Formating card as EXT2/3 ?
 

Hi,
I am a new N800 user, that will arrive next week. I am full of doubts, and would highly appreciate some help from this forum.

My first issue is about a 16GB SDHC memory card that I am buying for the N800 (the card will work, right?). I've read that I must format it as FAT16/32. Problem is that I do really need to use (thousands) of symbolic links... May I format the card as EXT2 or EXT3?

Thanks a lot!!

L.

Re: Formating card as EXT2/3 ?
 

Yes, your 16 SDHC should work (assuming it follows industry standards which it should).

You don't need to format it as FAT16/32 (I think).

Re: Formating card as EXT2/3 ?
 

Yup, you don't unless you want to read it in Windows (though there are ext2/3 drivers for windows too).

Re: Formating card as EXT2/3 ?
 

You can format it as ext2/3, will work just fine, but you may have to touch a couple of scripts for it to mount/umount automatically.

Re: Formating card as EXT2/3 ?
 

Re: Formating card as EXT2/3 ?
 

Great! FAT fs are limited and unreliable. I will partition it as EXT3 then.

One more question (as I told you, I have many....): I have a 64GB pen drive that want to attach to the N800. Can it also be formated as EXT3?

Thanks to all that replied!!!
Cheers,
Luis.

Re: Formating card as EXT2/3 ?
 

Sounds okay.

There's another thing about ext3 though. Its kernel modules are not loaded by default if I remember correctly.

Re: Formating card as EXT2/3 ?
 

The latest OS 2008 has no problems with ext3. I formatted a memory card with ext3 and was able to use it on the tablet without having to load any driver modules manually. Automatic mounting / unmounting went fine, too.
There's really no reason to use FAT32 on your memory cards, unless you want to be able to read the card on non-Linux systems.
Of all filesystems that are around today, FAT is definitely one of the worst and most unreliable.

Re: Formating card as EXT2/3 ?
 

I think I would've switched to ext2 already if it weren't for the fact that the once in a while time I'm in Windows I couldn't copy anything to it over SSH. (I don't trust the programs that can read ext2/3 partitions since they don't support journaling and aren't updated).

Re: Formating card as EXT2/3 ?
 

It may be mounting as ext2, unless you force it with "mount -t ext3"
For automount to work right, I had to modify linuxrc in initfs to change the order in which the filesystem modules are loaded, because the way busybox's mount works it was mounting ext3 as ext2.
For it to work right, line 10 of linuxrc should read:
FS_MOUDLES="mbcache jdb ext3 ext2"


Even did a bug report with patch included, which of course was ignored.

Re: Formating card as EXT2/3 ?
 

The N800 may not provide enough power via the USB port for your flash drive. Some work, some require power injection, a powered USB hub, etc.

Re: Formating card as EXT2/3 ?
 

It sounds just perfect then. Thanks a lot, you've been quite helpful!!

Cheers,
L.

Re: Formating card as EXT2/3 ?
 

Yeah, I am aware of this. I am crossing my fingers...

Thanks,
L.

Re: Formating card as EXT2/3 ?
 

Does anyone know if you can attach a label when using gparted in Ubuntu to format the cards to ext2? I tried doing so and now Maemo can't read the cards. It also shows a lost+found folder which usually comes from fsck. It seems that only root can write to cards..

Edit: I gave up on it. It doesn't seem to be a benefit since I'd have to fsck the cards anyway.

Re: Formating card as EXT2/3 ?
 

"lost+found" exists on any ext2 or ext3 filesystem. fsck puts recoverable stuff there, but the folder is there from the beginning. And you can only write as root because the mountpoint doesn't let you write to the directory as user.
If the card is mounted /media/mmc1, try this as root:
while the card is mounted. This will allow anyone to put files onto the card.