I made this to tide myself over until $auron can finish UrukDroid 0.6. This is a combination of the stock Archos 2.1.04 firmware, Ardatdat's Overclocked Kernel, and a manual EXT4 Conversion. It is permanently rooted and includes SuperUser. My main reason for making it was to enable read/write access to the filesystem, which rooting DOES NOT do on the stock Archos firmware, as the squashfs will still be mounted read only by /etc/mountpoints. Also, EXT4 is much faster than the compressed squashfs Archos uses. Quadrant gives ~2200 with the data partition converted to EXT4 as well, ~1800 without conversion. I have already updated Busybox to a fully compiled version, 1.16, another thing Archos decided to "secure" despite the supposed Open Source status. I have NOT edited the .hosts file to block ads, as I believe the app developers deserve to make some money, you'd be amazed how little they make, but you can do it yourself without Archangel scripts now, as the filesystem will be read/write again.
I designed it on an A101it, but it should work on any Gen8 with internal flash storage. A70H users, I can't remember your block allocations, it may work fine, but I'll need someone to post the storage layout of /dev/block/ to be sure.
For the power users, here's a quick install outline: First, make a second partition on your storage/sdcard in EXT4, extract the rootfs.tar.gz to it, and flash the appropriate initramfs and zimage. Pretty easy.
For the rest of you(probably most of you):
There is only one short step in Linux, which is setting up an EXT4 partition on your Internal Storage or your SD Card. You must make it as a second partition, not 1st, 3rd, or anything else. This means you can still use it as a storage device as well as running Android. I find it incredibly simple, and can be done in less than 3 minutes, but I will be relying on you guys to tell me what you don't understand, and I will update the instructions as needed.
This can be run off the SD Card or the Internal Storage, both versions are included in the download. It will use the existing data partition if you already have the SDE installed and 2.1.04 firmware. Otherwise, you will need to flash the SDE, which erases your data, so please use Titanium Backup first if necessary.
Step 1:
Download my files:http://www.multiupload.com/HR6SRRR8P8
And install the SDE from Archos: http://www.archos.com/support/download/firm_dev/firmware_archos_android_gen8.aos.
Step 2: Boot into stock Android and connect to a Linux PC. If you do not have Linux, download Tuxboot and use it to create a GParted Live Disk:http://gparted.sourceforge.net/liveusb.php
Step 3:
Mount your Internal Storage/SD Card from the Archos. It should now show up in GParted on the Linux PC, make sure you have the correct device selected, it should be called Archos A101T(make note of the location, e.g. /dev/sdb). Resize your existing partition with GParted, leaving about 300MB at the end of the Internal Storage/SD Card. Make a new partition in the empty space, and select ext4 as filesystem. Apply Changes. Now open a terminal, elevate yourself to root by typing
Code:
sudo -s
and format the new partition by typing
Code:
mkfs.ext4 -O ^huge_file /dev/sdb2
Substitute "sdb" for whatever your device location was in GParted. The "2" on the end of "sdb" denotes that it is the second partition. Do NOT format "sdb1" or any other "sd"s. Mount the new partition by opening Nautilus or any other file manager and double clicking on the "300MB Filesystem" entry on the left. Untar the rootfs.tar.gz from my files with the Archive Manager, it works just like winzip or winrar, into the root of the new partition. Eject the device from Linux, then reboot into the Developer Menu by holding vol- or vol+ while booting.
Step 4:
Flash the initramfs.cpio.gz and the zimage from my files. Use the files from the "internal" folder if you are running from Internal Storage, or the files from "sdcard" if you are running from the SD Card.
Step 5:
Use the Dev Menu to boot into Developer Edition. Let me know about any bugs. After I removed the Android Boot option from the Dev Menu, I had a few strange loops of the Archos animation while booting, but it did boot, and function, just fine.
Thanks go to Ardatdat for the kernel, Archos for the crappy "securing" of the squashfs, and $auron for motivating me to get back into development.
Hi msticninja ,
I did it It seems so smooth. I used my internal storage. But linux steps were not so simple for me I used a Fedora 14 VMWare image.
I'm at work so I can't play with it but it seems stable and it can awake.
Quadrant (I know it's not accurate) score is about 1900 (internal and ext4).
I think that you should add some descriptions about linux steps (for noobs like me).
Thanks...
PS: Did I move my DATA partition to EXT4? (I did all steps you wrote). If no how can I do?
Nice work! I'll be trying to add more instructions for the Linux section for the next couple of days.
Your data partition is still EXT3, I haven't found a very easy way to convert it yet. Basically, I made another partition on the Internal Storage, copied the data partition there, and flashed a new initramfs to boot off the new data partition. Then you fdisk and format the original partition from a terminal in the Archos or ADB, copy everything back, and flash ANOTHER initramfs to use the original, now EXT4, partition.
So far, I don't think the performance gain for the data partition is worth all that work.
It works and installs well but your guide how to install it is not complete. For example, I had to manually maintain write permissions of the partition and sudo is needed by the mkfs.ext4 -O ^huge_file /dev/sdb2
Hondaracer said:
It works and installs well but your guide how to install it is not complete. For example, I had to manually maintain write permissions of the partition and sudo is needed by the mkfs.ext4 -O ^huge_file /dev/sdb2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, i automatically elevate permissions when I do stuff like this. I've added sudo to the instructions. As far as manually maintaining the partition permission, what did you have to do there?
msticninja said:
Sorry, i automatically elevate permissions when I do stuff like this. I've added sudo to the instructions. As far as manually maintaining the partition permission, what did you have to do there?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had to type this: sudo chown -R username:usergroup /media By the way thanks for the work you've done
Hondaracer said:
I had to type this: sudo chown -R username:usergroup /media By the way thanks for the work you've done
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If that was before using mkfs.ext4, then that is strange. After mkfs though, the owner should be root. I should point out that the rootfs.tar.gz should be extracted as root, which means you have to open the archive manager from a terminal. I need to find an easy process that will work on all distros, as I don't know how many have nautilus installed.
Thanks for your replies, this is much needed feedback.
msticninja said:
If that was before using mkfs.ext4, then that is strange. After mkfs though, the owner should be root. I should point out that the rootfs.tar.gz should be extracted as root, which means you have to open the archive manager from a terminal. I need to find an easy process that will work on all distros, as I don't know how many have nautilus installed.
Thanks for your replies, this is much needed feedback.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had to do this to be able to write the rootfs to dev/sdb2. But I must say I did a reboot before I copied the files cause Ubuntu started to act very weird. And for the beginner I'd might be good to mention that you have to unmount in GParted.
I've tried it and feels slower than Uruk 0.6RC2 on Scandisk SDHC 8GB Class 4 (without OC).
Thank you for your great work!
chisco said:
I've tried it and feels slower than Uruk 0.6RC2 on Scandisk SDHC 8GB Class 4 (without OC).
Thank you for your great work!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not surprised. This is the stock firmware with none of Uruk's enhancements, other than ext4 and a new kernel. As i said, this is to tide people over until the official Uruk thread gets 0.6. You're already on the beta 0.6, so there's not much need for my firmware.
I just wrote an automatic install script. All you have to do is copy a file to your internal storage or sd card, and flash the initramfs/zimage in the Dev Menu. This one will replace the current Archos partition so you won't lose any space on your storage device. Should be uploaded tonight.
I tried this method with last OC Kernel (11 FEB): very good... With this method, we use same data as for stock ROM, so no need to reinstall all apps...
Thanks.
Hi.
I've rooted my A70s with chulri's kernel and it seems to work ok.
My next goal is to get more app room ... so I guess I need to resize the app/data partition.
I've thought that having my internal storage formatted on ext4, it would be possible to ln the /data folder to /storage/data without problems, but then I should create a boot script for that. The question is... can I do this with my current root status? What would be the way to do it? I'm don't know enough of linux os to make it on my own.
If the system can't be fooled with a ln, then is there any way to resize the data partition, even if I have to backup/restore my current data?
I don't want to use Urukdroid, since all the versions I tried were very unstable on my machine.
Cheers!!
search the forum: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=14710945#post14710945
Follow chulri's method, or repartition your internal storage in Linux, mount it on the archos, and copy the data there. Then edit init.rc and change the data mount line. If it gets mounted in the kernel, you'll have to umount it first to remount it to the other partition.
I contributed only a tiny bit to the CM7 Alpha thread in the Development section, explaining how to use MiniTool Partition Wizard as a start to prep an SD card if you're in Windows. I decided to try the Ubuntu method just to have that in my pocket but ran into some trouble.
I've used Ubuntu CD boot before, but never to do something like gparted. I've done this in other linux systems so I'm a little familiar with it. What happened was I removed all the existing partitions from my guinea-pig SD card, used gparted to create the 50MB FAT32 and 2 2GB ext4 partitions. Formatted. Did the lba and boot on the FAT32. But when I went to copy the system files into the system ext4 I got "permission denied". Both ext4 partitions did not allow write access, and I could not change it using either the Permissions panel or command line chmod. I suspect this is something obvious but I can't figure out what to do.
I believe you have to copy the files to the system partition as the root user.
Enter the command:
Code:
$ sudo file-roller
After you enter your password, this will open up the archive manager as root. Open the system.ext4.tar from within archive manager, and then extract the files to your system partition.
Yeah, I did that. Don't know why it didn't work. I'll give it another try tonight.
Hi guys
Using ADB copied all the individual partitions (boot, aboot, system, recovery, etc) from my device to my sd card and then to my pc (Linux). Device is a Hisense Infinity H6 (HS-U800).
I am unable to mount any of the files, and have tried gdisk, fdisk, mount. I get a mount error or wring filesystem type.
Also trying to dd the entire block directly makes a single image that i am unable to read. I tried using gdisk to repair the gpt or recreate an mbr but to no avail.
I would prefer to work with the individual partitions as it appears that they have different filesystems for each. But when I specify the filesystem using mount i get a wring filesystem error.
Would appreciate any help, thanks.
PS
I'm using Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.
###
EDIT
###
Never mind, it turns out that if you dd directly from phone memory to pc android corrupts the files. Fixed it by using the sdcard as an intermediary step.
Hello all,
I'm hoping someone can help me with this. Long story short, I've bricked my Prime. I was running TWRP recovery (AndroWook, so 2.6.something?) and KatKiss v30 when things went south... but unbricking is for another day.
I'm more interested in getting some data that didn't make it into my last backup off the /sdcard. I don't have access to the device itself (adb or fastboot, haven't tried APX yet), but I did managed to take an image of /dev/block/mmcblk0p8 via the dd command.
The problem is I can't mount it as a loop device in Linux. The problem that started all this was that KatKiss wouldn't boot... the output of "fdisk -l /dev/block/mmcblk0" suggested that its partition table was corrupted or gone.
Various suggestions on XDA and elsewhere (xmount, kpartx, etc.) haven't allowed me to mount this backup image... I'm wondering if the missing partition table isn't the issue.
[email protected]:~/prime_backup_microsdcard_32G_20151227$ sudo mount -t auto -o
loop tf201-mmcblk0p8.img /mnt
NTFS signature is missing.
Failed to mount '/dev/loop3': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/loop3' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?
So my thought is to try the following:
1. Create a virtual HD of >27.GB (the size of the backup image).
2. Create a partition of the exact size/dimensions as the backup I have, and ensure I'm able to mount it.
3. Restore the backup to this partition using dd.
4. Profit.
Does this make sense, and if so, what format is /dev/block/mmcblk0p8? Based on the steps to install KatKiss I would have guessed f2fs, but the mount error above makes me think otherwise.
Thanks in advance for your help.
ACP