256mb Nand Flash - Free Space For Apps?

[Chip]

There was a time, when men lived in caves and Raptor Jesus walked the earth, when computers didn't have hard drives. Everything, including the OS was kept on removable media. Media that could be removed without warning.

Somehow, we survived.

Somehow...

 

[Squidge]

Will the OS accept the two different SDs or be expecting to find the original files? Would just 'refreshing' bring up the new files/structure?

If you eject an SD card which there are files in use on, then remove the card without allowing the OS the dismount it, then it will still expect to find whatever files were on that SD card until all in use files are closed and the card is finally unmounted *. Swapping cards without unmounting can cause data corruption (as it can assume the locations of certain things, and start overwriting stuff on the new card which was blank on the previous one).

Solution: Always dismount before ejecting the card.

* (Typically, an unmount will be forced if a card is removed without unmounting, but ONLY if there are no files in use on that card. This is why people suggest to only change inserted cards on the gp2x when at the gp2x menu)

 

[Null]

Raptor Jesus



It's bibletastic. :lol:

 

[cb88]

it was menitioned i believe that some programs will be pacakged as cramfs files... what are the chances of us using squashfs and lzma? there are a few live distros that do that ... i think the lzmaed squash files are smaller too... if slightly slower to read (not really noticeable even on a 300mhz PC)

 

[waffles]

wait, so does turning it off then switching cards still work?

 

[Chip]

it was menitioned i believe that some programs will be pacakged as cramfs files... what are the chances of us using squashfs and lzma? there are a few live distros that do that ... i think the lzmaed squash files are smaller too... if slightly slower to read (not really noticeable even on a 300mhz PC)

Compressed file systems are not likely to be worth the hassle. The majority of your SD cards will be taken up with media files and ROM images which are already compressed.

 

[peca]

Here's a use case: I want to transfer files between 2 SD cards. I already have 2 other SD cards inserted, one full of games, the other with apps and media. Maybe I've got a couple of apps or daemons running. How exactly could I go about making this transfer? The ideal way is to pop out the two that are in there, insert the 2 that I'm transfering data on and start copying, but is something horrible going to happen if I start removing the cards?

Maybe you can use USB card reader (2 reader in small USB hub for 2 cards, to be exactly) for copying files between 2 other SD cards if you have already 2 another SD cards mounted and full?

edit: add quote.

 

[sindbad]

it was menitioned i believe that some programs will be pacakged as cramfs files... what are the chances of us using squashfs and lzma? there are a few live distros that do that ... i think the lzmaed squash files are smaller too... if slightly slower to read (not really noticeable even on a 300mhz PC)
Compressed file systems are not likely to be worth the hassle. The majority of your SD cards will be taken up with media files and ROM images which are already compressed.Lzma is impressive even for already compressed content, it may be worth it.

 

[hessiess]

how 'user hackable' will the pandoras OS be? If you cannot acsess the nand then 'not verry' would seem to be the answer. i.e. can it boot of SD?

 

[WizardStan]

how 'user hackable' will the pandoras OS be? If you cannot acsess the nand then 'not verry' would seem to be the answer. i.e. can it boot of SD?

Yes it can. I was going to redirect you to the wiki page that said so, but one doesn't seem to exist.
There have been many forum posts about it though. Just do a quick search.

 

[Orkie]

Of course you can hack the firmware, they just don't want people who don't know what they are doing messing with the NAND and creating problems for themselves.

 

[cb88]

@Chip you missunderstand i am refering to the native programs being distibuted as cramfs or squashfs files has nothing to do with the rom images although if you had some roms that always played it might shave a little off ....

you say most of my space will be taken up by music and roms.... NO... what about the native games? they will take up space the cube mods are pretty big and depending on the music file the would benefit as well... anywho squash files are super easy to make and a gui to make them wouldn't be too hard (its been done before)

anyhow if you have a music collection why would you not want it in a squash or cramfs? you can't delete them accidentially and they take up less space....

oh and you gotta remember you aren't just compressing one file again ... you are compressing maybe hundreds or thousands and you can eek some more compression that way

 

[God Ginrai]

@Chip you missunderstand i am refering to the native programs being distibuted as cramfs or squashfs files has nothing to do with the rom images although if you had some roms that always played it might shave a little off ....

you say most of my space will be taken up by music and roms.... NO... what about the native games? they will take up space the cube mods are pretty big and depending on the music file the would benefit as well... anywho squash files are super easy to make and a gui to make them wouldn't be too hard (its been done before)

anyhow if you have a music collection why would you not want it in a squash or cramfs? you can't delete them accidentially and they take up less space....

oh and you gotta remember you aren't just compressing one file again ... you are compressing maybe hundreds or thousands and you can eek some more compression that way

Well, if using the native games on the GP2X gives any hints, then Chip is right, because although there may be one or two games that take up some space, (like Cube, you say) most homebrew games and native apps take up significantly less space than an N64 rom. (or a PSX ISO, or any of the other larger roms)

-God Ginrai

 

[Chip]

you say most of my space will be taken up by music and roms.... NO... what about the native games? they will take up space the cube mods are pretty big and depending on the music file the would benefit as well... anywho squash files are super easy to make and a gui to make them wouldn't be too hard (its been done before)

The entire games section of the GP2X file archive is only a bit over 2GB, and that includes multiple versions of many games. I'm not saying that you shouldn't use squashFS or something similar, I'm just saying that for most people, it's not going to do much good. Most users will have their cards full of predominantly pre-compressed data. If you compressed the whole card, you're not likely to break into a double digit compression ratio.

But if you really want it, then it shouldn't be a big deal to add. It may even be included in the initial release - though considering how much else the devs have to worry about, I'm sure it's not a priority.

 

[kloplop321]

why can't people just get used to the fact: this is linux, if apps are only installed on the card, and the dependencies are installed on the card, then you wont have any problems, why would you want to be swapping cards anyway? you got 2 slots, and it is cheaper to have bigger cards (except in the current case of 16GB and 32GB).
In linux when the system mounts the SD card, it can also do a link command which say like the SD card is like this

SD Card 1 ->
--------------/bin
--------------/boot
--------------/dev
--------------/etc
--------------/home
--------------/initrd
--------------/lib
--------------/lost+found
--------------/media
--------------/mnt
--------------/opt
--------------/proc
--------------/root
--------------/sbin
--------------/srv
--------------/sys
--------------/tmp
--------------/usr
--------------/var
it would link all of those folders to the system folders: thereby providing that /home/(user here)/ is the user's directory
/usr/bin/ on the card will contain all of the new applications, and so on.
its so easy but people that have no experience in linux have no idea what I am talking about because it does not exist in windows. Sure you can do PATH variables, but that would only handle /usr/bin but if you just do the ln command for the folders then you are set.. however I doubt the system anex card would ever want to be removable during live time, linux hates that with a passion.