Hello - I'm taking the plunge and doing some cloning but I'm having a little trouble with the directions when it comes to the following step:

6. Fanoush's modified initfs and boot menu should be installed
See http://fanoush.wz.cz/maemo/#initfs for details explaining how to install the modified initfs and boot menu.


I have downloaded the initfs to my device, but I have no idea on how to extract it or what to do from here. Hopefully someone can explain better to me.

I'm confused. Seems to me that Fanoush's web cite you quote -- http://fanoush.wz.cz/maemo/#initfs -- gives a simple instruction on how to untar the file. Once that's done, and the untarred files subsequently repose in their own directory, then read the README file contained therein. Close reading of everything -- especially Fanoush's tightly written instructions -- is always required. Good luck.

copy from here, http://examplified.net/guide/Nokia_7...ting_from_MMC/, start on step 6,

Somehow copy/dl the file to the document folder

sudo gainroot
cd /home/user/MyDocs/.documents/
tar zxvf initfs_flasher.tgz
cd initfs_flasher

Close all applications, and disconnect from internet. Then type:

./initfs_flash

This will ask you several questions, here is what I recommend (type what's in bold): (your questions differ a little bit)

backup? no
remove extra stuff? yes
found, do you want to add it to initfs? yes
ready for flashing this image? yes
Press enter to reboot device

post if question.

_________________________________
2.2007.50-2 4G/8G/KDE/N800 mmc boot
bun

Milhouse, Bunanson and Fanoush,

I did it!!!
I'm dual booting from from a 16gb class 6 sdhc card.
I put 3.3gb for os and 11.9gb for storage.
The os on partition loads in about 15-17 seconds and the normal flash
loads in about 32-34 seconds.

I also got USB HOST running from normal flash. So now I have USB hub
with 4 sdhc cards. Strange thing is that it activates bluetooth?

Well again many thanks for your help, patience and support.
Dan

Congradulation!!!!!!!!!!!! now u have 3.3 G to install programs and 64G for storage! King Dan.


With the sweat, and losing sleep, the above report is NOT detail enough. You have to spell out every single step you do, so that ANYBODY can follow. I am holding my breadth...........


bun

Bunanson,

Go here bro.


http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...761#post130761

Enjoy,

Dan

Question: Which is better, Cloning the OS to the SD Card, or Extending the Root Partition onto the SD Card?

I'm comparing http://tinyurl.com/359bk3 (this thread's approach) with http://tinyurl.com/2wogkl. If there is a better approach, I'm open to it, but this is what my research has shown as solutions to this concern:

I'm concerned about Memory Management with such a small chunk of built-in memory, where it seems to me that everything but data keeps getting loaded. I don't care about having OS2007. I'm flashed to OS2008 on my 2-day-old N800, and I'm satisfied with it. (Actually, I'm downright dazzled!) If I also got a speed-boost, that would be nice, but not essential. If either option is less stable or less capable, or degrades the card in a short time (say, less than a year of frequent use), those issues would be significant to me.

I have no Linux background, nor a Linux box, but I'm willing to struggle on the N800 to get it right. Dan's thoughtful summary -- http://tinyurl.com/359bk3 -- seems tough but do-able.

So, which way would a knowledgeable N800 user suggest I go? Or would you say I really don't need to worry about running out of space on the internal memory? Thanks in advance for any help.

Extending the rootfs seems to be a more convoluted and riskier proposition than cloning the whole OS. It seems to me that extending the rootfs will result in you booting a device that is dependent on both the internal device memory and also the somewhat unreliable-and-easy-to-corrupt SD/MMC memory - if you accidentally trash or corrupt the SD/MMC memory card after extending the rootfs you may not be able to fall back on booting from the internal filesystem as you can with a cloned OS.

Cloning the entire OS to SD/MMC means you still have a bootable OS on internal device memory whenever you hit a problem. Cloning is a much easier process (no editing of boot scripts etc.) and the cloned OS may also run a little quicker as the extended rootfs still needs to spend CPU cycles compressing and uncompressing data on the jffs2 filesystem.

In a nutshell, I can't see any real benefits of extending the rootfs over cloning the whole OS.

As for running out of internal memory, it's possible to do this if you install a ton of sh1t but pretty rare. Deleting the stock media files (demo video, demo mp3s and PDF manuals) will free up a large chunk of space if things are getting tight.

Brilliant work! Thank you very much for this.

I did have a problem on N800 OS2008 where it said "Unable to locate mbcache.ko - aborting" so I just changed
" [ ! -d $BINDIR ] && BINDIR=/mnt/initfs/lib/modules/2.6.18-omap1"
to
" [ ! -d $BINDIR ] && BINDIR=/mnt/initfs/lib/modules/2.6.21-omap1"

(I know it has uname -r but it didn't work for me)

qwerty12 - what device and OS are you using? And what does your uname -r return? Can't think why you needed to change the script as it should have worked as it was... odd. It works fine for me on 770/OS2007HE, N800/OS2008 and N810/OS2008 (all latest versions of the respective operating systems).