maemo.org - Talk - Booting from MMC on N800 Now Available!!

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Re: Booting from MMC on N800 Now Available!!

Oh ok... didn't think of that because it was discussed in this thread ;)
Advantages:

- Backup system on flash. If you brick your OS you can use your backup system.
- Faster booting. Jffs2 uses compression, so there is a big overhead which results in slower transfer rates and cpu usage. The filesystem on on your SD card can be ext2/ext3 etc.
- Extends your rootfs and you can install more than 256mb of applications.
- Testing system. Install an application on sd and test it. If everything works you ca finally install it on flash. So you can have a cleaner OS.
- ...

Re: Booting from MMC on N800 Now Available!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCr33P (Post 36447)

So this would appeal more to the developer world rather then just average users. So my original assumptions was correct.

Re: Booting from MMC on N800 Now Available!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by sapporobaby (Post 36448)

So this would appeal more to the developer world rather then just average users. So my original assumptions was correct.

Well, if you think only developers want faster system or more space for aplications or having safe way to recover from some random buggy program then yes, it is only for developers :-)

I would call them power users.

Re: Booting from MMC on N800 Now Available!!

dito :D

btw: anyone an idea why I can't create a ext2 partition on my card?

Re: Booting from MMC on N800 Now Available!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCr33P (Post 36324)

I just did the partitioning again and did not set the active flag. Then I made a vfat and ext2 fs, again. After rebooting and mounting ext2, there is still the same data as before when typing "df" but no visible data. How can I format the partiton?

And there is something very wrong:

Code:

/media/mmc2 # mkdir test

mkdir: Cannot create directory `test': Input/output error

Looks like buggy card, can you post kernel log (output of 'dmesg') when you format or access (read/write) the card? What SD/MMC card you have? If it is SD card make sure it is not write protected, there is a switch on the card.

Re: Booting from MMC on N800 Now Available!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by fanoush (Post 36450)

Great, hopefully Nokia can count on you "power" users to purchase about a million N800's rather than the average user or early adopters. Yup, I can see a great future for this device with guys like you on the purchasing end. Hopefully the Nokia sales and marketing departments took you into account.

Re: Booting from MMC on N800 Now Available!!

I think that the card is not the problem. I created a 2gig FAT partition and tested it, it was ok. Then I made a whole 2gig ext2 partiton instead, and it worked. Only the combination of two partitons does not work. The first FAT parittion can be mounted, the second ext2 partition not. Dmesg while mounting:

Code:

[17180725.936000] NTFS-fs error (device sdd2): read_ntfs_boot_sector(): Primary boot sector is invalid.

[17180725.936000] NTFS-fs error (device sdd2): read_ntfs_boot_sector(): Mount option errors=recover not used. Aborting without trying to recover.

[17180725.936000] NTFS-fs error (device sdd2): ntfs_fill_super(): Not an NTFS volume.

[17180725.936000] FAT: bogus number of reserved sectors

[17180725.936000] VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev sdd2.

[17180725.940000] ReiserFS: sdd2: warning: sh-2021: reiserfs_fill_super: can not find reiserfs on sdd2

[17180725.944000] VFS: Can't find an ext2 filesystem on dev sdd2.

and fsck.ext2:

Code:

dusko@dusko-desktop:/etc$ sudo fsck.ext2 /dev/sdd2

e2fsck 1.39 (29-May-2006)

Couldn't find ext2 superblock, trying backup blocks...

fsck.ext2: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sdd2



The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2

filesystem.  If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2

filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock

is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:

    e2fsck -b 8193 <device>

I also tried with parted, and everytime I create the ext2 partition and commit the changes, the next time it shows that the fs type is unknown.

I tried to make one primary and one extended partition and also tried to make two primary partitions. Now everytime a try something new, I create two primary parititons.

EDIT:

Got a 2gb Extrememory performance card. It's now wirteprotected, cause I can write on the first fat partition and create them all.

Re: Booting from MMC on N800 Now Available!!

Hmm, that's strange. The only idea I have is that those two partitions are overlapping so when you write to end of first FAT you overwrite beginning of second ext2 one. But if you tried also other programs to create partitions and did not mess with partition beginning it is unlikely so I don't know.

Re: Booting from MMC on N800 Now Available!!

Tonight I did this to the whole card:

Code:

dusko@dusko-desktop:/etc$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdd && dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdd

dd: writing to `/dev/sdd': Input/output error

2427905+0 records in

2427904+0 records out

1243086848 bytes (1.2 GB) copied, 815.859 seconds, 1.5 MB/s

Ergo: Not so good...

Then I tried again. This time I set it up to write 5 times to the card. In the morning, after I woke up, i got this:

Code:

dusko@dusko-desktop:/etc$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdd ; dd ...

dd: writing to `/dev/sdd': No space left on device

3910657+0 records in

3910656+0 records out

2002255872 bytes (2.0 GB) copied, 1295.23 seconds, 1.5 MB/s

fife times.

I don't know why I got input/output error the first time, but to me the card seems ok, cause of the last fife writing cycles.

Re: Booting from MMC on N800 Now Available!!

WTF!?!? I just played around with the sizes of each partition and chose 1gb fpr FAT32 and the rest to ext2 (~900mb) and it worked!? After a few partitions changes I realize that I can't make ext2 partitions of 400-600mb (very rough approximation)... :eek:

I don't get it...