[Q]Is there a possibility to install rom on sd - XPERIA X8 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Welcome. Already he was just asking about the same with the addition of some suggestions.The init.d directory has the opportunity to start up the concrete near the beginning of a comment, start the machine.One could initiate concrete partitions on the SD card to have played a role partition "mtd" for example / system / data / cachefrom what I noticed the kernel to jb has otherwise changed little these partitions (size).I do not know exactly how it looks with them, but if one could perform 2 partitions by mtd / system (small to perform the basic start-up and later redirects to / systemsd and the rest used as a framework or a particle cache?)
examples of partition
mtd / system (start-up)
mtd / ram (unless you know)
mmc / fat32
mmc / systemsd (the rest of the system)
mmc / data
mmc / .......
and so onthat was a minimum of 4 block
for it is our memory that was on the phone at the same time much bigger and faster (unless there think) than a swap sdanother thing that applications were loaded into the framework so that if they were around 500 + mb ram for the system to switch on only long landing and later had to speed up.I came up with this idea a bit strange when I have made applications to change fat32, after connecting the USB cable.for me my memory card is slightly odd partitions of personal reasons
Class10+ 32gb
fat32 / sdcard 26gb block1
ext4 / 4gb sd-ext Block2
swap ... 2gb block3
fat32 / sdcard2 2gb block4
sorry to my poor english. I hope you understand my gibberish (a lot of words I could not remember so I used google translator)

-AsA- said:
Welcome. Already he was just asking about the same with the addition of some suggestions.The init.d directory has the opportunity to start up the concrete near the beginning of a comment, start the machine.One could initiate concrete partitions on the SD card to have played a role partition "mtd" for example / system / data / cachefrom what I noticed the kernel to jb has otherwise changed little these partitions (size).I do not know exactly how it looks with them, but if one could perform 2 partitions by mtd / system (small to perform the basic start-up and later redirects to / systemsd and the rest used as a framework or a particle cache?)
examples of partition
mtd / system (start-up)
mtd / ram (unless you know)
mmc / fat32
mmc / systemsd (the rest of the system)
mmc / data
mmc / .......
and so onthat was a minimum of 4 block
for it is our memory that was on the phone at the same time much bigger and faster (unless there think) than a swap sdanother thing that applications were loaded into the framework so that if they were around 500 + mb ram for the system to switch on only long landing and later had to speed up.I came up with this idea a bit strange when I have made applications to change fat32, after connecting the USB cable.for me my memory card is slightly odd partitions of personal reasons
Class10+ 32gb
fat32 / sdcard 26gb block1
ext4 / 4gb sd-ext Block2
swap ... 2gb block3
fat32 / sdcard2 2gb block4
sorry to my poor english. I hope you understand my gibberish (a lot of words I could not remember so I used google translator)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't get you.
But it is possible to install rom on sdcard with High read/write speed.(class 6 or higher)
all U need is a dual-boot recovery
(I don't know that u must have a Rom installed in internal memory or not(
Sent From My "ULTIMATE ROM- gb - WP8 edition" via Tapatalk

yes, but not on my mind
dual-boot umount dir and make new to port img file. mtd block is not changed
my idea if edit mtd block
Memory phone
mtdblock0 /system size 206 mb
mtdblock1 /cache size 50 mb
mtdblock3 /data size 211mb
mayby mtdblock2 is block ram1, ram2 ..... size ~200mb
all ~667mb
my idea is
mtdblock0 /system (basic start-up i don't know mayby 20mb-67mb)
and mtdblock1 is block ram 600mb
of sd card make block to /system /data etc
this is my idea but I do not know if possible

@-AsA-
Hi. I am working on a dual-boot project. I sent you an invite to our group. It would be awesome if we could work together. I have a test kernel ready, if you want to test. It's still a WIP. Everything modified is mentioned there. Please take a look. Thank you.
Looking forward to working with you.
sgt. meow

sgt. meow said:
@-AsA-
Hi. I am working on a dual-boot project. I sent you an invite to our group. It would be awesome if we could work together. I have a test kernel ready, if you want to test. It's still a WIP. Everything modified is mentioned there. Please take a look. Thank you.
Looking forward to working with you.
sgt. meow
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
im helping you on dboot project

The bootloader won't boot directly from the sdcard.
Nevertheless, you can definitely have ROM images in the sdcard and use those while booting android (basically you only have to update init.rc for that).
Check 'multiboot' in my signature for more details.

nobodyAtall said:
The bootloader won't boot directly from the sdcard.
Nevertheless, you can definitely have ROM images in the sdcard and use those while booting android (basically you only have to update init.rc for that).
Check 'multiboot' in my signature for more details.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can we edit bootloader?
Sent from my XPERIA X8 using xda premium

fotak-x said:
Can we edit bootloader?
Sent from my XPERIA X8 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First make it unlockable for newer devices
Then edit
sent from my W8 using client-server technology

fotak-x said:
Can we edit bootloader?
Sent from my XPERIA X8 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
S1loader is not open source to work with. You could hex-edit it if you had some easy way to flash it and recover from the countless hard bricks the bootloader development process has. Unfortunately this is doable via jtag only. My knowledge is limitted on that area.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app

As for the bootloader, what could be the first real-time editor hex can perform a large change in the machine switched on.
When it comes to dual boot I can help not only the development of a test.
slightly going back bootloader to my x8 from the beginning she had unlocked (date of manufacture 10W40 surprisingly). I had not unlocked. To change the kernel or other heavy operations.Never failed to I managed to brick trying to do specifically
not worried about the phone I'm always ready to purchase a new...

The idea of a modified bootloader is nice, but it have two problem.
1. Modify the bootloader to add capability to boot directly from sdcard is basically useless because this is possible with a simple script in a modified ramdisk. Check the post from nAa, or search the thread about nBoot from feherneoh. This is easy and not need to do dangerous things.
2. The modification of the bootloader is near impossible because:
- the working of S1Boot is not documented
- this is a non-standard raw binary, hard to disassembly/decompile
- if someone can disassembly it correctly, need VERY HIGH skills in native arm assembly programming
- need special hardwares to revive the dead phone after all failed modifications (special cables, setool, etc...)
Don't forget: we had to wait more than a year to get unlocked bootloader (and this modification only skip the security verification), and this is working only with devices what older than 1-1,5 years.
I think if someone have these prerequisites, better if he/she working on valuable things instead of boot from sdcard (add fastboot support to bootloader, etc...)

I was thinking of making nBoot work with JB (it didn't). If that fails we will come up with a new method.
It's almost impossible for us to re-write the bootloader.
It would be super cool if someone added fastboot support to our bootloaders.

nobodyAtall said:
The bootloader won't boot directly from the sdcard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
maybe not in our device but its not impossible
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2061437

stamatis said:
maybe not in our device but its not impossible
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2061437
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Obviously I was talking about these devices not some Samsung one...
@sgt. meow fastboot support is not something that can be added to an existing bootloader. The bootloader itself has to support this protocol. Hence the only solution would be to switch to another bootloader which would have to be ported from scratch for these devices.
The job would require a tremendous amount of effort since not even miniloader works for them!

Can we use dd to write an entire directory to a .img file? I'm thinking of something.
@nAa
I know. I was just unaware that bootloaders could be ported for our device (even if it meant no sleep for 6 months for the brave dev).

sgt. meow said:
Can we use dd to write an entire directory to a .img file? I'm thinking of something.
@nAa
I know. I was just unaware that bootloaders could be ported for our device (even if it meant no sleep for 6 months for the brave dev).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mtd devices are not block devices. What are you trying to achieve?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app

I was thinking of using feherneoh's nBoot, but in a different way. My idea was to somehow write the current ROM's /system to system.img on sdcard and the same thing with data and cache. Then install another ROM that uses the same kernel (JellySony for example). Then if XXX is present in /sdcard, it would mount system.img as /system (and the same with data and cache), thus enabling dual-boot. In a kinda stupid way.

sgt. meow said:
I was thinking of using feherneoh's nBoot, but in a different way. My idea was to somehow write the current ROM's /system to system.img on sdcard and the same thing with data and cache. Then install another ROM that uses the same kernel (JellySony for example). Then if XXX is present in /sdcard, it would mount system.img as /system (and the same with data and cache), thus enabling dual-boot. In a kinda stupid way.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is how my multiboot mod worked actually - except from the fact that back in those days we couldn't flash custom kernels and the whole job was done via the chroot/hw_config.sh hack.
The bummer is you can't switch kernels so multiboot between say gb and jb is not possible.

nobodyAtall said:
S1loader is not open source to work with. You could hex-edit it if you had some easy way to flash it and recover from the countless hard bricks the bootloader development process has. Unfortunately this is doable via jtag only. My knowledge is limitted on that area.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
...where can i find s1loader in phone? can i pull it out?just curious.....

fotak-x said:
...where can i find s1loader in phone? can i pull it out?just curious.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are two options:
- Export all the partitions (I think the file is nand_partitions.c) from kernel. The mtdump/dd it.
- Use the mtdmapper module that is in the unlocking bootloader tool to get all the partitions to map and then dump it.
Both ways basically do the same thing and they both have a pretty BIG chance of getting your device hard bricked (even when you are in read-only mode).

Related

Apps2SD greyed out....

Yeah, first thing the 'uber coders' will think is 'google it' or 'rtfm'. Well been all over and still can't get it to work. But I'll jump though the hoops and hopefully someone will point out where the missing information is. As much documentation that is out there for Android, there is much left to be desired and checked for clarity. So here it goes:
After having many issues with Clockwork Mod recovery, I finally got AmonRA installed and was able to install CM5.0.7 (8 would not install properly at all...too many broken thing like FCs on settings and such).
Things I have done to try to get Apps2SD working:
1/ Manually partitioned SD card
2/ Use Recovery option to partition the card (converted to EXT4 as per Cyanogen's suggestion)
3/ Tried following advice here: http://code.google.com/p/android-roms/wiki/A2SD
4/ Tried following advice here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=520582
- which leads to here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=3879988&postcount=41 (which seriously need to be re-written.you can't type adb push while already in adb shell....not recognized)
5/ Ubuntu's Disk Utility tells me the EXT4 partition is clean.
So where to go from here? Nothing seems to make any sort of impact on this phone.
...to the QnA section.....
have you enabled apps2sd?
Settings>Applications and tick the Apps2SD box
Moved as not development.
garok89 said:
...to the QnA section.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, looking now....so far I've got 3 tabs opened because of that....this process is seriously sad. Why are there so many ways (some more poorly written than others) to do the same damn thing that the ROM is supposed to do itself? Don't worry, I'll try yet again another set of instructions to get this to work. Geeze....wasn't this hard the last time I enabled it. Seriously, I do't know why I torture myself with this....
garok89 said:
have you enabled apps2sd?
Settings>Applications and tick the Apps2SD box
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See, now that's just insulting. Although I will forgive you if you have some sort of mental deficiency and missed reading the subject of this thread.....but just in case, I'll return the favour. If "Apps2SD" is greyed out, that means I am at Settings/Applications and quite have the capability to select option on the phone by pressing/touching the screen. Guess what.....it stayed greyed out. This is why I have a new thread here with the 5 other things that I've read, quite exhaustively, to whit there have been no positive results.
So, following the directions outline here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=534714
NO freaking change. This is on a fresh ROM install of 5.0.7. Seriously, My card size in 8GB, like his, so I used almost his numbers, just a few bytes different, and nada.
Talk about a sad state.
Yes I repartitioned the card, yes I wiped the partitions (after reinstalling the first time and getting nothing but FCs, wiped each section available in the Amon RA recovery menu....three times each.)
So, let's try yet another method.....
I downloaded Apps2SD.apk. Installed it and ran it....guess what...it aid my card wasn't paritioned?!?! Umm....wft? Why the hell was CM NOT seeing the paritions? This card has been partitioned at least 20 times in the last month, in various methods. Yeah, this i good for it's lifespan....
So I went through it's partitioning process...guess what...still greyed out.
Opened the app again... "It looks like your SD cars isn't partitioned..."...are you kidding me?? (yes the app was granted Super User permissions when it ran....)
So....where do I find the part in CM that is broken and not allowing Apps2SD to work?
How is it that after wiping each item THREE TIMES in th recovery list, and a FRESH INSTALL that my background is still the same????
What is not being wiped?
with 2.1 theres an option for all your settings to be backed up to google. if your background is stored in the same folder on the fat32 partition of your sd card, when you load the new rom, your phone will set your background to what it was.
i know because i went from 5.07 with one background to jubeh's 2.2 with another background, needed gps, wiped EVERYTHING(data, system, ext partition etc.) in RAmon's recovery, flashed 5.08 and had my old background from 5.07 set, along with all my old apps downloading automatically...half hour later and my phone was done syncing and set up exactly how i like it, w/o me doing anythin.
that's how your background is still the same. =P
edit: looking at your signature..is your ext fs first on your sd card? i might be wrong but i think the fat32 needs to be first???
JadedTech said:
Nope, looking now....so far I've got 3 tabs opened because of that....this process is seriously sad. Why are there so many ways (some more poorly written than others) to do the same damn thing that the ROM is supposed to do itself? Don't worry, I'll try yet again another set of instructions to get this to work. Geeze....wasn't this hard the last time I enabled it. Seriously, I do't know why I torture myself with this....
See, now that's just insulting. Although I will forgive you if you have some sort of mental deficiency and missed reading the subject of this thread.....but just in case, I'll return the favour. If "Apps2SD" is greyed out, that means I am at Settings/Applications and quite have the capability to select option on the phone by pressing/touching the screen. Guess what.....it stayed greyed out. This is why I have a new thread here with the 5 other things that I've read, quite exhaustively, to whit there have been no positive results.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i was not attempting to be insulting, i run the cmupdater support and have received numerous "app2sd is greyed out" emails when in fact it was the "move to sd" that was greyed out, not the apps2sd toggle. so get down from your high horse and dont assume that you are better than anyone else. in my experience dealing with hundreds of support requests, i have found it is the person who asks the question, not the people who attempt to help, who are the problem.
"computers don't make mistakes, people using computers make mistakes" comes to mind...
although ubuntu is showing it as clean, choose the "repair SD.ext" option in the recovery...
and although it is unlikely to correct it, fix apk uid mismatches. apps2sd can be a funny thing which can work one day and not the other at times.....
i dont know why i am still trying to help you after pretty much calling me mentally retarded, but hey....
oh, and by "the qna section" i meant that you asked a question in the development area, ie. the wrong section
See, now that's just insulting. Although I will forgive you if you have some sort of mental deficiency and missed reading the subject of this thread.....but just in case, I'll return the favour. If "Apps2SD" is greyed out, that means I am at Settings/Applications and quite have the capability to select option on the phone by pressing/touching the screen. Guess what.....it stayed greyed out. This is why I have a new thread here with the 5 other things that I've read, quite exhaustively, to whit there have been no positive results.[/QUOTE]
you have to have a partition and it will not be greyed out
Either the poor behavior in this thread is going to stop or I'll close it. There is no need to be insulting in any way.
garok89 said:
i was not attempting to be insulting, i run the cmupdater support and have received numerous "app2sd is greyed out" emails when in fact it was the "move to sd" that was greyed out, not the apps2sd toggle. so get down from your high horse and dont assume that you are better than anyone else. in my experience dealing with hundreds of support requests, i have found it is the person who asks the question, not the people who attempt to help, who are the problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, a few things to clear:
1/ This has truly been one of my frustrating experiences in all the tech I have ever played with (and that's pushing 30 years). Granted you would not know my experiences and my tenaciousness in following directions, despite them having me going off-the-beaten-path because something does not fit any proposed remedy.
What was insulting was the fact that you assumed that I wouldn't check the most basic thing when the ONLY indication that Apps2SD was not working was that tick being greyed out. But that would be because I didn't go into great detail about that. I was kinda hoping that was a given because without it being ticked, it obviously doesn't work.
So, since there was some bas assumptions made, allow me to be the first to apologize deeply and hopefully we can move forward.
garok89 said:
"computers don't make mistakes, people using computers make mistakes" comes to mind...
although ubuntu is showing it as clean, choose the "repair SD.ext" option in the recovery...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did that, no change. Although I will add in that your quote applies just as well to programmers as it does the users
garok89 said:
and although it is unlikely to correct it, fix apk uid mismatches. apps2sd can be a funny thing which can work one day and not the other at times.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, doesn't seem to work at all here.<shrug>
garok89 said:
i dont know why i am still trying to help you after pretty much calling me mentally retarded, but hey....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would be because I think you recognized how frustrated I have been and in reality, I'm not really venting at you but at the lack of a solution, despite there being soo many ways to supposedly fix this issue. That would also be because you are most likely the kind of techie that hates to see things not work and will spend more time trying to fix it rather than give in and simply 'reinstall' because you want to know the reason why it happened in the first place. Maybe I'm wrong there, maybe I'm not. I'm am seriously glad that you are taking your time because not a single other person has.
garok89 said:
oh, and by "the qna section" i meant that you asked a question in the development area, ie. the wrong section
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I forgot to apologize to the mod for that. Sorry Mod....
So, have any other ideas how to fix this? I am rather loathe to just try to 'update in hopes that it automagically fixes the issue' approach.
tdt1345 said:
you have to have a partition and it will not be greyed out
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You might want to read my first post again.....
"Things I have done to try to get Apps2SD working:
1/ Manually partitioned SD card"
jamesd86 said:
with 2.1 theres an option for all your settings to be backed up to google. if your background is stored in the same folder on the fat32 partition of your sd card, when you load the new rom, your phone will set your background to what it was.
i know because i went from 5.07 with one background to jubeh's 2.2 with another background, needed gps, wiped EVERYTHING(data, system, ext partition etc.) in RAmon's recovery, flashed 5.08 and had my old background from 5.07 set, along with all my old apps downloading automatically...half hour later and my phone was done syncing and set up exactly how i like it, w/o me doing anythin.
that's how your background is still the same. =P
edit: looking at your signature..is your ext fs first on your sd card? i might be wrong but i think the fat32 needs to be first???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah...I realized this after I left the house and was getting into the car. Just too frustrated when I posted. It was one of those 'don't drink and drive' but more of a 'don't vent and post' type of deals....well, at least not here. Thanks any ways.
have you tried ext2 before upgrading to ext4?
ext4 didnt like my spare g1 too much....but my main one got along fine with it
JadedTech said:
1/ Manually partitioned SD card"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is the partition system ids correct:
Code:
# fdisk /dev/block/mmcblk0
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/block/mmcblk0: 8166 MB, 8166309888 bytes
252 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1020 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15624 * 512 = 7999488 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/block/mmcblk0p1 1 952 7436993 b Win95 FAT32
/dev/block/mmcblk0p2 953 1020 531216 83 Linux
Command (m for help):
The 'b' for the vfat partition and '83' for ext
The startup scripts use there values for some autodetection in cm5.
If all you change is the Id data wont be lost but you are at fault if you don't backup.
garok89 said:
have you tried ext2 before upgrading to ext4?
ext4 didnt like my spare g1 too much....but my main one got along fine with it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is a very interesting observation as I have been automatically upgradeding to EXT4 (as I did read that is what Cyanogen uses...figured if it was good enough for him....) so I just reformatted my SD card from the Recovery partition into EXT2 with a 32MBswap and the rest in FAT32. No change. Damn....seemed like one of those 'simple and yet not obvious' type of answers that may have worked too...
ezterry said:
Is the partition system ids correct:
Code:
# fdisk /dev/block/mmcblk0
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/block/mmcblk0: 8166 MB, 8166309888 bytes
252 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1020 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15624 * 512 = 7999488 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/block/mmcblk0p1 1 952 7436993 b Win95 FAT32
/dev/block/mmcblk0p2 953 1020 531216 83 Linux
Command (m for help):
The 'b' for the vfat partition and '83' for ext
The startup scripts use there values for some autodetection in cm5.
If all you change is the Id data wont be lost but you are at fault if you don't backup.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now this produced something interesting.
Code:
# fdisk /dev/block/mmcblk0
The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 243328.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
Command (m for help):
#
So, how does one go about fixing this if this is the reason that "in certain setups cause problems"? This seems to be a likely candidate for the root of the issue.
Redo partitions in Fdisk?
instead of doing it from recovery
do it from ubuntu via gparted
Sorry for jumping in here but... A while back Dusty wrote a great tut for doing this correctly. Did you follow his thread instructions? If not, take a look. It may have the key to your happiness.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=534714&highlight=51dusty
JadedTech said:
So, how does one go about fixing this if this is the reason that "in certain setups cause problems"? This seems to be a likely candidate for the root of the issue.
Redo partitions in Fdisk?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The size warning only applies to the short falls of BIOS booting x86 PCs. We don't boot the dream from the sdcard or is the phone booted with a x86 BIOS...
If it was you need to ensure the boot partition is near to the beginning of the disk.. you can safely ignore it

[Q] Porting Meego to the Tab, some Android noob questions before I start

Hi chaps,
I've just bought a Galaxy tab with plans to port Meego to the device.
I'm new to all the Android stuff, and tbh the myriad methods for doing this/that/the other and the relative lack of explanation of what's actually being done in these various methods/tools is quite confusing (and worrying).
So, if you'll bear with me, I have a few questions which are probably quite basic.
I've rooted my Tab using SuperOneClick, no problems there, I also understand that there is a leaked flashing tool called (Multi)Odin and an open source flashing tool called Heimdall. I understand adb.
So onto the questions:
Before I start messing about, how should I backup my existing firmware image? I see people talking about taking image dumps using dd, or Odin or Heimdall. What is the preferred method? And how should one then restore the device from these backups?
Alternatively is it possible to simply download the firmware directly from Samsung (I see links to later firmware, but really I'd be happy with what I have currently - P1000XXJK5 and FROYO.XWJJ7)?
I'm assuming that the best installation method would be to replace recovery, then I can add my own kernel and have it boot a rootfs mounted on the external SD card for example. Any thoughts?
I've seen one thread about people compiling their own kernels, with panics and the like which are solved by giving the full path to the initramfs extracted from the existing image. Any clues as to why the built version doesn't work? This is not so important as I can have a look at this when I build the Samsung source.
Is anyone looking at the bootloaders? Is there any information anywhere about them (as changing the bootloader to allow selection of the kernel to be booted would make life easier)?
Thanks for your patience!
Ok, so to partly answer myself, I see www dot samfirmware dot com has links to downloads of firmware images.
I'd really prefer to generate my own image of what's currently on the device rather than trusting a download site, but I guess it's better than nothing. Does anyone know how these images were generated anyway?
lardman said:
Ok, so to partly answer myself, I see www dot samfirmware dot com has links to downloads of firmware images.
I'd really prefer to generate my own image of what's currently on the device rather than trusting a download site, but I guess it's better than nothing. Does anyone know how these images were generated anyway?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Samfirmware get their images direct from Samsung insiders. They are not dumps.
If you want to dump from your device search "rotobackup" here in the dev forum.
Sent from my GT-P1000 using Tapatalk
alias_neo said:
Samfirmware get their images direct from Saunaing insiders. They are not dumps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok that's reassuring.
alias_neo said:
If you want to dump from your device search "rotobackup" here in the dev forum.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great, just what I was looking for, many thanks
So some more questions:
Any limit to the size of the kernel? Presumably just the size of the partition (which after extracting the image for backup seems to be a pretty large 15.4MB)?
What do all the .rc files in the raminitfs do? They are as follows: fota.rc, init.goldfish.rc, init.rc, init.smdkc110.rc, lpm.rc, recovery.rc
The init.rc is the normal init.rc file, so that's fine. Presumably the recovery.rc file is run if the bootloader detects that recovery mode is wanted (holding down keys during boot). The init.goldfish.rc? I guess this is to do with the emulator, though why it would be in a release image I don't know.
I assume that init.smdkc110.rc is automatically run somewhere along the line, though I don't see where it's started.
Any thoughts on lpm.rc and fota.rc? Are multiple .rc files run for the normal and recovery boots?
Thanks
lpm.rc is for low power mode that displays battery charging animation
goldfish is for running the rom under qemu.
backup your rom using rotobackup. compile samsung's kernel from sources, mix up default initramfs with meego's init scripts. pack all Meego stuff into loop mounted disk image. then flash zImage to kernel and your disk image to factoryfs using heimdall. I assume you have experience hacking N8xx/N900 and Maemo or Meego?
factoryfs is around 300MB so I think it should fit Meego and it (and kernel) can be easily restored with heimdall.
Thanks for the comprehensive reply
Yes I do have experience hacking Maemo/Meego, though have never really had to fiddle with init scripts before and this is as good a reason as any to learn.
I'd actually like to dual boot, so am modifying recovery.rc to bring up the Meego system on the external SD card.
Am just fiddling about building extra kernel modules now (needs btrfs for my image for example) and modifying the recovery.rc file.
Hmm, well I was all set to go and flash my new zImage and was looking for the heimdall command line, when I saw this at the top of one of the threads in this part of the forum (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=870690):
Restoring to factory after using this process (you need using stock images):
heimdall flash --kernel stockzImage --recovery stockzImage --factoryfs factoryfs.rfs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which has made me worry a bit that I've missed a recovery partition with its own kernel and wrongly assumed that the same kernel is used for both recovery and normal running, just with a different .rc file to be interpreted by init.
Any thoughts?
Do we trust the partition sizes reported here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=9471190&postcount=14
They seem very small for the kernel partition. I used RotoHammer's dd method to grab the contents of the partitions as a backup, so am assuming the sizes shown above are not correct (or represent something else?)
Going back to RECOVERY and ZIMAGE partitions - the ZIMAGE partition contains a recovery.rc, the question is really whether, even if they use the same zImage in both the ZIMAGE and RECOVERY partitions, the version in the RECOVERY partition is actually booted if recovery mode is selected (by holding the up volume key, etc.)? OTOH it may be that the RECOVERY partition is either empty or unused, has anyone tested specifically to see whether recovery.rc is run from the ZIMAGE partition?
Well I think I can answer my own question there, I flashed my modified kernel (modified recovery.rc) only to the KERNEL partition, and it boots normally if I don't touch anything, and just gets stuck on the first Samsung screen if I boot in recovery mode.
So it's doing something, I just can't tell what. Not sure if any kernel messages are getting lost behind that image, or perhaps they aren't even output to the framebuffer at all. I seem to remember seeing something about disabling the splashscreen so I'll go and have a look for that. Anyone got any other suggestions?
P.S. I also note there's a flash of screen corruption as the device starts up with my new kernel, I don't remember seeing that before. Is this a usual occurance?
I see from the Nexus S port that including adbd in the image seems to be the way to go for early messages, I'll need to generate a new Meego image and have another go later on.
Interesting, I can't see that I've done anything wrong, and my extra init shell script is not started. I am trying to use the "exec" keyword in recovery.rc to start a shell script which will pass control to the Meego rootfs. At the start of my shell script I start adbd (i.e. still within the initramfs), so I should be able to tell if it has started, and it doesn't appear to do so.
Therefore I did some Googling, and I've seen that in some cases the initramfs init does not implement the "exec" keyword (http://forum.samdroid.net/f9/new-init-exec-import-implemented-3280/). This is troublesome for me as it's what I'm trying to use, but at least would explain why I don't seem to leave the init process
I couldn't see the Samsung specific source for init anywhere, has anyone found any? I'm not happy to replace it using the standard Android source as I'm guessing there's code missing which allows the bootloader to tell init how the device was started so that it knows which of the .rc files to run. Has anyone looked into this?
Thanks
Looking at the code in that link it looks pretty straightforward, just a case of parsing the kernel command line (though I might just reverse engineer the existing init first to make sure I'm not missing anything).
Would still be easier to get the actual source code from Samsung, so I've emailed their Open Source group.
lardman said:
P.S. I also note there's a flash of screen corruption as the device starts up with my new kernel, I don't remember seeing that before. Is this a usual occurance?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I get it with CM
Does CM use a compressed initramfs? I'm using one of those and wondering if it's something to do with the (admittedly small) extra time required to move to init.
I don't have my Tab with me here, could someone post the output of /proc/cmdline please? You'll need to be root. Thanks.
Well it's booting you'll all be glad to hear.
More details to follow, but from memory the following were required:
Custom kernel to add btrfs support (as the image I'm booting is a btrfs partition on the external SD); kernel patch to allow compile-time cmdline to be added to the end of the bootloader cmdline (to enable console=tty0); replace Android init with init script to perform some basic setup then pivot_root to the Meego partition.
Next steps are to get the Meego system running usefully (which includes getting a terminal as currently I just have a login prompt but no way of inputting anything!) and also seeing whether I can get dual booting working with an Android system standard boot and Meego replacing the recovery boot.
Poor pic, but still: http://people.bath.ac.uk/enpsgp/Tab/PICT0040.JPG
Good stuff. Thanks for keeping us informed.
After you've got the groundwork for this done, how easy would it be to get Ubuntu running?
Try google http://lmgtfy.com/?q=ubuntu+on+galaxy+tab
Sent from my GT-P1000 using XDA App
brilldoctor said:
Try google http://lmgtfy.com/?q=ubuntu+on+galaxy+tab
Sent from my GT-P1000 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's using chroot, which I don't want. I want it running natively.
Sent from my Galaxy Tab

[Q] partition SD on Milestone w/parted - SWAP enabling (brainstorming)

Hi!
Last 48h I've been digging forums for an answer. Is it possible to partition SD Card in Milestone using "parted" and THIS guide?
The problem comes with one little thing:
Code:
C:\Users\DrNO>adb shell
Milestone-Recovery:/
# parted /dev/block/mmcblk0
parted /dev/block/mmcblk0
bash: parted: command not found
Milestone-Recovery:/
# exit
After sleepless night I'm richer in knowledge that (probably) parted is not included in AOR (it's 3.3 that I'm using) [as zeppelinrox posted HERE]
OK, 51dusty used CM recovery, I've tried CMR2.5.0.7, with little success. Maybe I've used it the wrong way but hey!... First I had trouble finding it, then tried to install/flash it through "ROM Manager 4.x", ok it said that's done, reboot into recovery > "Error". Then I looked into the package it looked like an "update" to apply in AOR. It worked, but "adb shell" freezes, it unfreezes after closing CMR. wtf... it was 3 a.m.
1. Am I doing something wrong?
2. Is it possible to implement "parted" in AOR
3. Is it possible to use mentioned above guide on Milestone?
The reason is to part SD "the right way" and split it: FAT32+EXT2(3)+SWAP
Please, help
You can't have swap on Milestone.
And... that's the guide that I used as well... I made a step by step post about it... see my Handy Dandy Fixes thread I linked to it in there... I think I called it "The Hard Way" but ended up being fun...
Oh... and it took me a whole weekend to get it right!
ok, i'll try that anyway, also I'll try to "mount" swap using app called "A2SDGUI", it did miracles with ext2 and it has swap initialing capabilities. when I try to punch it, it flashes short text for half a sec, something about not finding suitable partition, if I get it right, it might work...
two additional Qs:
1. call me retarded but where do I find proper "parted"?
2. is there a windows app that can part disk and make not only ext but swap too? currently I don't have any linux system running, I could install one or make live CD but it would be only for one thing only so I think that you can understand my lazyness ;P
DrNO[PL] said:
2. is there a windows app that can part disk and make not only ext but swap too? currently I don't have any linux system running, I could install one or make live CD but it would be only for one thing only so I think that you can understand my lazyness ;P
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html
Guide to using Minitool partition wizard.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/index.php?title=SD_card_partitioning
DrNO[PL] said:
1. call me retarded but where do I find proper "parted"?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=12361294&postcount=842
thank you Sir for those above and more that I've already read around forum search module is not so great as I thought, because it never returned that post withw "parted".
will report soon how's the battle evolving...
Good luck.
ok then...
parted worked, SD8GB splited nicely:
FAT32 7,25GB
EXT3 512MB
SWAP 32GB
that was easy
next thing "apps2ext", reinstalled Darktremor script, restored ext2 backup, worked, mounted FAT, copied backup, reboot, OS did't even noticed any change (except cutting ext2 by a half and upgrading to ext3, in a good way). then swap. first i've tried some apps, like DroidSwap (only FC's), then Swapper2, which found swap partition, but is still limited by the "f" kernel. formating went OK, (un)mounting part. FAILed. then I've started messing arround > in short, bricked soft :] nothing serious, only /system could not mount, thank you nandroid you exist. now I'm back to the point after spliting SD, having Firefox weighting something like 0.8GB in memory with opened tabs about swap vs milestone. after much reading I'll try more serious approach, more digging, lower coding, no apps, console yes, wish me luck.
quick question, people keep saying linux-swap on milestone is not possible, therefore why are you still including it?
I believe it's possible but the commands the set it up / use it are unknown. It doesn't follow the standard "linux way".
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
Swap relies on the kernel being compiled with CONFIG_SWAP. Unfortunately for us, Motorola did not enable swap in the kernels they release. Coupled with the kernel verification scheme, we are unable to swap the kernel with one that has CONFIG_SWAP enabled.
If you do a mkswap and swapon on Milestone, you'd get "Not Implemented". So, swap support is not possible. I'd like to be proven wrong though.
Sent from my Milestone using XDA App
swap enable = impossible, dude..
If you read some threads at droidforums, alot of guys don't use swap anyway as it kills the sd card quicker.
Compcache is more interesting... you can squeeze more apps in the same amount of free ram via compression.
The debate is that it takes time to uncompress the app from ram when it's recalled but ram is fast and it would be even faster with a V6 under the hood lol
SWAP is impossible, because motorola kernel don't support it. So, as long as we can't compile our own kernel on Motorola Milestone, this will remain impossible.
Sent from my Milestone using XDA App

HD PLus Partition Table restoration

I've tried diving through google and the site looking for a solution to this. Between noise,missed hits, and age, I am not having any luck finding out if this is solvable.
I made the mistake last year of trying the fstrim fix on a model that was clearly a bad idea on - funny how I found all the "DON'T!" articles a year later despite being from before my search. . *ah well* I toyed with the fixes at the time but never had much luck and set it aside for a while.
Started looking again last night and was able to at least determine the Nook isn't dead. CWM comes up, I can hit it with ADB. fdisk doesn't seem to see anything ( which I'm guessing is expected but I'm unsure why ) so I'm uncertain how to restore. the partition tables.
I have an identical model I can clone if there are any sane processes for doing such, but i've been unable to ask search engines the right questions.
Can someone clarify if this is possible or if I'm "stuck" running off of an sd card from now on?
Thanks.
dbolack said:
I've tried diving through google and the site looking for a solution to this. Between noise,missed hits, and age, I am not having any luck finding out if this is solvable.
I made the mistake last year of trying the fstrim fix on a model that was clearly a bad idea on - funny how I found all the "DON'T!" articles a year later despite being from before my search. . *ah well* I toyed with the fixes at the time but never had much luck and set it aside for a while.
Started looking again last night and was able to at least determine the Nook isn't dead. CWM comes up, I can hit it with ADB. fdisk doesn't seem to see anything ( which I'm guessing is expected but I'm unsure why ) so I'm uncertain how to restore. the partition tables.
I have an identical model I can clone if there are any sane processes for doing such, but i've been unable to ask search engines the right questions.
Can someone clarify if this is possible or if I'm "stuck" running off of an sd card from now on?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First, the HD/HD+ does not use a DOS based partition table so fdisk will not work. It has a different system, I think GPT, but not sure it is the right name.
But if you look at my HD+ stock tip thread linked in my signature, you will see I have an article about partition structure there. If you use TWRP on SD it has a terminal emulator that will let you run the routines for backing up and restoring the partitions.
But if you truly messed up with the fstrim fix your device has become read only and it is not fixable.
Sent from my SM-T707V using XDA Premium HD app
leapinlar said:
First, the HD/HD+ does not use a DOS based partition table so fdisk will not work. It has a different system, I think GPT, but not sure it is the right name.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is the provided, linuxy fdisk on the CWM image when I did a adb shell, not the host OS, which also isn't dos. Unless it's behaving in a way different than expected, it should detect the block devices even if it does not understand the partitioning table. Newer implementations of fdisk do speak gpt, but I rather doubt that's on the CWM image. I believe you are correct that it is a gpt table. I'll have to verify against my other device.
leapinlar said:
But if you look at my HD+ stock tip thread linked in my signature, you will see I have an article about partition structure there. If you use TWRP on SD it has a terminal emulator that will let you run the routines for backing up and restoring the partitions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll have to give that a whirl. I hadn't spotted that particular bit.
leapinlar said:
But if you truly messed up with the fstrim fix your device has become read only and it is not fixable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure. If I run blkid I do see that the two partitions that CWM has a wipe/format seem to have file systems on them, but they are the only ones detected. This makes me think the partitions are borked in some very creative way and I either can't see the table to fix it with the tools I'm using or the tools I need aren't present on my image.
dbolack said:
I've tried diving through google and the site looking for a solution to this. Between noise,missed hits, and age, I am not having any luck finding out if this is solvable.
I made the mistake last year of trying the fstrim fix on a model that was clearly a bad idea on ...
...
Can someone clarify if this is possible or if I'm "stuck" running off of an sd card from now on?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If your EMMC is bricked due to "having run fstrim on a faulty EMMC chip", your only option is to run on SD a special "no-emmc" CM ROM such as the one posted at https://iamafanof.wordpress.com/201...-4-4-4-for-bricked-no-emmc-nook-hd-04nov2014/.
digixmax said:
If your EMMC is bricked due to "having run fstrim on a faulty EMMC chip", your only option is to run on SD a special "no-emmc" CM ROM such as the one posted at....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interestingly, using the link to the buggy EMMC Page at Cynogen ( sorry, newb can't link ) mine is not on the list of known offenders.

What's the size of system and data partitions? How to change it?

What's the size of system, data and cache partitions for the Xiaomi Mi8?
Could you please show the sizes of its partitions, please?
I haven't bought the mobile yet.
I've had problems with older mobiles because these partitions are too small and many apps complain, specially Google services.
There are some complex tutorials to modify partition sizes with adb commands but are specific to each phone.
What's the best/easiest way to achieve it with the Xiaomi Mi8?
skanskan said:
What's the size of system, data and cache partitions for the Xiaomi Mi8?
Could you please show the sizes of its partitions, please?
I haven't bought the mobile yet.
I've had problems with older mobiles because these partitions are too small and many apps complain, specially Google services.
There are some complex tutorials to modify partition sizes with adb commands but are specific to each phone.
What's the best/easiest way to achieve it with the Xiaomi Mi8?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What you're talking about is issues with old budget phones.
Even the modern budget phones have partitions big enough to fit files in without issues.
And the Mi 8 is a flagship so you have nothing to worry about when it comes to partition sizes.
The Marionette said:
What you're talking about is issues with old budget phones.
Even the modern budget phones have partitions big enough to fit files in without issues.
And the Mi 8 is a flagship so you have nothing to worry about when it comes to partition sizes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Anyway, could you please tell me the size of its partitions, please?
Just to know the information.
Thanks
The Marionette said:
What you're talking about is issues with old budget phones.
Even the modern budget phones have partitions big enough to fit files in without issues.
And the Mi 8 is a flagship so you have nothing to worry about when it comes to partition sizes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In another forum somebody has just told me his mobile has this partitions (diskinfo):
Data 52.5 G 3.9 used 48.4GB free
System 2.9G 2.1G used 872MB free
Ram 5.5. GB 2.9GB used 1.6GB free
As you can see the System partition is quite small and almost full, even if the phone is a new model the problem is still there.
We need a method to easily enlarge that system partition, and maybe other not shown there.
skanskan said:
In another forum somebody has just told me his mobile has this partitions (diskinfo):
Data 52.5 G 3.9 used 48.4GB free
System 2.9G 2.1G used 872MB free
Ram 5.5. GB 2.9GB used 1.6GB free
As you can see the System partition is quite small and almost full, even if the phone is a new model the problem is still there.
We need a method to easily enlarge that system partition, and maybe other not shown there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're the only one who thinks that. Try repartitioning yourself but don't complain when you brick your phone.
skanskan said:
We need a method to easily enlarge that system partition, and maybe other not shown there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've done this job, in the past, with my Oppo Find 7 (see here - https://forum.xda-developers.com/fi...st-custom-storage-partitions-v1-oppo-t2930576).
I discourage all of you to repeat a job like this - unless you have a tool (usually a MS Windows tool) that recreates all the storage's internal partitions (jn the same way as done in factory) and only if you have a very high-level know-how to face and solve all possible issues and matters - be even ready to say good-bye to your phone !!!
italianquadcore said:
I've done this job, in the past, with my Oppo Find 7 (see here - https://forum.xda-developers.com/fi...st-custom-storage-partitions-v1-oppo-t2930576).
I discourage all of you to repeat a job like this - unless you have a tool (usually a MS Windows tool) that recreates all the storage's internal partitions (jn the same way as done in factory) and only if you have a very high-level know-how to face and solve all possible issues and matters - be even ready to say good-bye to your phone !!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is the kind of tutorial I've already seen before.
The problem is almost always the same, the rely on a script designed specifically for a phone model.
I could try to translate that script to my phone using generic adb and linux commands but it will be dangerous.
I've also heard that some versions of TWRP can resize the partitions easily. It would be great to get it on the Mi8.
What is the worst thing that can happen if all goes wrong?
Wouldn't I solve it by just wiping everything from a fastboot and resintalling a ROM?
Regards.
skanskan said:
This is the kind of tutorial I've already seen before.
The problem is almost always the same, the rely on a script designed specifically for a phone model.
I could try to translate that script to my phone using generic adb and linux commands but it will be dangerous.
I've also heard that some versions of TWRP can resize the partitions easily. It would be great to get it on the Mi8.
What is the worst thing that can happen if all goes wrong?
Wouldn't I solve it by just wiping everything from a fastboot and resintalling a ROM?
Regards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no reason to touch the partitions of modern smartphones, all the most important partitions are big enough to contain all binary codes for the operating system and personal data we need.
Whenever we unlock the bootloader, we have full access of the emmc, so we can even delete/resize/create partitions. The first con is that we could not start the phone anymore, due to the fact that android, recovery and fastboot, reside in three different partitions. If we delete these partitions, there is no way to access the smartphone. In this case an external application for Windows or Linux (created by the manufacturer) must be used to rewrite all the emmc again, recreating the partitions and rewriting them, in the same way as done in factory. This application is the most important piece of software we must have if we want to mod our smartphone.

Categories

Resources