Who's is going run the OS from the SD card?
- Thread starter Austin25
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kaprikawn
Very Active Member
I'm going to do this. I'm a big fan of repos and I want to use them without worrying what it's going to do to the NAND. Plus I'm paranoid about read/write cycles. Also there's an element of me just doing it because I can.
known advantages include not bricking your pandora in any way, and running off sd is much safer for experimenting as sd cards are easily replaceable, NAND inside the pandora is not, thought the lifespan of nand should be more than enough for anything a normal person can throw at it, for maybe 15 years if im not mistaken, so if youre still using 15 year old computers on a daily basis, running OS off sd is something you should ocnsider
macsimus
Member
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mm i wonder if the ssd in my eeepc 701 (4go) is some kind of nand.. it's been couple years it's running 24/24 and the ssd doesn't show signs of failure yet..
i don't know, perhaps we don't have worry too much about this read/write limited cycle ..
Mac
i don't know, perhaps we don't have worry too much about this read/write limited cycle ..
Mac
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ZXDunny
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I too am attracted to this, but not because I want to save the NAND - it's because the Pandora's disk activity LED doesn't trigger on reads/writes to NAND, and it looks like the machine has locked up when extensive access is being made. If I boot from the SD, I'll get blinkenlights properly.
As an aside, why doesn't NAND access trigger an LED?
D.
As an aside, why doesn't NAND access trigger an LED?
D.
darfgarf
Well-Known Member
yes an ssd is similar to nand flash, and has a limited number of write cycles, due to wear levelling and other shiny things like that they'll last a damn long time though
Caine
Hardcore Member
I will be doing this as well. I plan to experiment with different OS configurations anyway, so I'll reserve one SD slot for OS and the other for data.
The NAND will be my backup in case I screw up
The NAND will be my backup in case I screw up
lulzfish
Pandora Defense Squad
I think there was some research that even cheap flash can handle hundreds of thousands of write cycles, so with good wear levelling (which afaik works below the block level, transparent to any filesystem or OS) even a very cheap flash device should last years, even if you're writing to it constantly at full transfer rate.
I thought you would be able to recover from it even once it stopped taking writes, but I don't know. A lot of flash-specific things happen below the filesystem level (which is often just FAT or something >_>), so it might not. If you can, that would be really cool, and a huge advantage over hard drives, which, from what I've heard, usually destroy themselves once they start to fail.
Hell yeah. Let me know if that works, like for wi-fi and GPU / DSP drivers and the standby switch.
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We've got two SD slots, haven't we? One for an OS and one for interchangable media. IMO it's insane to NOT run from SD. That way you can embark upon as much linux hackery as you desire without worrying about the root filesystem either becoming corrupted, or simply not fitting into the space available for it.
After the space problems I had with the N810, and the N900, I'm not touching a NAND-based rootFS ever again, if I can possibly help it. What can I say? I like in-development stuff, and wanton hackery.
Also, you can back up your SD-based root filesystem, simply by shoving it into a computer and creating a disk image of it. So if you *do* screw up, you can restore.
After the space problems I had with the N810, and the N900, I'm not touching a NAND-based rootFS ever again, if I can possibly help it. What can I say? I like in-development stuff, and wanton hackery.
Also, you can back up your SD-based root filesystem, simply by shoving it into a computer and creating a disk image of it. So if you *do* screw up, you can restore.
Mr_Loon
Can't Remember
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Interesting, I've been wondering about that and thinking how great it would be if someone were to create a range of images that could be shared via torrents.
Perhaps one with a minimum install, another with all sorts of applications, games & emulators pre installed, maybe one with debian etc.
This would be a great addition to the Pandora scene IMHO.
Caine
Hardcore Member
Running from SD card should also making installing applications from the normal repositories a lot easier as you don't have the strict size limitation of the NAND and all dependencies are actually stored on the card itself making it impossible to eject your dependencies.
You wouldn't even need the PND system with this approach as you can easily fit all emulators and games on the OS card and just place the roms on the data card. Nevertheless, having portable games and applications (PND) is a nice feature.
You wouldn't even need the PND system with this approach as you can easily fit all emulators and games on the OS card and just place the roms on the data card. Nevertheless, having portable games and applications (PND) is a nice feature.
skeezix
Internal Development
You can't brick your pandora; even if you wipe NAND, you can still boot from SD.
There is no problem booting and running from NAND; booting from SD or NAND is up to you, and they present different things; the main thing is of course booting from SD gets you much more space, which can be very handy. It can be faster or slower, depending on your SD. You also don't 'use up' your NAND write-count, but thats not something many have to ever worry about anyway.
So boot from SD for the right reasons (because you just want to, or for more space which is great for dev, or to have multiple different firmwares, etc), but do not feel you _have to_.
jeff
There is no problem booting and running from NAND; booting from SD or NAND is up to you, and they present different things; the main thing is of course booting from SD gets you much more space, which can be very handy. It can be faster or slower, depending on your SD. You also don't 'use up' your NAND write-count, but thats not something many have to ever worry about anyway.
So boot from SD for the right reasons (because you just want to, or for more space which is great for dev, or to have multiple different firmwares, etc), but do not feel you _have to_.
jeff
agent_orange
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Running Linux from SD card
Havent followed it myself so cant comment on how informative it is, but thats the only source of info I am aware of.
Thanks, that seems pretty straightforward. I'll give it a go sometime soon (kinda busy playing games at the moment
)
agent_orange
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(kinda busy playing games at the moment
Ditto, but Ive just ordered a pair of 32gb class 10, so when those arrive, no excuses for me to try out booting off an SD
urjaman
"I Know. We're going for a ride."
Added my method of copying the firmware over from NAND to SD as it had not been mentioned. Improvements/checking/testing welcome. I put that warning tag there because I just typed these commands out of faint memories.
