I wish to offer the suggestion that we need to start a new thread on this subject, dealing solely with possibilities for OS2006. While the existing thread on this subject (begun last January) has been fascinating to see evolve, and I believe has proved immensely useful, much of it I believe is considerably out-of-date, in dealing with OS 2005. Much good work seems to be afoot in this matter for OS2006, but getting a coherent handle on it from the existing thread I find to be quite difficult and confusing. Perhaps I stand alone in this assumption. However, what I would very much like to see, and personally need, is a clearly put explication of where we now are, through the efforts of some obviously dedicated Nokia programmer/users, toward attaining a useful system (or systems) which will achieve this very desirable and long-sought-after goal. Any ideas – or volunteers? (I myself, I regret, am significantly unqualified.)

One working option is to have whole rootfs on mmc card. The best is to have 1st partition as FAT for maximum compatibility and second partition formated as ext2 (or maybe ext3) with the rootfs.

advantages:
- no need to modify startup scripts in the rootfs, you can have exact copy of your original flash rootfs on mmc
- you have 2 independent systems to boot, one is a backup, you can boot second one if the main one goes wrong and fix it

disadvantages:
- approx 128mb of space is 'wasted' on mmc by copy of system files (original compressed rootfs takes ~60mb in flash but twice that on mmc card)

how to do it:
- get (and flash) my initfs modification to have on screen boot menu
http://fanoush.webpark.cz/maemo/#initfs
- clone you existing flash rootfs to mmc, second partition (/dev/mmcblk0p2)
- boot it
Some details are inside README.

It should be possible to add unionfs directly to initfs so it could be put on the top of whole rootfs (i.e. / directory) early in boot without any rootfs modifications for those who don't want to waste those 128 MB. But I won't do it because I don't call it a waste. I do like to have rootfs backup and two independent root filesystems.

BTW I know the documentation is not very newbie-friendly (as I didn't expect non-developers to use it). Would be nice if someone who was successful wrote some resume or HOWTO if he found something hard on not documented. I think the easiest way now to reflash the initfs if you don't have linux with mkfs.jffs2 or xdelta command on desktop is to recreate and flash it directly from n770. But make sure you know how to reflash over USB cable it if something goes wrong. Also reboot device and do not run anything memory or cpu intensive (like 3 browser windows + mp3 playback) before trying to flash from device itself. Also you need rsync and osso-xterm or dropbear ssh server, I think it is easier to type it over ssh (all available from applications page)

Fanoush: Thanks much for your initial responses to my posting. Even though I have just completed an introductory course in Linux at my local community college (taken to help me better understand Linux and deal more productively with my 770), I still must consider myself a beginner. As such, and as you anticipate, much of the guidance you provide for accomplishing this task still remains daunting to me. I join with you in hoping that someone out there can and will provide instructions geared to someone at my level of expertise (or non-expertise!). Again, many thanks. Jim

Im confused why this thread has not grown larger by now.
Maybe i didnt get it right, but doesnt this allow you to move
your / to the card and therefor get about 850MB of free ram
on a 1GB card?
Has nobody tried this yet?

In my case the answer is simple: a 1 GB card is way too small to hold all my stuff, and even a 2 GB card would require compromises.

As I understand it, with this hack I would need, every time I switch cards, to reboot my 770. That's just too much hassle for me if all I want is to watch another movie. I'll do it the moment 8 GB RS-MMC cards become available (and no longer require to take out a second mortgage).

I finally convinced myself to have a go at installing the RootFS system described by fanoush earlier in this thread, as available from his site: http://fanoush.webpark.cz/maemo/#initfs.
After one initial set-back due to my inattention to his really quite detailed instructions (in which I had to reflash the operating system) I succeeded quite readily in achieving an effective install. On his website, fanoush offers a number of options for effecting the installation. I chose the one which he labeled the easiest: Alternative 2-3. In my successful installation I followed his instructions precisely, with one exception. I partitioned my 1-gig MMC and installed an ext2 file system utilizing "gparted" instead of the one he recommended, "e2fsprogs," as I was already familiar with using the "gparted" application.

The only minor tweaking I would like to see in my utilization of the system would involve the boot menu. On booting up the 770, the internal rootfs will be flashed as default unless you quickly press the menu key, in which case you're then given other options for which other particular rootfs will be employed. I would prefer that more time (maybe five or ten seconds) be given for this decision to be made. I looked at the bootmenu script, hoping that I might be able to modify it myself to achieve this delay. But I quickly realized that effecting such a modification would be too complicated for me to manage. Also, when one has a menu choice betwen flashing from the original rootfs and from the MMC, I'm not certain which option is preferable, and for which reasons. Is the rootfs on the MMC only there as a parallel back-up, in the event the main rootfs breaks down, or is it the other way around? And relatedly, as one modifies and adds applications, which of the two parallel root systems should be so modified, knowing that one of the two will not be as up-to-date as the one modified? These are conceptual concerns of mine, and should not detract from the excellent system fanoush has devised.

Well as for the conceptul concerns I cannot help, there are many reasons why anyone would want to dual boot and have more independent systems (flash vs card). But for many people there is of course no reason to use it at all.

As for the menu there is a way to set the default choice via cal-tool command and you can also set root device to 'ask' to show the menu everytimes.

https://maemo.org/maemowiki/HowTo_BootRootFSFromMMC

fanoush: Pleased to see that you added the option for changing the default flash location to your site since the last time I accessed it. You well anticipated my needs. I made the change to MMC2 quite easily. Sorry that you backed off from the opportunity to state your views on the various potential uses for your system. I'm certain you didn't take the time and trouble to develop it on a whim. In any case, thanks for enabling me and others to benefit from your apparent philanthrophy.

Do I understand properly that the choices are essentially either to use sym links, or to copy the whole thing to MMC and then use unionfs? Is this the concensus of the cognoscenti? Is unionfs now considered to be robust and stable?

Along with extending / file system, one may also wish to add swap. In OS 2006, is using the built-in swap creation tool now the best choice? (Compared to making a separate partition? I'm assuming that the built-in swap tool creates a swap file.)

Thank you.

Regards,

DG