[nilesf]

I have the PDN 9" (RR90L200)running the "bpdn9.opdn9.1.3" firmware. It runs great and really do not have issues with it except for not being able to run APPS2SD. I have tried many of the partition scheme that I found via Google search and none of them worked. This appears to be a limitation of Eclair 2.0.

If this is not possible then why does the PDN 9" (RR90L200) not use the remainder of the internal 2gb? Device report 1.33gb available. 256Mb does just not cut it and can only install a few apps before getting the low space warning. Is there a way to tell apk's to install in the available free space?

On another topic I see a lot of references to Exlair being 2.1, but my device does show Eclair 2.0. Can anyone explain?




Thanks,
Niles

[terminander]

Basically your Novel has 2.0, which was very short lived and updated to 2.1. This firmware mods, lets your novel think it's 2.1, so Market works, but it's still 2.0 and we can't change that.

The Wpdn does exactly what your asking. It has an internal nand is 512megs and an internal sdcard which is 1gig. 512 meg can be a little shy for the system and data folders, so it partitions the sdcard in half and uses one partition as the /data/app folder. The data/app folder is where downloaded apps are stored and system/app is where built-in apps are stored.Using sd storage is slower than nand storage, but is not an issuse here, all apps or parsed into the dalvik-cache and run from there. So basically data/app is really just a backup of the app.

You can do the same thing with your novel. Your internal nand is 2 gigs, with multiple partitions and other areas. One partition is about 1.5 gigs and mounted as an internal sdcard. Shrink this partition and create a new fat partition and mount it as /data/app and your problem is solved. Of course since your playing with the internal brain of your novel, one mistake and it's bricked.

Well thanks to the power of linux there are several alternative methods to accomplish this. Create a partition on the external sdcard or even just a folder with a symbolic link.

If your comfortable using adb I can help you work out the commands.

This post has been edited by terminander: 08 October 2011 - 04:16 AM

[dagwoodmash]

terminander, on 08 October 2011 - 04:14 AM, said:

Basically your Novel has 2.0, which was very short lived and updated to 2.1. This firmware mods, lets your novel think it's 2.1, so Market works, but it's still 2.0 and we can't change that.

The Wpdn does exactly what your asking. It has an internal nand is 512megs and an internal sdcard which is 1gig. 512 meg can be a little shy for the system and data folders, so it partitions the sdcard in half and uses one partition as the /data/app folder. The data/app folder is where downloaded apps are stored and system/app is where built-in apps are stored.Using sd storage is slower than nand storage, but is not an issuse here, all apps or parsed into the dalvik-cache and run from there. So basically data/app is really just a backup of the app.

You can do the same thing with your novel. Your internal nand is 2 gigs, with multiple partitions and other areas. One partition is about 1.5 gigs and mounted as an internal sdcard. Shrink this partition and create a new fat partition and mount it as /data/app and your problem is solved. Of course since your playing with the internal brain of your novel, one mistake and it's bricked.

Well thanks to the power of linux there are several alternative methods to accomplish this. Create a partition on the external sdcard or even just a folder with a symbolic link.

If your comfortable using adb I can help you work out the commands.

Have you been able to do this on your 9" or on 6" black (the apps to sd)?
Is this done using terminal emulator?
I've tried to make a partition using partitioning droid apps and PC programs, the 9" will not recognize the partition.
I read different methods on the web to do this using a combination terminal emulator and a terminal on boot up, but this pad does not have access to a terminal on boot up, correct?
I don't know if this post even makes sense, I apologize if that is case.
I am willing run the risk of bricking my tablet if you could post the method or a link of getting apps to sd on this device. We would all be very grateful.

[terminander]

Terminal on bootup is normally through a serial cable to your PC. No the black novels don't really support this, but thats more for boot logging not what your after.

You can do this with a terminal shell on the novel or ADB and your PC.

Android's version of the mount command doesn't seem to support directly mounting a directory. So a combination of mounting and symbolic links will do the trick. A straight symbolic link will work, but you'll loose it when connected with Usb.

You need to edit your init.rc file to make it survive a reboot. This is almost easy on the black novels as they don't use a ramdisk.

This works on the 7" black and should work on the 9" unchanged. If you mess it up no permanent damage. You would just reflash the firmware. I assume your using the firmware from here, which is unlocked and rooted.

First of all you should copy your /data/app folder so you don't loose all the apps you installed. Hard to do with Adb, and Android doesn't have a direct copy command. You can use your sdcard, but things fail if you remove it. Or you can use the internal virtual sdcard PD_Novel.

Adb: usb

mkdir tmp
adb pull /data/app tmp

Use windows to copy the files from tmp to your PD_Novel or sdcard. Install them in a folder called "sd_app".

Shell/Terminal: no usb

su
mkdir /PD_Novel/sd_app
or /sdcard/sd_app
cd /data/app
mv * /PD_Novel/sd_app

Not sure about the mv command syntax, but worse case you loose your installed apps.

Now you need to edit your "init.rc" file. With adb pull it to the PC, use Wordpad or Notepad++ to edit and push it back. In a terminal you would use "vi" to edit it. Some terminals support a graphic vi which is easy, I don't know the commands for a text base vi. Once you set the permissions you might even be able to edit using office or similar.

What you want to do in the init.rc file:
Stop the creation of /data/app
Mount the PD_Novel or scdard
Create /data/app as a link to PD_Novel/sd_app

So look for
mkdir /data/app 0771 system system
and change to:


# terminander #####################
#mkdir /data/app 0771 system system
mkdir /data/mtp 0777 system system
mount vfat /dev/block/mmcblk0p3 /data/mtp
#mount vfat /dev/block/mmcblk1p1 /data/mtp for sdcard
mkdir /data/mtp/sd_app 0777 system system
symlink /data/mtp/sd_app /data/app
chown system system /data/app
chmod 0777 /data/app
# end terminander ######################




Adb:
adb pull init.rc
edit file
adb remount
adb push init.rc /


Shell/terminal:
su
mount -o remount rw system system
chmod 777 init.rc
vi init.rc

edit file and save

One last thing to do. You can't recreate /data/app if it already exists.

Adb:

adb shell rm -r /data/app
adb reboot


Shell/Terminal:

rm -r /data/app
reboot

If all went well, /data/app is on the internal sdcard.

Adb:
adb shell ls -l /data
adb shell ls /data/app


Shell/Terminal:
ls -l /data
ls /data/app




I have attached Android_Hacker, which will give you a graphical VI editor in a terminal. Just change the zip ending to apk and install.

 Android_Hackers_System_Tool-460982.zip (286.46K)
Number of downloads: 117

This post has been edited by terminander: 09 October 2011 - 03:38 PM

[Always]

Yeah, I hope we get 2.1 or 2.2 working smoothly soon.

[dagwoodmash]

terminander, on 09 October 2011 - 03:29 PM, said:

Terminal on bootup is normally through a serial cable to your PC. No the black novels don't really support this, but thats more for boot logging not what your after.

Thank you for all the work you put into this post.

[terminander]

I have put together a flash file to make things easier. But as with all reflashes, all previous data is lost. It does however attempt to copy your installed apps to /PD_Novel/Downloads where you can reinstall them from.

Please consider this an ALPHA flash, as I don't know if my changes to init.rc work. Needs testing. You should have no problems reflashing earlier firmware if this fails.

Based on roebeet's OPDN9 1.3 firmware

http://www.mediafire...tobhxz9zercs5to

Release Notes:

/data/app has been moved to the internal Sdcard PD_Novel/sd_app. You can view them on your PC, but changing/deleting them would give unperdictable results.

Your previous installed apps are relocated in PD_Novel/Downloads. You can reinstall them using a File Manager. Please note that the file names my not be what you expect, but should be clear enough to understand.

This post has been edited by terminander: 12 October 2011 - 03:47 AM

[Paul Murphy]

terminander, on 10 October 2011 - 04:46 AM, said:

I have put together a flash file to make things easier. But as with all reflashes, all previous data is lost. It does however attempt to copy your installed apps to /PD_Novel/Downloads where you can reinstall them from.

Please consider this an ALPHA flash, as I don't know if my changes to init.rc work. Needs testing. You should have no problems reflashing earlier firmware if this fails.

Based on roebeet's OPDN9 1.3 firmware

http://www.mediafire...3k1enwdv436y790

Release Notes:

/data/app has been moved to the internal Sdcard PD_Novel/sd_app. You can view them on your PC, but changing/deleting them would give unperdictable results.

Your previous installed apps are relocated in PD_Novel/Downloads. You can reinstall them using a File Manager. Please note that the file names my not be what you expect, but should be clear enough to understand.

I flashed your revised 1.3 firmware on my PD 9inch. It seemed to go well and is running about as it did before. However, downloaded apps are not being installed in the internal SD partition but continue to consume the extremely limited phone memory. Has this worked on other units? What might I have missed. Thanks in advance for any advice. This device is severely limited until I can find a way to overcome this limited space issue.

[dagwoodmash]

Paul Murphy, on 11 October 2011 - 01:35 PM, said:

I flashed your revised 1.3 firmware on my PD 9inch. It seemed to go well and is running about as it did before. However, downloaded apps are not being installed in the internal SD partition but continue to consume the extremely limited phone memory. Has this worked on other units? What might I have missed. Thanks in advance for any advice. This device is severely limited until I can find a way to overcome this limited space issue.

I am having the same problem. I loaded new apps and the file /system/media/sdcard/sd_app is empty. I also noticed that all downloaded files (pdf, doc, apks) are being saved to the internal sd card file called /system/media/sdcard/downloads. I found the apk list that was saved on the internal sd card /system/media/sdcard/downloads/app, that was a cool feature.

[terminander]

Thanks for the feedback.

Found my error.

On first boot, /data/app should be created as a link to sd_app, but it can't be created if it already exists and it shouldn't exist after a flash. Roebeet however included some preinstalled apps in the flash, which created /data/app. Just delete /data/app and reboot.

I will fix the flash.

Hopefully the flash is fixed. In my original post I instructed you to delete /data/app, that is because there is no direct init.rc command to do this and with good reason. The scripting language in the flash file doesn't give an example of deleting, but hopefully it will work. If not I will need to drop the 3 files Roebeet has there.

http://www.mediafire...tobhxz9zercs5to

#

This post has been edited by terminander: 12 October 2011 - 03:48 AM

[Paul Murphy]

terminander, on 12 October 2011 - 02:11 AM, said:

Thanks for the feedback.

Found my error.

On first boot, /data/app should be created as a link to sd_app, but it can't be created if it already exists and it shouldn't exist after a flash. Roebeet however included some preinstalled apps in the flash, which created /data/app. Just delete /data/app and reboot.

I will fix the flash.

Hopefully the flash is fixed. In my original post I instructed you to delete /data/app, that is because there is no direct init.rc command to do this and with good reason. The scripting language in the flash file doesn't give an example of deleting, but hopefully it will work. If not I will need to drop the 3 files Roebeet has there.

http://www.mediafire...tobhxz9zercs5to

#

Thanks for looking at this.

I tried your revised ROM. It doesn't seem to take. I can't read the
error message (if any) but after a minute or two of trying to load
it skips out and boots the original ROM.

I then tried deleting /data/app which had in it six or seven APKs I had downloaded.
After a reboot all those Apps reappeared (I had thought they would be gone!) but
now the Apks are sitting where we wanted them - on the internal virtual SD card.
BUT, it looks like their support files, libs and data are still in the "phone" memory
in /data/data.

[terminander]

I must have a checksum error, first step it verifies checksums, then either flashes or bombs out. I'll fix it tonight. Big day had to pull the trailer home for the winter.

Not sure how your old apps got into sd_app.

Yes the data/data and dalvik-cache are still in limit memory, but you freed up room for them by moving apks. But the same could be done. Problem is both are executables and may slow things down when running from sdcards.

[Paul Murphy]

terminander, on 12 October 2011 - 02:12 PM, said:

I must have a checksum error, first step it verifies checksums, then either flashes or bombs out. I'll fix it tonight. Big day had to pull the trailer home for the winter.

Not sure how your old apps got into sd_app.

Yes the data/data and dalvik-cache are still in limit memory, but you freed up room for them by moving apks. But the same could be done. Problem is both are executables and may slow things down when running from sdcards.

Thanks for your help with this. It is definitely an improvement. Would the same kind of symbolic link inserted at the right spot work for /data/data? Since we are talking about a virtual SD card that shares the same internal "disk" memory with the "phone" maybe there would not be too much of a performance penalty? I have no idea why they set up the "phone" partition with so little memory especially since the storage for data can be expanded with real SD cards.

Again, thanks for your help. It is already quite a bit more useful.

[terminander]

Yes it would work and sorry, I was thinking of the white novel, small nand, real internal sd and external sd.

If you look at my changes to init.rc, just adding the symlinks would do the trick basically.

[dagwoodmash]

terminander, on 12 October 2011 - 04:51 PM, said:

Yes it would work and sorry, I was thinking of the white novel, small nand, real internal sd and external sd.

If you look at my changes to init.rc, just adding the symlinks would do the trick basically.

I tried everything to get the results that Paul got and its not happening. I deleted data/apps and reboot, still nothing in sd_app or for that matter nothing anywhere on the internal sd card.

[Paul Murphy]

dagwoodmash, on 14 October 2011 - 10:40 AM, said:

I tried everything to get the results that Paul got and its not happening. I deleted data/apps and reboot, still nothing in sd_app or for that matter nothing anywhere on the internal sd card.

Did you have some downloaded apps sitting in /data/apps before you deleted it?
Those are what re-appeared in sd_app after I rebooted. I am also definitely getting new
downloaded apps to put their apks in sd_app as well.

[dagwoodmash]

Paul Murphy, on 14 October 2011 - 04:20 PM, said:

Did you have some downloaded apps sitting in /data/apps before you deleted it?
Those are what re-appeared in sd_app after I rebooted. I am also definitely getting new
downloaded apps to put their apks in sd_app as well.

I have flashed the first version 4 or 5 times since he had posted it. Sd_app file is still empty, the /data/apps file had both my apps and the original apps in it. I have deleted, rebooted and have received the same results every time. No apps in sd/apps. The new posted file does not work like you said it skips out at the beginning of the process. But I can't get the first file to work using the steps that you had taken.



UPDATE: Got it to work! It had always worked I just couldn't tell the difference. It's a huge difference once you remove the bulk of the system apps.

Thank you guys for all of your help

This post has been edited by dagwoodmash: 17 October 2011 - 10:21 PM

[d0zs]

Excellent work terminander, thanks very much. I couldn't get your ROM to pass the verification stage, but I followed your adb instructions to a T and manually copied the apk's from the tmp folder to /sd_app and viola, no more disk space notification with working apps.

One thing to note is that "adb remount" didn't work, but I kept going and see "app -> /data/mtp/sd_app" showing in ls -l /data and all is well.

Thanks again, your work is much appreciated.

[teradogbyte]

OK my 2 cents on this whole thing... I have a black 9" R01L256 so maybe it's different

Using droid tablet file manager (ES): /sdcard IS THE REAL SD CARD, that I put in the top
ES file manager or Dev Tools/Terminal window:
/data/app = apps I installed
/data/data = internal ROM installed apps partition 1
/system/app = all internal ROM apks also

/system/media/sdcard = same as when viewing from PC, usb plugged in internal virtual sdcard, PD_Novel = Partition 2 *** mystery solved!

PC_Novel doesn’t exist, is really /system/media/sdcard, so you’d replace every occurrence of PC_Novel with /system/media/sdcard , as if it’s so easy to begin with right?! 
So, mkdir /PD_Novel/sd_app becomes: mkdir /system/media/sdcard/sd_app

Side note, I tried to mkdir /PD_Novel/sd_app and just PC_Novel, error
Any comments or is this thing dead, dead dead? If so any interest in a revival meeting?

This post has been edited by teradogbyte: 29 November 2011 - 01:57 PM

[Extinct]

teradogbyte, on 28 November 2011 - 03:33 PM, said:

OK my 2 cents on this whole thing... I have a black 9" R01L256 so maybe it's different

Using droid tablet file manager (ES): /sdcard IS THE REAL SD CARD, that I put in the top
ES file manager or Dev Tools/Terminal window:
/data/app = apps I installed
/data/data = internal ROM installed apps partition 1
/system/app = all internal ROM apks also

/system/media/sdcard = same as when viewing from PC, usb plugged in internal virtual sdcard, PD_Novel = Partition 2 *** mystery solved!

PC_Novel doesn’t exist, is really /system/media/sdcard, so you’d replace every occurrence of PC_Novel with /system/media/sdcard , as if it’s so easy to begin with right?! 
So, mkdir /PD_Novel/sd_app becomes: mkdir /system/media/sdcard/sd_app

Side note, I tried to mkdir /PD_Novel/sd_app and just PC_Novel, error
Any comments or is this thing dead, dead dead? If so any interest in a revival meeting?

I found exactly the same thing on mine - although it does appear that the error messages have stopped. I can't seem to delete any of the preloaded .apk's however to free up space.