maemo.org - Talk - Using 2GB internal memory for apps?

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- - Using 2GB internal memory for apps? (https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=23707)

Re: Using 2GB internal memory for apps?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master of Gizmo (Post 225466)

I am afraid i don't understand your reply and it seems others also don't.

It's simple, there are no real benefits to moving only part of the OS to an SD card rather than the whole thing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master of Gizmo (Post 225466)

The question was whether it's possible to move parts to the sd card and someone said no, only the entire system can be moved to the card. You say it is possible, but it's e.g. slower than copying the entire system and draws more power and is less reliable.

It's possible, but it's an inferior solution. The problem is that the user wants more space to install applications. The good solution is to move the OS to a card where there is lots of space available. The bad solution is to start symlinking stuff to the card (I outlined the reasons above).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master of Gizmo (Post 225466)

- copying parts instead of everthing slower?

Because important parts of your OS are still residing on the slower built-in flash memory.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master of Gizmo (Post 225466)

- why draws copying parts instead of everything more power?

Why does having two hard drives running at the same time use more power than just one?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master of Gizmo (Post 225466)

- why is copying parts less reliable?

Why is RAID 0 less reliable? You've doubled your failure points and removed the option of a bootable backup.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master of Gizmo (Post 225466)

You suggest that the sd card is less reliable than the internal flash.

No, I suggested that the solution of only moving portions of the OS to a flash card was less reliable than booting the whole OS from that flash card.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master of Gizmo (Post 225466)

Why should that be?

As I said above, you've doubled your failure points.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master of Gizmo (Post 225466)

Or am i misunderstanding your entire post?

For the most part, yes.

Booting from a flash card gives you a number of benefits. It leaves a bootable backup on the internal flash that you can fall back to if something goes wrong, it speeds up filesystem-intensive operations (uncompressed filesystem, faster flash memory), and it offers you lots of space to install applications.

A question for you, Master of Gizmo, with all those benefits (and all the disadvantages of symlinking) why would you rather symlink stuff to your card than boot from it?

Re: Using 2GB internal memory for apps?

Quote:

Originally Posted by GeneralAntilles (Post 280021)

It's simple, there are no real benefits to moving only part of the OS to an SD card rather than the whole thing.

It's possible, but it's an inferior solution. The problem is that the user wants more space to install applications. The good solution is to move the OS to a card where there is lots of space available. The bad solution is to start symlinking stuff to the card (I outlined the reasons above).

Because important parts of your OS are still residing on the slower built-in flash memory.

What's wrong with symlinking ?
Does it matter anything that the data actually resides on a (of course ext3 formatted) memory card or in the internal flash ?
I want to try it to symlink large libraries to a folder on the memory card, I didn't try it yet.

Re: Using 2GB internal memory for apps?

GA is right, symlinking is just a world of pain. Been there, done that. Too many things can go wrong, too many hidden gotcha's. Moving your boot to a card seems scary at first, but it is the correct long term solution. Not to mention you get a 'free' fallback boot in case something goes amiss on the 'main', card based boot.

Re: Using 2GB internal memory for apps?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master of Gizmo (Post 225824)

Ok: Yes, this is possible. You need to reformat your internal memory card to a filesystem linux can run programs of and that maemo supports. This would e.g. be the ext3 file system. You can then link to applications there or link to entire directories. .

No, ext3 is the wrong choice.

This is a flash memory device, so you should better use JFFS2.
it keeps up the live of your memory card.

About symlinking:

I'm now too at the point to get more space for the OS.
Symlinking looked like a good idea at the first place, but there is a problem.
From my experience connecting the N810 via USB to a PC can result in making the large internal flash memory (2GB) not usable on the N810 Device during the time, the device is connected to the PC.

So if you moved /usr to the flash drive and mounted it on /usr,
the device will brake because it can't use the flash memory as described above.

If you only copied /usr to the flash drive and mounted the flash drive on /usr, you mights still be able to use the device but without the apps installed on the large flash drive.
Additionally dpkg the packet manager will now run in problems if you now update or install new software because as i said, the large 2 GB flash drive is hidden, when connected to the PC, so the N810 device uses the small 256 MB one which is inconsistent to the apt database you used for the larger 2 GB flash drive.

So from this viewpoint installing a new independant system on the large internal flash drive is better than symlinking.