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Since the bootloader is bypasased, is it possible to change the partition layout of the internal storage?
Shaumux said:
Since the bootloader is bypasased, is it possible to change the partition layout of the internal storage?
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may i ask why exactly?
btw... wrong section...
why is not a good question, for android,
a partial answer would be because its possible on other phones.
i thought this is related to android devlopment and the bootloader dev so this would be the right section
i'm sorry if its not.
anyway the question is still unanswered
Shaumux said:
why is not a good question, for android,
a partial answer would be because its possible on other phones.
i thought this is related to android devlopment and the bootloader dev so this would be the right section
i'm sorry if its not.
anyway the question is still unanswered
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i am not sure if it will work... are u thinking about changing sizes of internal partitions or something like that?
can u guide me to the links where they have changed partition layout on other androids? will read up on the advantages/etc...
Here http://alpharev.nl/ and
here http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/topic/10726-how-to-increase-desire-internal-storage/
The biggest advantage i can think of would be to reallocate wasted space to where its really need, which will depend on the user i guess.
This brings up another interesting thing to my mind.
Changing the filesystem.
It is possible in android, can't say about X10 though.
maybe just for the fun of it or maybe another filesystem may give better performance.
What about support for ext2 filesystem ? That would help wont it ?
Sent from my X10 TripNMiUI
Shaumux said:
Here http://alpharev.nl/ and
here http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/topic/10726-how-to-increase-desire-internal-storage/
The biggest advantage i can think of would be to reallocate wasted space to where its really need, which will depend on the user i guess.
This brings up another interesting thing to my mind.
Changing the filesystem.
It is possible in android, can't say about X10 though.
maybe just for the fun of it or maybe another filesystem may give better performance.
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Just became a little slow on fs ques. I hope it is possible.
Sent from my X10 TripNMiUI
@realunited123: well i can't say if ext2 will really help or not, its quite outdated now and i also don't think that it would be a good choice for fs on flash.
But btrfs or ext4 would be different.
btrfs specially has many features for flash memory.
But the main question is can these things be really done since the bootloader isn't cracked just bypassed, so would it still search the original partitions?
Lol i meant ext4. Damn swiftkey changes it automatically.
Sent from my X10 TripNMiUI
And also certain parts of nand can not be accessed/written without bricking the device. So there is a big chance it is not possible.
Sent from my X10 TripNMiUI
ext4
Shaumux said:
Since the bootloader is bypasased, is it possible to change the partition layout of the internal storage?
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Click to collapse
that would be big performance boost for our device.
with samsung galaxy s my mate using ext4, and file system performance went hight!
i am waiting for a sollution to change from ext2 (old very old) to ext4 !
anyway : i am using linux as desktop, and server , and PHONE! and only my pgone is locked to ext2....
actually currently we are on yaffs2 and not ext2
tiborprogmed said:
that would be big performance boost for our device.
with samsung galaxy s my mate using ext4, and file system performance went hight!
i am waiting for a sollution to change from ext2 (old very old) to ext4 !
anyway : i am using linux as desktop, and server , and PHONE! and only my pgone is locked to ext2....
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We are not on ext2. The reason the SGS sees such an improvement is because the original filesystem sucks. The X10's is yaffs2, which is good to begin with, so we would only see minimal gains, if any. zdzihu has had those modules for a long time and doesn't waste our time with them for that reason.
ext4 is not a good idea. While performance under ext4 may be better, yaffs2 is optimized for wear leveling and error correction under flash memory. Those people running ext4 on their internal flash are wearing out their NAND storage at up to twice as fast, possibly faster. Their phone will die much quicker.
This is possible yes. But we would need to have a modified flashtool to support it, and we would need a modified recovery build and some other firmware files for the modified flashtool to use. This is because we cannot access the boot partition or the kernel via recovery, so we can't run a fancy script like the brilliant CustomMTD script/patcher (for example - mainly for HTC phones if I remember correctly).
While I'm nearly certain that's the rough idea of what has to be done, I could still be wrong because it's beyond my ability.
jonusc said:
ext4 is not a good idea. While performance under ext4 may be better, yaffs2 is optimized for wear leveling and error correction under flash memory. Those people running ext4 on their internal flash are wearing out their NAND storage at up to twice as fast, possibly faster. Their phone will die much quicker.
This is possible yes. But we would need to have a modified flashtool to support it, and we would need a modified recovery build and some other firmware files for the modified flashtool to use. This is because we cannot access the boot partition or the kernel via recovery, so we can't run a fancy script like the brilliant CustomMTD script/patcher (for example - mainly for HTC phones if I remember correctly).
While I'm nearly certain that's the rough idea of what has to be done, I could still be wrong because it's beyond my ability.
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Yeah but we may still use UBIFS or whatever.
The main thing here is that the users gets a choice and i don't see any problem if its through flashtool atleast for now.
and i think the ability to resize the partitions would also be a very useful thing since the rom partiitons seems to be excessively sized than required especially with custom roms.
Hi everyone,
I am eager to try out ICS' disk encryption feature. One thing is it requires that /data is in ext4 format. This is on a SonyEricsson Active and the default FS type for /data is yaffs2.
I've tried a few different things but I'm not getting anywhere. I've also seen a few threads here with posts of zip files that should do it but none for the SE Active. I would like to try this from the Recovery mod CLI. I already have ICS 9.2 installed and running on it no problem.
Any suggestions?
Thanks! I hope this is the right forum to post this in.
Hi,
I recently got to know, that my tab is using UBIFS as file system...what are the advantages compared to the normal ext2-ext4?
I thought about migrating to the ext filesystems, but if someone tells me that UBIFS is better, I'd stay on UBIFS...
Regards
Hi,
TheSSJ said:
Hi,
I recently got to know, that my tab is using UBIFS as file system...what are the advantages compared to the normal ext2-ext4?
I thought about migrating to the ext filesystems, but if someone tells me that UBIFS is better, I'd stay on UBIFS...
Regards
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the problem running ext2/3/4 on flash is - sooner or later you will kill the flash. One might not notice it say, on a USB stick, when data is just copied from one place to another occasionally, but things look different if you use it as your root file system where things get written onto it all the time.
I am sure there are more of them around, I am only familiar wit JFFS2 and UBIFS, both are designed for flash media and implement wear leveling routines to make sure that the flash lasts longer.
JFFS2 is somewhat old now, UBIFS is newer and from what I know - better.
I use devices with UBIFS at work and it proved itself very robust, during development I often simply plug off mains without a clean shutdown and I still never ran into a file system corruption or anything like that. So, good to know that our tablets use it
Kind regards,
Jin
Thanks for the clarification. Another question:
Does any kernel support UBIFS or do I normally need to insmod the corresponding module?
TheSSJ said:
I recently got to know, that my tab is using UBIFS as file system...what are the advantages compared to the normal ext2-ext4?
I thought about migrating to the ext file systems, but if someone tells me that UBIFS is better, I'd stay on UBIFS...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Different things, different usages.
UBIFS, YAFFS2 etc are file systems for NAND flash devices. Those memories are not block devices.
EXT3, EXT4, VFAT etc are file systems for block devices, and can not use non block devices such as NAND flash devices.
To be able to use a block device file system on a NAND device, you'll need a Flash Translation Layer (FTL). In every USB memory stick, SSD, SDcard etc, you are viewing the NAND flash via such a translation integrated into the device itself, hence you are able to format is using an ordinary file system such as FAT or EXT4. In GNU/Linux (hence Android as well), you've got such a translation layer in the MTD device (look in /proc/mtd).
TheSSJ said:
Thanks for the clarification. Another question:
Does any kernel support UBIFS or do I normally need to insmod the corresponding module?
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Theoretically it should be doable if you compile the ubifs modules for your kernel, I did not try that yet, when I was using it for some non tablet ARM9 boxes I simply compiled it into the kernel:
CONFIG_MTD_UBI=y
CONFIG_MTD_UBI_WL_THRESHOLD=4096
CONFIG_MTD_UBI_BEB_RESERVE=1
CONFIG_UBIFS_FS=y
CONFIG_UBIFS_FS_XATTR=y
kuisma said:
Different things, different usages.
UBIFS, YAFFS2 etc are file systems for NAND flash devices. Those memories are not block devices.
EXT3, EXT4, VFAT etc are file systems for block devices, and can not use non block devices such as NAND flash devices.
To be able to use a block device file system on a NAND device, you'll need a Flash Translation Layer (FTL). In every USB memory stick, SSD, SDcard etc, you are viewing the NAND flash via such a translation integrated into the device itself, hence you are able to format is using an ordinary file system such as FAT or EXT4. In GNU/Linux (hence Android as well), you've got such a translation layer in the MTD device (look in /proc/mtd).
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It turned out that TrekStor Ventos 9.7 tablet uses ext4 file systems, does that mean that this is because of the way how they integrated the flash?
As far I know that for USB sticks / SDcards you can not get around the FTL, would be interesting if this is also the case for the Ventos tablet or if switching to UBIFS would be possible there. Main problem with FTL in my opinion is, that it is usually optimized for specific use cases and mostly those use cases do not include write patters that you have when the device is used as a root file system. That's where UBIFS does a much better job at preserving the flash.
Jin^eLD said:
It turned out that TrekStor Ventos 9.7 tablet uses ext4 file systems, does that mean that this is because of the way how they integrated the flash?
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Somewhere you'll need the FTL. If using MMC technology, it's in the memory device itself.
Jin^eLD said:
As far I know that for USB sticks / SDcards you can not get around the FTL, would be interesting if this is also the case for the Ventos tablet or if switching to UBIFS would be possible there.
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If FTL in software, such as in the MTD case, this would be possible, yes.
Jin^eLD said:
Main problem with FTL in my opinion is, that it is usually optimized for specific use cases and mostly those use cases do not include write patters that you have when the device is used as a root file system. That's where UBIFS does a much better job at preserving the flash.
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Android places its root file system in RAM, not in flash.
The FTL is what differs the flash memory (SSDs, MMCs etc) vendors from each other. Some manufacturers priorities read speed, other write speed, and yet other random access etc. Some uses more spare chips extending the life of the device, at the cost of a more expensive unit. Other throttles the write speed to guarantee the functionality during the warranty period. Basically you'll get what you pay for.
kuisma said:
Android places its root file system in RAM, not in flash.
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Click to collapse
Oh.. OK, I did not know that, I'm still quite new to Android. So far I've been playing around with ARM9 devices, building root file systems with OpenEmbedded, but just starting with Android now.
kuisma said:
The FTL is what differs the flash memory (SSDs, MMCs etc) vendors from each other. Some manufacturers priorities read speed, other write speed, and yet other random access etc. Some uses more spare chips extending the life of the device, at the cost of a more expensive unit. Other throttles the write speed to guarantee the functionality during the warranty period. Basically you'll get what you pay for.
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-> "Basically you'll get what you pay for."
That's what I fear I had very positive experiences with UBIFS so I'd rather rely on it doing the job than on an FTL, which I know nothing about, that is used in my el-cheapo tablet.
Jin^eLD said:
Oh.. OK, I did not know that, I'm still quite new to Android. So far I've been playing around with ARM9 devices, building root file systems with OpenEmbedded, but just starting with Android now.
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Also, once booted, it remounts root as read-only, so I wouldn't worry too much about wear leveling.
Jin^eLD said:
-> "Basically you'll get what you pay for."
That's what I fear I had very positive experiences with UBIFS so I'd rather rely on it doing the job than on an FTL, which I know nothing about, that is used in my el-cheapo tablet.
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Sure, if you know what you are doing, controlling the FTL, and you can optimize the performance for the particular task you are using the device for. Buying a ready-to-use device using an integrated FTL, and the manufacturer have no other choice than adjusting the FTL parameters for the average customer usage. Still, in most cases I would say this is good enough and the risk of manually creating an even worse profile is quite likely for a noob such as myself.
kuisma said:
Different things, different usages.
UBIFS, YAFFS2 etc are file systems for NAND flash devices. Those memories are not block devices.
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Click to collapse
Oh, this explains why I got a corrupted recovery by dumping /dev/block/mtdblock3 on my uImage/ubifs powered tab...It worked when I dumped /dev/mtd/mtd3 though...
Thanks for the explanation!
need help !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
hey bro
how can i take backup of my ubifs rom
and flash ubifs rom on my mt6572 ( in case needed)
TheSSJ said:
Hi,
I recently got to know, that my tab is using UBIFS as file system...what are the advantages compared to the normal ext2-ext4?
I thought about migrating to the ext filesystems, but if someone tells me that UBIFS is better, I'd stay on UBIFS...
Regards
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Click to collapse
Hey bro, you said youll migrate to ext4 if it is better. How can you that? Ive been searching for a way to format my ubifs phone to ext4. I hope you can help me
I've created a single primary Ext2 partition in my phone's external SD card but Android refuses to mount it automatically. Whenever I attempted to mount it manually it kept throwing the error "mount operation not supported on transport endpoint".
How can I mount it?
Using (SlimKat) Android 4.4.2.
EDIT: I'm now able to mount it only manually but have to specify ext4 as its filesystem -- why and will it make a difference since ext2 is non-journalled? Also, I tried adding a mount entry in /fstab.smdk4x12 but it was deleted upon reboot; does this mean no manual entries are allowed in that file and I will instead have to hack my own /init-xx.rc file to manually mount the partition at boot time?
miguelg_ said:
I've created a single primary Ext2 partition in my phone's external SD card but Android refuses to mount it automatically. Whenever I attempted to mount it manually it kept throwing the error "mount operation not supported on transport endpoint".
How can I mount it?
Using (SlimKat) Android 4.4.2.
EDIT: I'm now able to mount it only manually but have to specify ext4 as its filesystem -- why and will it make a difference since ext2 is non-journalled? Also, I tried adding a mount entry in /fstab.smdk4x12 but it was deleted upon reboot; does this mean no manual entries are allowed in that file and I will instead have to hack my own /init-xx.rc file to manually mount the partition at boot time?
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Why not just reformat to ext4?
es0tericcha0s said:
Why not just reformat to ext4?
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Ultimately that's what I'll need to do but was hoping to use the non-journalled ext2. Is it not supported by Android or it the case that only some versions support it (in which case, what idiocy!)?
Have to say I'm beginning to truly hate Android. They might as well build their own kernel such that Linux (and by implication UNIX) is removed from the mix for they have completely butchered this OS. I suppose this is what happens when egos larger than the world are responsible for designing software; NIH syndrome.
Answering myself: if anyone is wondering how to automount a partition at boot time, you'll have to create your own init script and place in /system/etc/init.d/.
Well, realistically, the amount of people that have any use for mounting ext2/3/4 etc partitions is a very small % of users. Most people with android phones don't even know what Linux is, much less know about different kinds of partitions and what they are used for - or have a need for it. 99% of things you would NEED to do on a phone would be covered by the fat32 and exFat types. Of course, here on XDA, you'll find plenty of posts, guides, complaints about it, etc but there's obviously a certain type of user that seeks out or finds XDA and are more inclined to know of or have use for more technical things like this.
As far as auto-mounting the script on boot, you have to be rooted with init.d enabled and not all phones have full /system RW capabilities to even add stuff like that even when rooted. This is rare, but there's some HTCs and others like that. Often times there are ways around, but just saying, it's not a universal thing.
es0tericcha0s said:
Well, realistically, the amount of people that have any use for mounting ext2/3/4 etc partitions is a very small % of users. Most people with android phones don't even know what Linux is, much less know about different kinds of partitions and what they are used for - or have a need for it. 99% of things you would NEED to do on a phone would be covered by the fat32 and exFat types. Of course, here on XDA, you'll find plenty of posts, guides, complaints about it, etc but there's obviously a certain type of user that seeks out or finds XDA and are more inclined to know of or have use for more technical things like this.
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Click to collapse
That doesn't excuse the fact that they've deliberately crippled the OS. As an example, the FAT filesystems don't support symbolic links, which means that if you want to move any data outside of internal storage for whatever reason, you pretty much need an extX partition. Besides, those people (the vast majority) who don't know and don't care about the internals of their devices aren't the ones creating software for said devices in the first place. We are. And so these technical aspects matter and are relevant to us, not the masses.
es0tericcha0s said:
As far as auto-mounting the script on boot, you have to be rooted with init.d enabled and not all phones have full /system RW capabilities to even add stuff like that even when rooted. This is rare, but there's some HTCs and others like that. Often times there are ways around, but just saying, it's not a universal thing.
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Didn't know about that limitation. Can you not remount the rootfs with RW privileges? And do you mean to say that some devices don't even support init.d; if so, what mechanism do they have in place?
miguelg_ said:
That doesn't excuse the fact that they've deliberately crippled the OS. As an example, the FAT filesystems don't support symbolic links, which means that if you want to move any data outside of internal storage for whatever reason, you pretty much need an extX partition. Besides, those people (the vast majority) who don't know and don't care about the internals of their devices aren't the ones creating software for said devices in the first place. We are. And so these technical aspects matter and are relevant to us, not the masses.
Didn't know about that limitation. Can you not remount the rootfs with RW privileges? And do you mean to say that some devices don't even support init.d; if so, what mechanism do they have in place?
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Well, cripple might be a bit of hyperbole considering it's not something most people would need. I get your point though, it is weird that it's not native since it works with Linux generally. You can link symbolically to FAT systems while rooted with something like this:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.devasque.fmount
And yes, the tech people are creating software for these devices, but they are made for the general public, because that's who buy 90% of these things.
Could you please clarify what you said earlier on the read-only init.d and even some devices not supporting it? Again, thanks for your input, es0tericcha0s.
miguelg_ said:
Could you please clarify what you said earlier on the read-only init.d and even some devices not supporting it? Again, thanks for your input, es0tericcha0s.
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Sure. Most android devices, actually I can't think of any of the top of my head, don't come with native init.d support or even have init.d that is not accessible. It's just not there. It's enabled in almost all custom roms, or you can add it yourself to many stock roms via a couple different ways like this:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.androguide.universal.init.d
As far as the system RW issue, some phones, like many newer HTCs, have the system protected so that you can make changes to the /system while booted, no problem, but once you reboot, all the changes will get undone. Very annoying. Example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV3YaMBnEYI
I want to edit the partition layout (HDX 7", 13.3.2.3.2, TWRP). But seems that I am missing the knowledge
Imho /system(1.2GB) and /cache(1GB) are oversized, when using a Custon ROM. For me /system with around 500MB is more than enough. And /cache 200-300M(?), so around 1.5GB to free and add to /datamedia
After reading around, I am more confused than before. I am not able to hex-edit appsboot (do not find matching values?), nor I am able to use the Qualcomm-Tool in the right way. Maybe the info was right, that appsboot.mbn (partition.mbn?) has to be compiled from the scratch(?) Not my league.
Long story for explaining question
Is somebody out there with a solution, e.g. something I can flash? :fingers-crossed: