sense in CM to have two internal storages anyway? Couldn't I just reformat it to have only one partition?
I know how to use parted, so this isn't why I am asking. I just wanted to ask here about potential other side effects.
I already reformatted that my internal memory is about 4GB and my sdcard0 storage is 10GB, but now I installed a huge app in internal memory which can't be moved to SD for some reason, and I want to at least reformat it the other way around or the default 12GB sdcard0 + 1GB internal
All apps are installed in the first internal memory anyway I have figured, so I don't know why this first sdcard0 does make sense at all? I first thought that would be used for apps, but currently there are 10 unused Gigabytes....
I am using a real sdcard in the device ( which is per default mounted as sdcard1 ), maybe that is the reason nothing is put on the internal sdcard0 ??
Any comments on this?
I'd also like to know if this can be done. I've read the posts that explain how to resize partition 10 (media) and 11 (user data), but I would like to know if it is possible to combine partition 10 and 11 into a single partition so that all available space that isn't used by the system can be used for apps and other data. Is this not possible because of different file systems or is there a way to do it?
I've also noticed that even though the Nook Tablet 16 GB physically has 1 GB RAM only 672 MB is recognized and the other 332 MB or so seems to be used as some type of virtual SD Card (this can be seen in Settings -> Apps -> On SD Card). Is there a way to make the entire 1 GB recognized and utilized? I have not been able to find any information on this anywhere.
I am running CM 10.1 on Nook Tablet 16 GB.
bluesock said:
One more question from me about this, does it make sense in CM to have two internal storages anyway? Couldn't I just reformat it to have only one partition?
I know how to use parted, so this isn't why I am asking. I just wanted to ask here about potential other side effects.
...
Any comments on this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Combining the two partitions without tweaking the ROM will likely result in errors when the system at boot time attempts to mount the partition you eliminate, and when some apps reference the file-system that supposedly resides on that eliminated partition. To avoid these errors, the eliminated partition would have be removed from boot-time auto-mount list, and its file-system root would have to be mapped (e.g., symbolically linked) to the mount point of the remaining partition.
skelnik said:
I
I've also noticed that even though the Nook Tablet 16 GB physically has 1 GB RAM only 672 MB is recognized and the other 332 MB or so seems to be used as some type of virtual SD Card (this can be seen in Settings -> Apps -> On SD Card). Is there a way to make the entire 1 GB recognized and utilized? I have not been able to find any information on this anywhere.
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The 'missing' RAM is what the OS needs to keep the device going. 672 MB RAM free sounds very reasonable. What you see in the list as apps on sd card is the virtual sd card in storage, not RAM.
Sent from my BNTV600 using Tapatalk 4
The "missing" RAM is actually shared memory for the GPU (the SGX540). Video cards need RAM to load textures and whatnot.
You might have noticed that desktops without a dedicated GPU have much lower system RAM than advertised. Ex: my laptop with 3GB of system RAM actually shows something like 2970MB RAM (instead of 3096MB). The 100 odd MB of RAM is shared by the GPU (Intel GMA). If I had a dedicated GPU in my laptop, something like the GTX M GPUs with its own RAM, I would see and be able to use the full 3096MB of system RAM. It's the same thing with mobile devices, they share system RAM with the GPU.
That makes sense about the shared resources for the system and graphics. Thank you for the explanation!
Okay, if that is all, probably changing /system/etc/vold.fstab after repartitioning/removing the emmc-sdcard-partition and symlinking the other of the partitions should do it already? Or how does the storage settings things finds the storage memories? Or is there even something a bit more deeply buried, e.g. inside the kernels initrd or something like that? Does someone know those details?
@skelnik as written in the other thread something more here ...
It probably isn't completely beginner friendly to do all this just by this information here, but I might attempt to do this too, and then will share the information as step-wise as possible. But might take some weeks until I have a bit time left...
And be aware! There probably will be some downsides when not using a physical/external sdcard at all: You will not have the internal storage accessible as a usb storage device anymore (not sure about mtp or ptp mode, but these don't access everything anyway) - so if you screw up something it might become harder to recover. You should then probably have at least some 2gb sdcard you can use, just in case. But my opinion is that you should just pay those $5 for a physical sdcard (should even give you 4 or 8GB already...) and then there won't be these problems.
Use Ineternal Storage as sdcard on Nook Tablet
bluesock said:
@skelnik And be aware! There probably will be some downsides when not using a physical/external sdcard at all: You will not have the internal storage accessible as a usb storage device anymore (not sure about mtp or ptp mode, but these don't access everything anyway)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually you will still have access from the PC (Windows OS at least) to this partition after using the internal storage as an sdcard. You need to go into the USB Connection Settings under Storage and change it to "USB Mass Storage" mode. Also USB Debugging needs to be unchecked in order for you to get prompted to enable USB Connection to PC. After that you will be able to transfer data to and from your PC to the internal partition being used like an sdcard on your Nook Tablet. That partition is set to 10GB for me so that is a huge benefit and allows me to swap out multiple external sdcards any time without disabling any apps.
skelnik said:
Actually you will still have access from the PC (Windows OS at least) to this partition after using the internal storage as an sdcard. You need to go into the USB Connection Settings under Storage and change it to "USB Mass Storage" mode. Also USB Debugging needs to be unchecked in order for you to get prompted to enable USB Connection to PC. After that you will be able to transfer data to and from your PC to the internal partition being used like an sdcard on your Nook Tablet. That partition is set to 10GB for me so that is a huge benefit and allows me to swap out multiple external sdcards any time without disabling any apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you sure you mean the same thing as me? I am talking about removing one of the partitions and just making one large partition where both /data and a link from /sdcard into that will be. As far as I understood, Android does not do a virtualization of a path but really makes one of it's partitions accessible as usb storage? Or can you also format in ext4 and still read it in Windows?
If that works I am probably not right, otherwise read on:
All your configuration data and everything is on /data and would be removed from being accessible by the system as long as it is connected as usb storage (also all installed apps, ...), and besides that you would need to use the FAT filesystem for Windows compatibility, which is also probably not the best idea, security-wise (any app being able to read sdcard would for example be able to read your wifi configuration, maybe google account login data, etc. etc.).