Jesus freak 1.5 apps to sd help? - G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

i just installed jesus freak 1.5. i also purchased a 16gb micro sdhc card. I would like to know how to get apps to sd running correctly. I have followed another method and messed up the sd card. so i purchased a brand new one and before i even take it out of the package, i would like to talk to someone that has had sucesssful experience.
Thanx in Advance

A2SD in a Nutshell
the essence of apps2sd is:
1) creating a vfat/fat32 partition for storing user data
2) creating a second partition, ext2 to hold your apps and caches
3) creating directories within the ext2 partition on the SD to house your caches and apps
4) copying your apps and caches to the SD within the appropriate directories on the ext2 partition
5) rebooting within recovery console and deleting the original app and cache directories, AND
6) symbolically linking the ext2 apps/cache folders on the SD to the appropriate system partition folder names
7) rebooting to android and testing apps to determine which need to be reinstalled or reconfigured
your ext2 partition need not be very large relative to the volume of the SD; half a gig is normally adequate
pre-requisites:
you will need regular access to an OS that supports the ext2 filesystem, like linux. this is important because if your ext2 partition ever becomes damaged, the linux system has the tools to fix the ext2 filesystem errors.
you will need to know the commands for creating partitions on your SD
you should know how to use ADB to connect to your G1's shell, though this is optional
you need to know how to (re)boot to the recovery console and use its shell
you need to be familiar with the commands required to copy directories, create and delete directories, and create symbolic links

There are other Threads that have other programs and tutorials, but I used this one the other day on a JF 1.5 and it worked well.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=512743
Only issue I had was I had to move JF Updater back to Phone from SD , but that could have been a glitch when the phone checked for an update. The two apps used AppstoSD2 and a2sd pretty much do everything for you , very minimal command line required on your part.
Only thing to make it better would be an interface to either move the apps back to phone or integrate it so it would ask you when you install an app where to put it. But I am very happy with it. 16GB might be over kill , I have a 8 GB but they say not to go over 1.5 GB with the Ext2 partition, so while you will have 6.5 ( relative ) GB of space for Movies,Images, MP3's, Uninstalled apps, you are really limited to the 1.5GB for apps , well plus internal phone memory I guess. But for phone apps that's probably way more than enough.

question: how do you partition a 16gb sdcard? all the numbers and all that. ive done an 8 gb sd card and that was easy cause i was working with mb's. now with gb im lost. i got to parted and i typed up print and got 16.1gb if you could help me with the numbers for fat32,ext2/3,linux-swap. i would greatly appreciate it...

Personally, I would reccoment switching to a Cyanogen ROM. It's based off the same source as JF, but one of the features it has is automatic Apps2SD. This means you but have to push files here and there, whuch believe me can be a pain. It does still require an ext partition which you would have to format your self, but after that it will work without and modifications.

Do no more then 512 MB for your ext2(3,4) partition
Follow this guide for the card partitioning. Flash CM's rom and it will do apps2sd for you automatically.
Your other card is most likely not all lost and could be salvaged still, I would look into it if I was you, 16gb cards are not cheap.
And for the last time: it is Jeusus FREKE not Jesus Freak, Have some respect for the one who layed the foundation for us, at least enough to spell his name correctly.

AdrianK said:
Personally, I would reccoment switching to a Cyanogen ROM. It's based off the same source as JF, but one of the features it has is automatic Apps2SD. This means you but have to push files here and there, whuch believe me can be a pain. It does still require an ext partition which you would have to format your self, but after that it will work without and modifications.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I second that, and also jf won't be doing ROM any more :[
http://jf.andblogs.net/

Related

help with apps to sd

hi i needed help with apps to sd card i recently rooted my g1 to cm 4.2.14.1. i was reading that it does it automatically thru this mod if you have a partitioned sd card which i do but i notice everytime i download a new app my internal phone storage goes down. i was wondering if that was normal or if its only suppose to go down on the partition? im really noob to this who rooting process so please help!
Applications not only store information in the apk, but also other places, /data/data/ for instance.
Delete the partition then see how much space applications use if you want to compare the difference. It could also be browser cache and other things that store information on the phone memory.
Cyanmod rom will automatically do apps2sd if it see a new partition EXT2
You have to do that on your own.
The easiest way I found to do that is use amon_ra's recovery 1.2.3 instead of Cyans
It has an option in the recover screen to partition and add EXT2 .
Now im new to this I dont know how to increase the default of value of XXXmb in ext 2 .
So if some one can chime in and tell me in the simplest way how to change how big the ext2 partition is that would be great.
OP I hope I helped you if you need more help PM me.
Edit I figured it out.
Just use linux to partition ext2/3 and define how much space your sd2apps will use on ext2 partition.

Cripes, so confused about DarkTremor A2SD on CM7

I'm really surprised that there is no documentation on this thing that I can understand. I'm having major issues with CM7 with DT A2SD. Every one of my widgets is broken. I can't tell what's installed to EXT and what's not. If I go into Manage Applications, all of the widget apps are installed to phone. I have next to zero internal space left.
I need to know how I can differentiate what's on internal, what's on Froyo SD, and what's on DT A2SD - As well as how to move them and tell where each app is going.
i honestly wish i knew. this is on my list to do, but i didnt feel like formatting my memory card cause there's so much on it, so i am just hoping gingerbread improved method will give me enough space.
i wish there was a tutorial or wiki for DT A2SD. you prob should just read that whole thread and it is explained there somewhere.
Some quick commands executed from adb shell or even the terminal on the phone can give you some more information:
a2sd check will give you basic diagnostic information from the DT a2sd script - this will reveal what is running where (apps on /sd-ext, data location, etc).
ls -al /data will help you understand what a2sd actually does for you. If a2sd is set up correctly, you should see an entry similar to "app --> /sd-ext/app", which indicates your /data/app directory is symbolically-linked to your /sd-ext partition (the ext-formatted partition on your SD card). This makes Android see /sd-ext/app and /data/app as the exact same thing, and everything within that folder will actually reside on the /sd-ext partition. The same thing applies to the dalvik-cache.
You can find out more about using a2sd via the a2sd help command, which shows an easy-to-understand listing of the various a2sd commands available.
All the documentation is in DarkTremor's thread.
There is no choosing in A2SD. If it's installed - all apps that are shown as "internal" go to EXT partition. But the phone doesn't know it, and you won't see it in OS visually in any place.
You can choose if you're sending your app data and your Dalvik-cache to SD also, that you can do from the Terminal (command line).
I should probably mention that all apps that are installed to SD using stock Froyo method, remain there - and cause a waste of space. So using A2SD you should move ALL your apps to "internal memory" (substituted with EXT partition).
This is a handy link for Darktremor users...
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=158826790833326
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
Hmm.. maybe I should had included some more info.
If I use Root Explorer and check my sd-ext folder, it does have apps within, and from install date I can tell they're from my CM7 install (plus I wiped everything including SD-EXT before flashing anyway). The problem is that some of these apps are things I do NOT want on SD-FAT or SD-EXT, I need them on internal (basically anything that I use with widgets, and LauncherPro). Pretty sure having widgets on EXT is what's causing my home screens to **** the bed.
Checked Install Location, right now that's set to Automatic.
If I go to Manage Applications, these apps appear to be on internal (Move to SD card is available on the button). I've read the FB page and original thread, I still see no way to differentiate between Internal, SD-FAT and SD-EXT - or how to move them between with certainty.
/sd-ext is the same as internal for all intents and purposes. You don't choose what apps to run off of /sd-ext, they all do. This is not causing your widget issues.
If you use DT a2sd, "Internal" becomes synonymous with "sd-ext". They are one and the same.
You SHOULD, however, move all of your apps off of SD-FAT - that is the implementation of "apps to sd" that breaks widgets.
Ok, I moved all of my apps off of SD-FAT and back to internal.. seems to be going well so far. The only thing I'm curious about now is that I didn't really get any space back, I still only have 21MB free (cleared browser and market cache as well). I've obviously messed something up somewhere along the line. Any ideas? I'm such a n00b at this apparently.
I really appreciate the help thus far guys!
You shouldn't have. Your space doesn't change as a result of moving apps to SD and back anymore - because they're all either on EXT, or partially on EXT and partially on FAT32.
If you don't have enough space left on internal memory - which can happen, if you have a lot of apps and they use a lot of data - you can move app data to SD and also Dalvik-cache to SD. This is done using command line commands.
One of those is usually enough.
I prefer the Dalvik-cache on SD - it might be a bit slower (never noticed that), but at least system settings (that are stored in /data/data) remain on the phone's internal memory and aren't prone to corruption.
Jack_R1 said:
You shouldn't have. Your space doesn't change as a result of moving apps to SD and back anymore - because they're all either on EXT, or partially on EXT and partially on FAT32.
If you don't have enough space left on internal memory - which can happen, if you have a lot of apps and they use a lot of data - you can move app data to SD and also Dalvik-cache to SD. This is done using command line commands.
One of those is usually enough.
I prefer the Dalvik-cache on SD - it might be a bit slower (never noticed that), but at least system settings (that are stored in /data/data) remain on the phone's internal memory and aren't prone to corruption.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On that note, moving the dalvik-cache is generally a better idea than moving /data/data. Better stability and compatibility and whatnot. Only bother with moving /data/data if you really really need the space.
You can move the dalvik-cache to sd with the a2sd cachesd command in either the terminal or adb shell.
OH MAN THANK YOU! Moved dalvik to SD-EXT and that did it! 120MB free! Time for a downloading spree!
level5music said:
OH MAN THANK YOU! Moved dalvik to SD-EXT and that did it! 120MB free! Time for a downloading spree!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad to help

Partition SD card on Windows for people who can't be bothered to do it properly ;)

Firstly, BlaY0 has a great tutorial on how to do this properly, I suggest you do that to learn something.
Secondly, I cannot confirm that this is 100% safe. BlaY0's method should be 99% safe, I don't know about this as it is all automatic. BlaY0's method is tried and tested, this is not. I only used this method as I had a new SD card and I was in a hurry (exams coming up ) and I didn't have time to remind myself of BlaY0's method, and CWM only allows you to create up to 512mb partition. Also, I had a new computer, and I don't have time to set up ADB all over again.
Anyway, this is a method for people who don't want to use ADB to partition their SD card for A2EXT or DATA2EXT (a.k.a. apps2sd, etc etc), and are using Windows. If you're running linux, you could use something like gParted to partition it, not sure about OS X though. This method will allow a Windows user to create an EXT partition on their SD card alongside the FAT partition.
1) Download and install Minitool Partition Wizard, from here.
2) Open the program and delete all partitions from the SD card (which you will have inserted into the computer using an adapter or something). DO NOT DELETE THE PARTITIONS FROM THE HARD DISK! MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DELETING. Oh, and make sure the SD card is backed up
3) Create a FAT32 primary partition. You decide how big you want it, but I'd advise you leave 1024mb (1gb) for the EXT partition.
4) Create an EXT2/EXT3/EXT4 (you decide) primary partition. Use up the rest of the space on the SD card.
5) Click assign/OK/whatever and wait for it to complete
6) You now have your partitioned SD card ready for an A2SD ROM!
7) You need to assign a drive letter to the FAT32 partition. Not sure about the EXT partition. At first I forgot to do this and my card didn't show up in Windows, though Partition Magic can still see it.
Like I said, do yourself a favour and use BlaY0's method here, but if you're lazy or you don't have time or ADB doesn't work anymore, use this.
Nice one m8. You mentioned that CWM doesn't offer adding partitions bigger than 512 MB. Well, you're right but that's why I made a customized version of fake-flash that can do bigger... to 1 GB. It can even add second ext partition for some exotic types of data2ext. On top of that I added auto block alignment which is described in my guide (the manual one) so no more calculations and manual labour
Sent from my HTC Legend
BlaY0 said:
Nice one m8. You mentioned that CWM doesn't offer adding partitions bigger than 512 MB. Well, you're right but that's why I made a customized version of fake-flash that can do bigger... to 1 GB. It can even add second ext partition for some exotic types of data2ext. On top of that I added auto block alignment which is described in my guide (the manual one) so no more calculations and manual labour
Sent from my HTC Legend
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, I didn't know about your customized CWM, I think I'll just use that next time
BlaY0 said:
Nice one m8. You mentioned that CWM doesn't offer adding partitions bigger than 512 MB...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I remember some version had the ext menu up to 4GB
BlaY0 said:
On top of that I added auto block alignment which is described in my guide (the manual one) so no more calculations and manual labour
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Didn't know that, good to know, for those of us still using data2ext, this is important...
Wish this was up earlier, spent an hour repartitioning my card using parted.Couldn't upgrade to EXT3 and ended up using CWM 3.0.2.8 to do it instead lol
What CWM is using under the hood for partitioning is actually parted.
Sent from my HTC Legend
Tried it but it didnt work not sure what the problem is...
formatted my SD to FAT 32 and reserved 1G for EXT3 both as primary partition in the Mini Partition Tool
Plugged it in my phone,
Ran ADB shell
# a2sd --enabled, rebooted
on reboot nothing seemed to have changed... went back to ADB shell
tried a2sd --free it says A2Sd is not active ...
a2sd -- enabled again and it says it is enabled but not active
so im guessing it cant read or recognize the EXT3?!
Any clues... i didnt want to move my Dalvik to SD ... should I try EXT4 or even EXT2?
QkSi1ver said:
Tried it but it didnt work not sure what the problem is...
formatted my SD to FAT 32 and reserved 1G for EXT3 both as primary partition in the Mini Partition Tool
Plugged it in my phone,
Ran ADB shell
# a2sd --enabled, rebooted
on reboot nothing seemed to have changed... went back to ADB shell
tried a2sd --free it says A2Sd is not active ...
a2sd -- enabled again and it says it is enabled but not active
so im guessing it cant read or recognize the EXT3?!
Any clues... i didnt want to move my Dalvik to SD ... should I try EXT4 or even EXT2?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Take me through what you did, step by step. You say you reserved 1G for EXT3, but did you actually format it as another partition?
QkSi1ver said:
Any clues... i didnt want to move my Dalvik to SD ... should I try EXT4 or even EXT2?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It has been mentioned here like a gazilion times, boot up your device with logcat and see the first few lines...there is your answer!
Google how to wait for the device with logcat
1) Downloaded and installed Minitool Partition Wizard from your link. I got the free home edition
2) backed up my SD card and Open the program and delete my SD card partition ( which is in a card reader)
3) Created a FAT32 primary partition of 69xx MB and left the rest 1024 MB for the other unallocated space
4) Right click on the Unallocated Space to create an EXT3 as primary partition with the default cluster size.
5) At this point, it showed 2 partition on my SD, one with the drive letter for windows FAT32, and the 2nd one Ext 3 with 1GB and Primary. Clicked OK and Apply and wait for it to complete.
6) once complete , put it in phone, plugged usb and ran adb shell
7) ran a2sd --enable, it said reboot phone.. i made a mistake to reboot by adb the first time but then did the whole process again a 2nd time using reboot from the phone....
Tried logcat using this command "adb -d logcat>mylogfile.txt"
couldnt find the file anywhere ... if i dont redirect to the txt , it goes too fast to read and there's soo much debug messages what do i need to look for?
I thought it would save me time to get it done through windows... but its taking me as much time it w0uld probably get me with the manual way...
i'll give it a try tomorrow...
8) rebooted fine, and i was still low on space.. so went back in adb sheel to check a2sd --free but this is where it says not active..
QkSi1ver said:
1) Downloaded and installed Minitool Partition Wizard from your link. I got the free home edition
2) backed up my SD card and Open the program and delete my SD card partition ( which is in a card reader)
3) Created a FAT32 primary partition of 69xx MB and left the rest 1024 MB for the other unallocated space
4) Right click on the Unallocated Space to create an EXT3 as primary partition with the default cluster size.
5) At this point, it showed 2 partition on my SD, one with the drive letter for windows FAT32, and the 2nd one Ext 3 with 1GB and Primary. Clicked OK and Apply and wait for it to complete.
6) once complete , put it in phone, plugged usb and ran adb shell
7) ran a2sd --enable, it said reboot phone.. i made a mistake to reboot by adb the first time but then did the whole process again a 2nd time using reboot from the phone....
Tried logcat using this command "adb -d logcat>mylogfile.txt"
couldnt find the file anywhere ... if i dont redirect to the txt , it goes too fast to read and there's soo much debug messages what do i need to look for?
I thought it would save me time to get it done through windows... but its taking me as much time it w0uld probably get me with the manual way...
i'll give it a try tomorrow...
8) rebooted fine, and i was still low on space.. so went back in adb sheel to check a2sd --free but this is where it says not active..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tbh I'm really not sure. One thing I forgot to mention in the guide is that you should assign a drive letter to the FAT32 partition or it won't show up in Windows. I didn't assign one to my EXT4 partition though, and DATA2SD is working great for me. Try deleting all partitions from the SD card and start again. It'll only take 10 minutes, and if it still doesn't work just use the manual way.
Sorry.
alexhtclegend said:
Tbh I'm really not sure. One thing I forgot to mention in the guide is that you should assign a drive letter to the FAT32 partition or it won't show up in Windows. I didn't assign one to my EXT4 partition though, and DATA2SD is working great for me. Try deleting all partitions from the SD card and start again. It'll only take 10 minutes, and if it still doesn't work just use the manual way.
Sorry.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah i assigned a drive letter to FAT32...
Also the FAT32 , was my first block allocated partition, the 2nd partition was EXT3... i will redo the whole process and recreate EXT4 instead.
"DATA2SD is working great for me" ... you mean "A2SD working great for me" ... right? unless i'm missing something else that i needed to run..
ps: I recalled, after it was not working, i took out the sd and put it back in the reader to open MiniTool, it showed EXT2 instead of EXT3 ( which i was sure i chose )... and what's weird is it was reporting used space like 41MB... so obvisouly, the ROM wrote something on it...
Formatting it again to EXT3, didnt delete the 41 Used space, but it did convert it back to EXT3 ...probably nothing but mentioning as well
QkSi1ver said:
Yeah i assigned a drive letter to FAT32...
Also the FAT32 , was my first block allocated partition, the 2nd partition was EXT3... i will redo the whole process and recreate EXT4 instead.
"DATA2SD is working great for me" ... you mean "A2SD working great for me" ... right? unless i'm missing something else that i needed to run..
ps: I recalled, after it was not working, i took out the sd and put it back in the reader to open MiniTool, it showed EXT2 instead of EXT3 ( which i was sure i chose )... and what's weird is it was reporting used space like 41MB... so obvisouly, the ROM wrote something on it...
Formatting it again to EXT3, didnt delete the 41 Used space, but it did convert it back to EXT3 ...probably nothing but mentioning as well
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I suggest you start over, something seems to have gone wrong.
A2SD is where the apps are stored on the EXT partition.
DC2SD is where the dalvik cache is also stored on the EXT partition.
DATA2SD is where the entire /data partition on the phone is stored on the EXT partition of the memory card.
Partitioning the SD card with a FAT32 partition and EXT partition is done first, then you decide which one is for you. DATA2SD does have one or two issues, such as the risk of corruption - you'd then have to completely reinstall the ROM. A2SD and DC2SD are fine but I still found myself running out of internal memory.
i gave up and used ROM Manager to create my partition ...i couldnt set it to 1G because 512MB is maximum but it was painless to create.
it asked me to create a swap partition... i've read somewhere that swap partition is useless or barely used in newer android os? do you guys have any swap partition if so how big are they?
Also, did you move Dalvik cache to sd? isnt it slower on SD? i mean shouldnt dalvik cache be on RAM whihc i assume is faster than any external sd?
thanks for your insight
QkSi1ver said:
i gave up and used ROM Manager to create my partition ...i couldnt set it to 1G because 512MB is maximum but it was painless to create.
it asked me to create a swap partition... i've read somewhere that swap partition is useless or barely used in newer android os? do you guys have any swap partition if so how big are they?
Also, did you move Dalvik cache to sd? isnt it slower on SD? i mean shouldnt dalvik cache be on RAM whihc i assume is faster than any external sd?
thanks for your insight
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used the full DATA2SD, which includes Dalvik2SD.
ok so sorry for a double post but im having an issue partitioning.
32 gb card san disk brand new
primary Fat32 10gb
primary Ext2 rest of space
once mini tool is done it sats successful but shows the sd card as Bad disk?!?
is there somthing im doin wrong? is used this guide here http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/SD_card_partitioning
all help deeply appriciated
Acer Iconia Tab A110 rooted, Cwm, 4.1.2
Can you actually have a 22gb ext partition? This might be something to look into to see if you can do it.
Edit: this got me interested so I searched myself, yes you can but apparently it depends on the chosen block size and hardware limitations, so u may have an issue with either.
Sent from my Legend using xda app-developers app
alexhtclegend said:
Firstly, BlaY0 has a great tutorial on how to do this properly, I suggest you do that to learn something.
Secondly, I cannot confirm that this is 100% safe. BlaY0's method should be 99% safe, I don't know about this as it is all automatic. BlaY0's method is tried and tested, this is not. I only used this method as I had a new SD card and I was in a hurry (exams coming up ) and I didn't have time to remind myself of BlaY0's method, and CWM only allows you to create up to 512mb partition. Also, I had a new computer, and I don't have time to set up ADB all over again.
Anyway, this is a method for people who don't want to use ADB to partition their SD card for A2EXT or DATA2EXT (a.k.a. apps2sd, etc etc), and are using Windows. If you're running linux, you could use something like gParted to partition it, not sure about OS X though. This method will allow a Windows user to create an EXT partition on their SD card alongside the FAT partition.
1) Download and install Minitool Partition Wizard, from here.
2) Open the program and delete all partitions from the SD card (which you will have inserted into the computer using an adapter or something). DO NOT DELETE THE PARTITIONS FROM THE HARD DISK! MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DELETING. Oh, and make sure the SD card is backed up
3) Create a FAT32 primary partition. You decide how big you want it, but I'd advise you leave 1024mb (1gb) for the EXT partition.
4) Create an EXT2/EXT3/EXT4 (you decide) primary partition. Use up the rest of the space on the SD card.
5) Click assign/OK/whatever and wait for it to complete
6) You now have your partitioned SD card ready for an A2SD ROM!
7) You need to assign a drive letter to the FAT32 partition. Not sure about the EXT partition. At first I forgot to do this and my card didn't show up in Windows, though Partition Magic can still see it.
Like I said, do yourself a favour and use BlaY0's method here, but if you're lazy or you don't have time or ADB doesn't work anymore, use this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hahah! Thanks for you detail guide. It is so helpful for me!

[Q] HELP TY

CM7 can make you install apps on the sd card, how does it differ from app2sd or app2ext? i have been trying to decide if i should partition my new sd card or its not necessary. There must be an advantage to have app2ext right?
Thank you.
CM7 basically allows you to move all applications using Froyo's app2sd mode. Even ones that have disabled it (like live wallpapers and widgets as those won't work when installed that way).
app2sdext works differently as it will install apps directly to an ext partition on your sdcard (that you manually have to set up). This functionality is NOT build into CyanogenMod, but is easily added with a number of different apps/scripts. This will give you a lot more free space on your phone, and all apps can be installed there regardless of whether they have widgets or have services running. Most app2sdext options will also give you the option of moving the dalvik cache to the sdcard which will save you a substantial amount of space on your internal memory.
Basically, if you want a lot of memory intensive apps, your only decent option with a Nexus One is an app2sdext solution. (I have it with a 1GB partition, and I will soon either need to resize it or delete apps... adding app2sdext was the second best thing I ever did to my phone behind installing CyanogenMod on it.)
bassmadrigal said:
CM7 basically allows you to move all applications using Froyo's app2sd mode. Even ones that have disabled it (like live wallpapers and widgets as those won't work when installed that way).
app2sdext works differently as it will install apps directly to an ext partition on your sdcard (that you manually have to set up). This functionality is NOT build into CyanogenMod, but is easily added with a number of different apps/scripts. This will give you a lot more free space on your phone, and all apps can be installed there regardless of whether they have widgets or have services running. Most app2sdext options will also give you the option of moving the dalvik cache to the sdcard which will save you a substantial amount of space on your internal memory.
Basically, if you want a lot of memory intensive apps, your only decent option with a Nexus One is an app2sdext solution. (I have it with a 1GB partition, and I will soon either need to resize it or delete apps... adding app2sdext was the second best thing I ever did to my phone behind installing CyanogenMod on it.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
why didnt i think of that? thank you for your reply... now i should decide whether to do it now or wait till i have reached maybe about a hundred apps. by the way does it have any effect on the speed of the phone if you do that?
I am on cm7 and decided to put cache apps on sd card using ta utility is there any other new apps like that? ta
Can you do this with rooted stock?
lolobabes said:
why didnt i think of that? thank you for your reply... now i should decide whether to do it now or wait till i have reached maybe about a hundred apps. by the way does it have any effect on the speed of the phone if you do that?
I am on cm7 and decided to put cache apps on sd card using ta utility is there any other new apps like that? ta
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a class 4 32GB card, and I didn't notice any appreciable difference in speed. I have moved my apps and dalvik cache to the sdcard using DarkTremor's a2sd. I currently have 260 apps installed on my phone, and that is pushing the internal phone space and the 1GB partition I set up for ext. I am about to bug danger-rat for his instructions on how he resized his internal partitions to give the data residing on the phone more space (I will basically shrink the cache partition and I am looking at resizing my ext partition to 1.5GB or 2GB.
I couldn't live without this anymore. I don't know how I went so long without it. It is so nice to just browse the online market and click install on countless apps without worrying about your space.
If you want to try and move the app data (resides in /data/data) to the sdcard, I have heard that it is recommended to have a class 10 card to keep up with speed requirements. I am not sure how many apps support that.
brettbellaire said:
Can you do this with rooted stock?
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Click to collapse
I believe you can. You would have to have a custom recovery. The main thing I am not sure is if it will mount the ext partition. If you have a custom recovery, do a nandroid backup (just in case it doesn't work), flash the zip for DarkTremor, and reboot the phone (the first boot will take longer).
brettbellaire said:
Can you do this with rooted stock?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes you can.
bassmadrigal said:
I have a class 4 32GB card, and I didn't notice any appreciable difference in speed. I have moved my apps and dalvik cache to the sdcard using DarkTremor's a2sd. I currently have 260 apps installed on my phone, and that is pushing the internal phone space and the 1GB partition I set up for ext. I am about to bug danger-rat for his instructions on how he resized his internal partitions to give the data residing on the phone more space (I will basically shrink the cache partition and I am looking at resizing my ext partition to 1.5GB or 2GB.
I couldn't live without this anymore. I don't know how I went so long without it. It is so nice to just browse the online market and click install on countless apps without worrying about your space.
If you want to try and move the app data (resides in /data/data) to the sdcard, I have heard that it is recommended to have a class 10 card to keep up with speed requirements. I am not sure how many apps support that.
I believe you can. You would have to have a custom recovery. The main thing I am not sure is if it will mount the ext partition. If you have a custom recovery, do a nandroid backup (just in case it doesn't work), flash the zip for DarkTremor, and reboot the phone (the first boot will take longer).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the reply i think i read on darktremors post class 4 will do for the data2sd. I have class 4 16GB sd card would 1GB good for the ext? ty
It really depends on how much you think you will be installing. I did a 1GB partition on mine, but now that I install most of the Amazon free daily apps, that space is dwindling quickly. I have programs that will resize the partition for me, but most will have to wipe the card and partition it manually. I do have the install location set to automatic, so it allows developers to specify whether they want it in the "internal" (really it is on the sdext partition, but to the phone it is internal) or external using the froyo method. The Angry Bird apps all default to install on the sdcard, so my installed app base is even larger than 1GB.
bassmadrigal said:
... adding app2sdext was the second best thing I ever did to my phone behind installing CyanogenMod on it.)
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Click to collapse
I second this
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
is it true that cwm sets the partition to ext3 by default? unlike in ra recovery where you still need to convert it? ta
I have heard that it creates it in ext3, but right now, DTa2sd is showing that it is a ext2 partition. I can't figure out how to find out for sure while the card is in the phone. Either way, it is getting mounted as an ext2 partition.
temasek said:
I thought CWM will create ext3 by default? Your steps are ok, np.
Anyway when u read the ext partition type in android, most likely u will see ext2 if u are using official DT script cuz of the auto syntax it uses.
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Click to collapse
then it maybe so, this was posted on the darktremor thread
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=14134665#post14134665
Well, whether or not it is formatted as an ext3 partition, Android is still mounting mine as an ext2 partition.
Code:
mount | grep ext
NOTE: the "|" is called a pipe. On the keyboard it is the shift option on the backslash key "\". I don't know exactly where it is on the stock keyboard, but on swype it is located under the "D" key when the keyboard has the shift key pressed and you access it by longpressing.
To get your sdcard to ext3, you just need to turn on journaling. You can do this through adb while in the recovery (because you need the partition unmounted to do this).
Code:
adb reboot recovery
adb shell
mount system
e2fsk /dev/block/mmcblk0p2
tune2fs -j /dev/block/mmcblk0p2
reboot
Supposedly Android should auto-mount this as ext3 on boot (which you can check with the first command). At that point, I don't think it will matter what a2sd shows. As the writing of the journal (the big thing with ext3, since it helps minimize write errors on a bad shutdown) is done at the OS level, not the a2sd level.

[Guide] Link2SD (or Apps2SD) on Galaxy Tab A (SM T-580)

Hello folks. Before going further I need to apologize. I really fighted to use Link2SD on my Galaxy tablet and I succeeded more or less. I thought that my tentative could be useful to others. So I posted this topic.
I worked a little more, and now I am convinced that I was wrong from the beginning.
The reality is that Apps2SD and Link2SD are obsolete utilities.
Forget creating a second volume on your external SD Card :
- Android/Samsung declare your SD Card as corrupted and always wants to reformat it.
- TWRP mounts the wrong partition and you have to manually unmout it and remount the good one
- The partitions need to be declared with a wrong type and this is really not clean
etc...
I suggest that you do not loose your time, forget Link2SD, and read this excellent topic:
https://www.xda-developers.com/divi...gles-fuse-replacement-will-reduce-io-overhead
My Galaxy tab A has only 11 Go available for the user. I bought a 128 Go external SD card to extend both /storage/emulated/0 and /data.
When you first install your SD Card, Android automatically mount this card as /storage/xxxx-xxxx.
This is a FAT volume extended on all your SD Card (128 GB for me).
This is fine for storing ebooks, music, video, and your backups.
But impossible for Link2SD to move your apps on this volume and put a symbolic link on the previous location, because FAT is not a UNIX file system. Link2SD (or Apps2SD) needs a second disk volume on partition 2 (/dev/block/mmcblk1p2) formatted with a UNIX file system (ext4 is fine).
Of course you need to have rooted your device. [A non rooted tablet is not better than a vulgar iPhone ]
To re-partition my SD Card I used ROEHSOFT PARTITION TOOL (SD-USB). (I tried unsuccessfully Aparted, it crashed every time I launch it). ROEHSOFT is convenient but tricky to be used by an advanced user :
- You cannot create a partition in a specific slot (for example /dev/block/mmcblk1p2): It automatically use first slot for the first partition you create, the second slot for the following partition, and so on.
- If you try to foul it, deleting a partition and recreating it in another empty space, it suddenly decides to reorganize your 4 slots. It really wants /dev/block/mmcblk1p1 to be the first partition on your SD Card, /dev/block/mmcblk1p2 the following, etc...
- You cannot create a partition at a specific offset inside an empty space.
After fighting with ROEHSOFT I finally won. I discovered too late that "fdisk" is part of BusyBox. If you know "fdisk" my advice is to use it instead of fighting with a software which pretends to be user friendly but is too limited.
OK, stop bla-bla and work.
1 - Dismount your SD Card : Parameters/Device Maintenance/Storage/Menu-Storage Parameter/Dismount
2 - Delete the only one partition
3 - For a misterious reason, my Android was not happy with his FAT volume on /dev/block/mmcblk1p1. Link2SD wants his UNIX volume on /dev/block/mmcblk1p2. So, if you use ROEHSOFT you need now to create a small dummy partition on /dev/block/mmcblk1p1. For me I created a 4 Go partition to be used by Linux Deploy. This partition needs to be declared as FAT32 (LBA) but should not be formatted as a FAT file system. EXT4 is a good choice.
4 - Create the second partition for Link2SD. I suggest not too much space for it, because you probably want a huge space for the third partion. This partition needs to be declared as FAT32 (LBA) but should be formatted with a UNIX file system. EXT4 is a good choice.
5 - Create the third partition to be used as SD extension for Android. This partition should be very large : you will store on it your music, your movies, your ebooks, and above all your backups. This partition needs to be declared as FAT32 (LBA). I formatted this partition as a EXFAT file system.
6 - Reboot. If you are lucky you will get two notifications : one saying that you have a corrupted memory card, and one saying that you are ready for media files. You will get those two notifications at each reboot.
8 - Recreate mounting scripts inside Lin2SD (or Apps2SD), and reboot.
7 - If you are a UNIX user just type "df -h" in a terminal to verify that the two partitions are mounted with correct sizes).
8 - You can look what Android think of your partitioning :
/Parameters/Device Maintenance/Storage/Menu:Storage Parameter/.
Do not try to mount the two first volumes and NEVER try to reformat them with Android. Those volumes are declared as corrupted but this is normal. Android does not expect to find a UNIX file system on a partition declared FAT32.
If one day, you forget this and ask to Android to reformat a corrupted partition you will have the terrible surprise that Android will not only erase your partition, but will erase everything and recreate one and only one big empty partition. (I guess that you keep all your backups on this SD Card, like me, so this is a really bad surprise).
Do not ask me why Android does not want his SD-Card on first partition. I have no idea. I guess that Android or Samsung reserve this partition for something else.
Do not ask why I had to declared all my partitions as FAT32 even if two of them are formatted as EXT4. I just realized that this configuration works well after fighting during a full day.
I hope that this topic will help some of you.
You really need the second partition on the SD? Or you can have only one ex4 partition that fills all the SD? (Remove the FAT and only have one ext4)
Palatosino said:
You really need the second partition on the SD? Or you can have only one ex4 partition that fills all the SD? (Remove the FAT and only have one ext4)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, I tried but it doesn't work.
I found today a very interesting topic that I will try to master and hopefully wil, understand everything better :
https://www.xda-developers.com/divi...gles-fuse-replacement-will-reduce-io-overhead
Maybe I was wrong from the beginning : perhaps LinkSD and apps2SD are historic patch that are not useful anymore. Perhaps all the burden will be fixed easily just by not using those utilities anymore.
"sdcardfs" is something very new for me who is an old UNIX fellow. This seems to be a major improvement for Android.
I will update this topic when everything will be clear for me.
I didnt have this problem on android 6, but on android 7 . My phone wants to use ext4 as data partition and says its corrupted, link2sd detects this second partition normally, but my data partition fat 32 detected on phone settings and its says its ready but there is no option to mount it.
As far as i understand from this tutorial i need to make 1 fake ext4 partition say 1mb, then second partition ext4 for use with link2sd, and third partition fat32 for use as data storage ??
My phone is samsung j7 2016
So i did follow this , but now my phone wont detect fat32 and link2sd didnt detect 1 of other ext4 partitions
Looking for a definitive way to Root and use link2sd to have my SM-T580 use the SD as a primary parition for apps and data. Been researching and trying a dozen different methods already to no avail. Bonus if there's a way to roll it back easily. Am on the latest android release.
Thank you for all replies.
larpoux said:
I hope that this topic will help some of you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're my saviour, thank you ! I've been fighting on the same issue for days and didn't think about that trick to declare an ext partition as FAT32 !
I know you probably won't see this, but I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciated this guide.
I have a Galaxy Tab S3 and every since going to a custom rom, I haven't been able to get this working which was such a pain with less than 23 gb of storage. The Rom improved my performance far too much for me to change back and every guide I attempted pointed me in the wrong direction but finally, I'm able to use my 120 gb SD card which has made my tablet worth using again.
To anyone who may attempt in the future,
I'm using Android 9 + Magisk. Using the Advanced type Mount script was the only way it get it functioning but I've had no issues with linking apps and no message regarding a corrupted SD card. It can take a few minutes on boot for everything to properly load in, but the apps all update and there's no performance/loading time issues.
Thanks again!

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