I've run out of memory on my n810. I have a 2gig expansion card in it, but that's not helping.
What are my options?
a)Is the only option to uninstall apps?
b)Can I install apps on the expansion cards?
c)Is there a treasure trove of useless data that I can remove?
d)Am I a complete idiot b/c this has been addresses multiple times in the forum and I haven't typed in the magical search terms to find them?
e)None of thee above, now listen here emo boy

Well, option 'e' looks mighty tempting...

One magical search term you might try would be "out of memory 810", and you'll find dozens and dozens and dozens (okay, maybe just dozens and dozens) of threads.

You've run out of internal memory, which is not (by default) supplanted or extended by adding an expansion card.

You can remove some applications, or you can set up the expansion card so that it (or some portion of it) acts as internal memory [keeping in mind that this would require that the card be installed at all times, or the device will not boot!], or you can configure certain applications to write their data on the expansion card rather than on the 'internal memory'. Which option you choose is largely a matter of personal preference combined with a knowledge of exactly what you've done to "run out of memory" on your N810.

Well, there are several kinds of memory on the ITs and you didn't really specify which one you are running out of... To help you understand, I'll try to explain the different kinds of memory on the IT:

1) there is RAM, like in a regular computer. 128MB of it. That is used by programs that are actually running. It loses its content when you shutdown the IT.

2) There is the system drive (doesn't really have a name). That's kinda like the "C:" drive on a Windows computer. It holds the operating system and programs. 256MB of that. It's Flash based, doesn't lose content when shutting down. That's also where your "home" directory is on with the folders "Audio Clips", "Documents", "Games" etc... which show up in the File manager.

3) Finally, there's data storage space in the form of a built-in flash drive (N810) or SD/SDHC cards (N810 and N800)

(3) is usually not a problem, as you can always just buy a bigger card. Also, 2GB (N810) is quite large for many purposes. Once you start putting all your music/photos/videos on the device, you really should think about getting a large SD card. But that's an easy solution.

Space in 1) (Ram) gets crowded when running too many programs. Symptoms: programs just close without notice. Expecially MicroB likes to take a lot of RAM. You can help that somewhat by enabling "Virtual memory" (aka. swap). That will use some of your data storage 3) as Ram for running problems (enable through "Memory" in "Control Panel"). Unfortunately, when you actually start using a lot of Virtual Ram, the system will become quite slow. Instead of MicroB dying, it will just freeze up for 30 seconds or something like, which might or might not be an improvement. So there's a little bit of an improvment you can do here, but not too much.

Finally, 2) is the real killer - it puts a fairly hard limit on how many programs you can try out. Fortunately, most of the time you try out several programs that do the same thing, decide which one you like, and the uninstall the other ones. Also, if your are putting a lot of stuff in your "home" directory (default for many apps), try moving that stuff to 3). (Especially music, videos etc.... move them to 3)!) That should buy you some space. If you did that and REALLY REALLY want to add more programs, you _can_ try moving programs from /usr to 3) and create symlinks on 1). But that's really not for the faint of heart and can foobar your system. Or you could move all of /usr to your internal 2GB storage/SD Card and mount it on /usr. But not sure how that would play with auto-mounting and booting...

Martin

Is there a way to install some packages on the internal memory card (/media/mmc2) and have symbolic links from the internal flash memory (root file system)? Note: this must apply at the package-level, so that one can choose to do that for non-critical packages only (e.g. development tools, such as gcc). AFAIK, the Zaurus could do this.

Well, dpkg -L <packagename> will tell you the files owned by that package. You can see if there is some package specific directory that is worth moving off to a memory card and symlinking back. Since a package can have files in many different places, I don't think there is an "easy" way to move a whole "packge" to the memory card. (Maybe dpkg has some redirect/override features that might help?)

Martin

What abut the option of getting an 8GB microSDHC card, putting all of the internal memory on that, then make the system boot off the internal 2GB card?
http://maemo.org/community/wiki/howt...from_mmc_card/

not sure if this applies, but become root and do sudo apt-get clean, and sudo apt-get autoremove. (in a term)

Well, booting from mmc is a solution to move the system drive to the 2GB/SD card. I didn't really consider it a good option since it's a little like open heart surgery...

Martin

I know it's an old thread, but in case anyone stumbles upon it looking for an answer.... look out for mapping software, especially maemo-mapper. It uses the device memory by default, and every time you navigate somewhere its repository of maps grows (and never shrinks). You can compact regularly, or better still, move your map repository onto flash memory.

What ? Open heart surgry ?

Booting from internal flash allow you to have just 1/4 of memory comparing to the internal mmc (2G).

I'd suggest

1. delete some apps (from the internal flash),

2. move data from internal mmc to external mmc (buy one if you don't have one - they are so cheap now!),

3. format the internal mmc, clone the internal flash to the internal mmc.

It would take you less than 1 hour and it is not open heart surgery.