[Q] Milestone CM7 sd-ext, caches and CM7

CeBits · 4th May 2012, 10:50 PM

[Q] Milestone CM7 sd-ext, caches and CM7

I know it was discussed a lot, but since things are constantly being updated i can't get a hold of what is working at the moment. I will be brief.

16 GB SD card, First partition is primary 14 GB FAT32, second partition is ext3 1 GB.
I am using Cyanogenmod 7 7.2.0 RC1 on Motorola Milestone. I also have androidiani open recovery and kabaldan's mmcfix module installed.

After the partitioning was complete (in card reader) i returned the SD card in the phone and booted to open recovery where I formated all caches and factory restored CM7 everything is clean.

Questions:

1. When I launch File Explorer (the one within the rom) SD-EXT on root is empty, no folders or anything, but if I launch terminal emulator and cd sd-ext then ls there they are. Why?

2. I play couple of memory intensive games (like Dead Space and GTA3), but since I have only 256 mb ram they often crash (without error) when loading a level or saved game (yes I have chainfire3D). Will moving dalvik cache and cache to sd-ext help free more ram so I can crash less?

3. What is the point of moving dalvik and cache to sd-ext and where can I find a guide how to do it?

Thanks.

tentacul0 · 08:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CeBits

I know it was discussed a lot, but since things are constantly being updated i can't get a hold of what is working at the moment. I will be brief.

16 GB SD card, First partition is primary 14 GB FAT32, second partition is ext3 1 GB.
I am using Cyanogenmod 7 7.2.0 RC1 on Motorola Milestone. I also have androidiani open recovery and kabaldan's mmcfix module installed.

After the partitioning was complete (in card reader) i returned the SD card in the phone and booted to open recovery where I formated all caches and factory restored CM7 everything is clean.

Questions:

1. When I launch File Explorer (the one within the rom) SD-EXT on root is empty, no folders or anything, but if I launch terminal emulator and cd sd-ext then ls there they are. Why?

2. I play couple of memory intensive games (like Dead Space and GTA3), but since I have only 256 mb ram they often crash (without error) when loading a level or saved game (yes I have chainfire3D). Will moving dalvik cache and cache to sd-ext help free more ram so I can crash less?

3. What is the point of moving dalvik and cache to sd-ext and where can I find a guide how to do it?

Thanks.

1) The File Manager bundled with CM7 doesn't have ROOT access, which is required to read the files on /sd-ext. Try using Root Explorer, for example.

2) No, it won't. What will probably help you is to disable JIT (gives you more free RAM), install V6 Supercharger by zeppelinrox (reorganizes how RAM is used) and remove ChainFire3D (it only helps if you reduce the texture quality to 16-bits, otherwise it's just one more layer between your apps and the GPU).

3) The point of using sd-ext is to overcome the storage limitations of the Milestone (not its RAM limitations), allowing you to install more apps without using app2sd (which renders apps on the SD unusable when you plug the device to a computer).

I hope it helps (=

tentacul0 · 4th June 2012, 06:20 PM

Disabling surface dithering also helps.

I tried 7.2.0-RC2 without V6 and it works great, plus no more side effects, like Maps "forgetting" pre-cached areas =D

mantokoski7 · 28th September 2012, 07:22 PM

Hi. I followed pontomedon's guide to partition my 8GB card with OpenRecovery (parted & tune2fs). So I got 1 GB ext3. And installed CyanogenMod 7.2.2.

But in the CM Settings "Use internal storage" is grayed out and says "This device doesn't have expanded internal storage". Has something gone wrong? What's the best way to confirm that SD ext is working?

If ext would work, would the phone's memory still be used fully first, and SD ext only after that, or how does it go? I've now set Install location to "Internal".

I've heard of S2E (simple2ext) app, maybe I'll try it next.

mrvek · 28th September 2012, 07:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mantokoski7

What's the best way to confirm that SD ext is working?

If ext would work, would the phone's memory still be used fully first, and SD ext only after that, or how does it go? I've now set Install location to "Internal".

I've heard of S2E (simple2ext) app, maybe I'll try it next.

Your storage as in FAT partition on sdcard is working?
You can "mount | grep sd-ext" and "df /sd-ext" to check if sd-ext is mounted and how much space it has.
sd-ext is treated as internal memory. All user installed apps are moved to ext partition. Internal storage (data) is used for app data (configuration, etc.)

mantokoski7 · 28th September 2012, 09:18 PM

Thanks. Why does it show it as ext4. 8% is used... I guess it's working after all. Now let's install some games!

/dev/block/mmcblk0p2 on /sd-ext type ext4 (rw,noatime,nodiratime,barrier=1,data=ordered)
Filesystem /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 1K-blocks 936666 Used 70298 Available 816397 Use% 8% Mounted on /sd-ext

mantokoski7 · 29th September 2012, 11:37 AM

I installed Root Browser Lite and it shows the installed apps in sd-ext, also Dalvik-cache for those apps is there, which is good I think.

bibile · 12th October 2012, 03:44 PM

how to format?

Quote:

Originally Posted by mantokoski7

I installed Root Browser Lite and it shows the installed apps in sd-ext, also Dalvik-cache for those apps is there, which is good I think.

Hi, my question is very close to this topic : when I try to install another rom I got all the old applications coming from the previous install. Is there a way to format the ext 2 in the same time we update or change CM?

Thx