Related
I would like to know exactly what these do before i do them. sorry guys im a noobe..
Build:RA-magic-v1.2.3G
- wipe sd:ext partition
- Wipe SD:dalink-cache
- part sd:fat32+ext2+swap
- part sdnly fat32
- repair ext filesystem
- convert ext2 to ext3
- fix apk uid mismatches
- fix rotate
- USB Mass storage on
- USB Mass Storage off
Also how do you flash this recovery img from the Recover Flasher App, VS using CMD & fastboot.
jdubdieslo said:
I would like to know exactly what these do before i do them. sorry guys im a noobe..
Build:RA-magic-v1.2.3G
- wipe sd:ext partition
- Wipe SD:dalink-cache
- part sd:fat32+ext2+swap
- part sdnly fat32
- repair ext filesystem
- convert ext2 to ext3
- fix apk uid mismatches
- fix rotate
- USB Mass storage on
- USB Mass Storage off
Also how do you flash this recovery img from the Recover Flasher App, VS using CMD & fastboot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
wipe sd: ext partition- deletes your apps on your ext partiton
wipe sd: davlik-cache wipes your cache on your sd
part sd: fat32+ext2+swap makes the three partitions you need to run hero roms
parted sd: fat32 only- just partitions your memory card for a fat32 for stock roms like cyanogen
convert ext2 to ext3- does exactly what it says. makes ext2 to ext3
repair ext filesystem- do this after you choose to convert ext2 to ext3
fix apk uid mismatches- does exactly what it says
fix rotate- fixes auto rotate issues some roms have
usb mass storage on- allows you to access your fat32 part of your sd from the recovery
usb mass storage off- turns off the mounting of your sd from the recovery
to flash it using the recovery flasher app, just look at the unlockr's video and substitute the recovery image name for the one that is in the video. Voila.
Hope this helps
Applause...
Getting a straight answer sometimes is the most difficult part of installing a rom.
thelastgoodbrother said:
Applause...
Getting a straight answer sometimes is the most difficult part of installing a rom.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol thats very true but come on if you can't do the research to figure out the basic youll be posting another thread the next day but this time it'll be called "stuck on the g1 screen" lol sometimes not giving a straight answer may save their phone... but thats just my opinion
So use part sd: fat32+ext2+swap when useing hero rom... what if i use hero rom & go back to cyanogen can i leave it that way or do i need to parted sd: fat32 only? also if i did part sd: fat32+ext2+swap And then did part sdnly fat32 would it override the part sd: fat32+ext2+swap. another question i dont even know what ext 2 is so moving it to ext 3 would be? sorry guys im new at this.. just wanted to clarify this. is fat32 letting me store apps to sd? because i removed the sd card while phone was on & notices it froze; i put it back in removed & rrplaced battery and it was fine again.. also i noticed i part sd: fat32+ext2+swap again before i read your replies to see what it would do and everything on my sd card was goin..
also what is swap i saw an app that saved a swap file on sd..
thanks everyone for you help. loving the android community. as soon as i get some extra cash i will be donating to people that helped me make my android stand out from any one's android on my end of the computer. thanks
jdubdieslo said:
So use part sd: fat32+ext2+swap when useing hero rom... what if i use hero rom & go back to cyanogen can i leave it that way or do i need to parted sd: fat32 only? also if i did part sd: fat32+ext2+swap And then did part sdnly fat32 would it override the part sd: fat32+ext2+swap. another question i dont even know what ext 2 is so moving it to ext 3 would be? sorry guys im new at this.. just wanted to clarify this. is fat32 letting me store apps to sd? because i removed the sd card while phone was on & notices it froze; i put it back in removed & rrplaced battery and it was fine again.. also i noticed i part sd: fat32+ext2+swap again before i read your replies to see what it would do and everything on my sd card was goin..
also what is swap i saw an app that saved a swap file on sd..
thanks everyone for you help. loving the android community. as soon as i get some extra cash i will be donating to people that helped me make my android stand out from any one's android on my end of the computer. thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you are running a hero rom and want to go to cyanogen, you can leave the fat32+ext2+swap. Just make sure that you wipe your sd partition and davlik cache using the options in the recovery image. Do this every time you are flashing any new rom for that matter, whether it's a different hero rom or a stock rom.
Ext is the partition of your memory card that stores all your apps. This was necessary for the g1 because it only had like 80 mb of memory for apps. The mytouch has nearly 300 so apps2sd is not really necessary, but most custom ROMs include this anyway. Ext3 is what most of these ROMs operate on. Ext2 is an old outdated version that no one really uses anymore and ext4 is even newer than ext3 but is not really necessary.
Fat32 only does not let you store your apps on your sd. It does not have the ext partition to let that happen. I don't know why your phone froze when you took your sd card out. It shouldn't have. When you part your memory card, whether its just fat32 or the combo fat, ext, and swap your memory card gets wiped and formatted to whatever you have, so of course you will lose all your contents on the memory card. It wipes and reformats all 3 partitons, or just the one if you are doing only the fat32.
As for swap, this is necessary for hero. Hero phones have 288 mb of ram and the mytouch only has 192mb so if you don't have this, the phone lags so bad and hangs up and you get constant load screens. The app you saw is known as swapper. Yes it does put a swap file on your sd card, but if you go into advanced settings, it lets you use your swap partition of your memory card, which is what you should always choose.
Keep them questions rolling, I like being able to contribute whenever I can.
tazz9690 said:
If you are running a hero rom and want to go to cyanogen, you can leave the fat32+ext2+swap. Just make sure that you wipe your sd partition and davlik cache using the options in the recovery image. Do this every time you are flashing any new rom for that matter, whether it's a different hero rom or a stock rom.
Ext is the partition of your memory card that stores all your apps. This was necessary for the g1 because it only had like 80 mb of memory for apps. The mytouch has nearly 300 so apps2sd is not really necessary, but most custom ROMs include this anyway. Ext3 is what most of these ROMs operate on. Ext2 is an old outdated version that no one really uses anymore and ext4 is even newer than ext3 but is not really necessary.
Fat32 only does not let you store your apps on your sd. It does not have the ext partition to let that happen. I don't know why your phone froze when you took your sd card out. It shouldn't have. When you part your memory card, whether its just fat32 or the combo fat, ext, and swap your memory card gets wiped and formatted to whatever you have, so of course you will lose all your contents on the memory card. It wipes and reformats all 3 partitons, or just the one if you are doing only the fat32.
As for swap, this is necessary for hero. Hero phones have 288 mb of ram and the mytouch only has 192mb so if you don't have this, the phone lags so bad and hangs up and you get constant load screens. The app you saw is known as swapper. Yes it does put a swap file on your sd card, but if you go into advanced settings, it lets you use your swap partition of your memory card, which is what you should always choose.
Keep them questions rolling, I like being able to contribute whenever I can.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ao since ext 2 is outdate we want to convert ext 2 to ext 3 then repair ext filesystemafter words.. so if you convert ext 2 to ext 3 is there only a ext 3 now or both ext 2 and it adds a ext 3? also what does dalvik mean? also i thought apps to sd was a big deal because if you switch roms all your apps are still there, but if you wipe ext partition then you lose the apps so the real reason is just for phone with low ram and cant store many apps at once.. intresting..and wats up with not wipe data/factory reset after installing roms? whats the reason behind that, i notice my IME keyboard is no longer there when i do that.. im trying to think of more questions lol. thanks a million.
jdubdieslo said:
ao since ext 2 is outdate we want to convert ext 2 to ext 3 then repair ext filesystemafter words.. so if you convert ext 2 to ext 3 is there only a ext 3 now or both ext 2 and it adds a ext 3? also what does dalvik mean? also i thought apps to sd was a big deal because if you switch roms all your apps are still there, but if you wipe ext partition then you lose the apps so the real reason is just for phone with low ram and cant store many apps at once.. intresting..and wats up with not wipe data/factory reset after installing roms? whats the reason behind that, i notice my IME keyboard is no longer there when i do that.. im trying to think of more questions lol. thanks a million.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you convert ext2 to ext3, there will only be ext3. It converts it from ext2, it does not make an additional partition. Davlik cache, if I am not mistaken is all your cache from your browser to google maps gets saved to your sd card as well instead of your phone memory. The apps2sd was originally for the fact that you keep your apps, but when flashing hero roms, it did not work for some reason and it resulted in boot loops. So that's why they say always format your ext if flashing from a different rom. For stock roms, I don't believe this would be an issue so you probably could go on without wiping your sd as long as you are moving from a stock rom to another stock. It will not work if you go from stock to hero, and vice versa. Wipe data/factory reset clears all the settings from your phone so you do not have any lingering settings stored on the phone from an old rom when you flash a different one. The only time that you do not need to do this is if you are flashing a newer version of the same rom. The IME is probably still there, it just got unchecked from the input method. Go to locale and text and recheck the "input" box and it should work again.
yeah it is safest way to wipe and reformat the sd card before flashing a new rom.
tazz9690 said:
if you convert ext2 to ext3, there will only be ext3. It converts it from ext2, it does not make an additional partition. Davlik cache, if I am not mistaken is all your cache from your browser to google maps gets saved to your sd card as well instead of your phone memory. The apps2sd was originally for the fact that you keep your apps, but when flashing hero roms, it did not work for some reason and it resulted in boot loops. So that's why they say always format your ext if flashing from a different rom. For stock roms, I don't believe this would be an issue so you probably could go on without wiping your sd as long as you are moving from a stock rom to another stock. It will not work if you go from stock to hero, and vice versa. Wipe data/factory reset clears all the settings from your phone so you do not have any lingering settings stored on the phone from an old rom when you flash a different one. The only time that you do not need to do this is if you are flashing a newer version of the same rom. The IME is probably still there, it just got unchecked from the input method. Go to locale and text and recheck the "input" box and it should work again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Previously I got a 2GB micro-sd card. so no problem for me to move my music, photos, videos and backup apps to my pc.
But i just bought a 8GB card 2 weeks ago and man, backup all before flashing a rom is pain in the a** . but can't help flashing this and that ROMs hee hee
so no choice. yesterday I flashed Eugene's supermagic rom. awesome!
cheers
tazz9690 said:
if you convert ext2 to ext3, there will only be ext3. It converts it from ext2, it does not make an additional partition. Davlik cache, if I am not mistaken is all your cache from your browser to google maps gets saved to your sd card as well instead of your phone memory. The apps2sd was originally for the fact that you keep your apps, but when flashing hero roms, it did not work for some reason and it resulted in boot loops. So that's why they say always format your ext if flashing from a different rom. For stock roms, I don't believe this would be an issue so you probably could go on without wiping your sd as long as you are moving from a stock rom to another stock. It will not work if you go from stock to hero, and vice versa. Wipe data/factory reset clears all the settings from your phone so you do not have any lingering settings stored on the phone from an old rom when you flash a different one. The only time that you do not need to do this is if you are flashing a newer version of the same rom. The IME is probably still there, it just got unchecked from the input method. Go to locale and text and recheck the "input" box and it should work again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so when going to another rom should you part the sd before or after the rom is loaded? and honestly im running out of questions.. i got one that is throwing me off.. i have my phone in fastboot and in device manager it show andriod bootloader (cant remember the exact device); i type in the cmd
cd desktop
cd fastboot
then the code for the custom splash and i get
< waiting for device > and it just sits there. nothing will happen. & my splash is still stock.. the file is at the rights bytes and i have the folder on my cd on the desktop and the driver i beleive is installed correctly on the cp. what am i doing wrong?
I think the Title should be Changed, Something Like Recovery-101. Know Your Phone.
Alot of great Info for New comers
jdubdieslo said:
so when going to another rom should you part the sd before or after the rom is loaded? and honestly im running out of questions.. i got one that is throwing me off.. i have my phone in fastboot and in device manager it show andriod bootloader (cant remember the exact device); i type in the cmd
cd desktop
cd fastboot
then the code for the custom splash and i get
< waiting for device > and it just sits there. nothing will happen. & my splash is still stock.. the file is at the rights bytes and i have the folder on my cd on the desktop and the driver i beleive is installed correctly on the cp. what am i doing wrong?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Part the sd before you load the rom onto the phone. if it has apps2sd and you try to part your memory card after, you will get stuck at the splash more than likely because you are missing key components that are stored onto the sd, like all your apps for example that come with the ROM.
In fastboot, when it's plugged in, on the phone does it say "Fastboot USB"?
You might want to try to reupload the drivers for the fastboot. That may be why it's hanging. I never use fastboot through the desktop. I always use fastboot through the SDK folder on my C:\ drive. It always worked for me that way. For some reason I could never get it to work with the "cd destop" but thats just me.
tazz9690 said:
Part the sd before you load the rom onto the phone. if it has apps2sd and you try to part your memory card after, you will get stuck at the splash more than likely because you are missing key components that are stored onto the sd, like all your apps for example that come with the ROM.
In fastboot, when it's plugged in, on the phone does it say "Fastboot USB"?
You might want to try to reupload the drivers for the fastboot. That may be why it's hanging. I never use fastboot through the desktop. I always use fastboot through the SDK folder on my C:\ drive. It always worked for me that way. For some reason I could never get it to work with the "cd destop" but thats just me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i figured taht was the right order part sd then load rom because i did it and it worked lol, and since it worked i never tried it rom the part sd. so do cyanogen roms have app2sd? and does the cyanogen rom have a overclocker built in now because i tried to use my overclock widget and it doesnt work and the phone seems as if its running faster even with out my widget..
and yes it says fastboot usb & ive tried uninstalling & reinstall the drivers mutliple times and still get < waiting for device > so if i do it on the c:/ drive were do i place the fastboot folder? /c:/fastboot? and what would the code be?
cd c:/
cd Fastboot
thent he other code that i have saved at home the flash_splash one? i cant remember it.
one really dumb question. i rooted my pops mytouch lol because he was complaining about the mytouch stock because of numerous things. so i rooted it to 4.2.2 and out of all things he is now complaining about the stock ringtones.. lol. anyone know where to get the stock ringtones? if not its cool i told him id make sum ringers with ringdroid for him like the temptations and willie nelson lol.. thanks all for your support.
jdubdieslo said:
i figured taht was the right order part sd then load rom because i did it and it worked lol, and since it worked i never tried it rom the part sd. so do cyanogen roms have app2sd? and does the cyanogen rom have a overclocker built in now because i tried to use my overclock widget and it doesnt work and the phone seems as if its running faster even with out my widget..
and yes it says fastboot usb & ive tried uninstalling & reinstall the drivers mutliple times and still get < waiting for device > so if i do it on the c:/ drive were do i place the fastboot folder? /c:/fastboot? and what would the code be?
cd c:/
cd Fastboot
thent he other code that i have saved at home the flash_splash one? i cant remember it.
one really dumb question. i rooted my pops mytouch lol because he was complaining about the mytouch stock because of numerous things. so i rooted it to 4.2.2 and out of all things he is now complaining about the stock ringtones.. lol. anyone know where to get the stock ringtones? if not its cool i told him id make sum ringers with ringdroid for him like the temptations and willie nelson lol.. thanks all for your support.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cyanogen's rom has dynamic apps2sd. If it senses that you have a partition, it will do apps2sd. If you don't have an ext, it will save it to the phone, so it will work that way too.
For the fastboot, do you even have your computer set up for the use of ADB and fastboot? Like having the latest SDK downloaded and set up for your computer? That might be why it says, waiting for devices. When you do cd fastboot, afterward type fastboot devices and see if in the cmd it says "HTC Bootloader" or "Android Bootloader" I am not sure which one it is.
As for the ringtones, here is the link for the download in Cyanogen's 4.2.2 threat http://n0rp.chemlab.org/android/audio-resources.zip That downloads a zip of all the stock ringtones. Just upzip the file and place it on the root of your sd card.
tazz9690 said:
Cyanogen's rom has dynamic apps2sd. If it senses that you have a partition, it will do apps2sd. If you don't have an ext, it will save it to the phone, so it will work that way too.
For the fastboot, do you even have your computer set up for the use of ADB and fastboot? Like having the latest SDK downloaded and set up for your computer? That might be why it says, waiting for devices. When you do cd fastboot, afterward type fastboot devices and see if in the cmd it says "HTC Bootloader" or "Android Bootloader" I am not sure which one it is.
As for the ringtones, here is the link for the download in Cyanogen's 4.2.2 threat http://n0rp.chemlab.org/android/audio-resources.zip That downloads a zip of all the stock ringtones. Just upzip the file and place it on the root of your sd card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thats good to know. so if you ext 2 will cm use ext 2 & if you converted it will it use ext 3? also how can i tell what i have ext 2 or ext 3 other than knowing if i click convert to ext 3? i downloaded the SDK and used the usb folder when the computer was looking for drivers & it says it installed drivers successfully; so now when im in fastboot usb on my phone the computer in device manager shows bootloader (cant remember exactly what it says untill i get home); & when my phone is in recovery the driver shows ADB (cant remember the exact name till i get home also); and then i do the codes because my fastboot & sdk folders are on my desktop; when i downloaded the sdk folder i dont think i did anything with it as far as isntalling it, what does the sdk folder do? lol. sorry..
thanks for the ringtones my pops says mucho gracias.
jdubdieslo said:
thats good to know. so if you ext 2 will cm use ext 2 & if you converted it will it use ext 3? also how can i tell what i have ext 2 or ext 3 other than knowing if i click convert to ext 3? i downloaded the SDK and used the usb folder when the computer was looking for drivers & it says it installed drivers successfully; so now when im in fastboot usb on my phone the computer in device manager shows bootloader (cant remember exactly what it says untill i get home); & when my phone is in recovery the driver shows ADB (cant remember the exact name till i get home also); and then i do the codes because my fastboot & sdk folders are on my desktop; when i downloaded the sdk folder i dont think i did anything with it as far as isntalling it, what does the sdk folder do? lol. sorry..
thanks for the ringtones my pops says mucho gracias.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think any builds use ext2 anymore. They all either use ext3 or ext4. You have to make an ext2 first though, before you can convert it to ext3. Same goes for ext4, you have to have ext3 before you can upconvert to it. Just use ext3 just to be safe. If you go into "Parted" through the recovery image by typing in "parted /dev/block/mmcblk0" in adb shell, then typing 'print' it will show how big your fat32 is, it'll say which ext you have as well as your size, and the same for linux swap.
For a SDK, the folder stores the drivers needed for fastboot and adb in it. You should save it to the root of your C:\ drive because it makes things easier. I recommend you set up SDK using this thread guide: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=532719
Setting up the Android 1.5r2 SDK
Download the file from above
Unzip to your desktop
Take the "android-sdk-windows-1.5_r2" folder and move it to the root of your hard drive (C:\)
Right click on My Computer and click properties
Select the Advanced Tab or Advanced System Setting (Vista)
Select Environment Variables...
Press New
For Variable Name type: adb
For Variable Value type: C:\android-sdk-windows-1.5_r2\tools
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Preparing your phone for ADB
Go to Settings on your phone
Select Applications
Select Development
Make sure 'USB Debugging' is checked
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Installing Drivers
Plug in your phone through USB and DO NOT MOUNT IT!!!!!
Your computer should see a new device and try to install Android 1.0 driver (If it doesnt, scroll down to the "Im not getting a notification of Android ADB when i plug in my USB" section)
Let it load
Once it cant find them select "Install drivers from my pc"
The drivers you need are in the Android SDK 1.5r2 folder (C:\android-sdk-windows-1.5_r2\usb_driver)
Depending on your OS pick x86 or amd64
You ADB Android Device should now be installed! Good Job
Those are basically what you need to look at.
jdubdieslo said:
I would like to know exactly what these do before i do them. sorry guys im a noobe..
Build:RA-magic-v1.2.3G
- wipe sd:ext partition
- Wipe SD:dalink-cache
- part sd:fat32+ext2+swap
- part sdnly fat32
- repair ext filesystem
- convert ext2 to ext3
- fix apk uid mismatches
- fix rotate
- USB Mass storage on
- USB Mass Storage off
Also how do you flash this recovery img from the Recover Flasher App, VS using CMD & fastboot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't mean to hijack your thread OP, but I do have a question that I hope someone can answer. When partitioning the SD card, you choose the option I put in Bold. After that, could you use this link:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=535914
To adjust the different sizes of the 3 partitions? I know that in order to run any Hero ROMS, your SD card has to be partitioned with at least 3 (fat32+ext2+swap) parts. This is the only part that still confuses me when it comes to adequately rooting.
If you are using ubuntu, you create the partitions you want, as well as the size. If you use the recovery image, you would just be adding an unnecessary step because it will just get deleted when you make your partitions again with Ubuntu.
tazz9690 said:
I don't think any builds use ext2 anymore. They all either use ext3 or ext4. You have to make an ext2 first though, before you can convert it to ext3. Same goes for ext4, you have to have ext3 before you can upconvert to it. Just use ext3 just to be safe. If you go into "Parted" through the recovery image by typing in "parted /dev/block/mmcblk0" in adb shell, then typing 'print' it will show how big your fat32 is, it'll say which ext you have as well as your size, and the same for linux swap.
For a SDK, the folder stores the drivers needed for fastboot and adb in it. You should save it to the root of your C:\ drive because it makes things easier. I recommend you set up SDK using this thread guide: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=532719
Those are basically what you need to look at.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So if u have a ext 3 how do u get ext 4? Also wat is linux swap? And yea i didnt do all that im sure thats why i was getting < waiting for device >. I will let u know the outcome of the splash screen... thanx.
jdubdieslo said:
So if u have a ext 3 how do u get ext 4? Also wat is linux swap? And yea i didnt do all that im sure thats why i was getting < waiting for device >. I will let u know the outcome of the splash screen... thanx.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you want ext3, you have to go into parted like I stated in a previous post and create your partitions that way. From there, to upgrade to ext3, you type "upgrade_fs". You now have ext3. If you want ext 4, after that you would type
"tune2fs -O extents,uninit_bg,dir_index /dev/block/mmcblk0p2
e2fsck -fpDC0 /dev/block/mmcblk0p2"
That's just too much work for me. I am fine with ext3. If you want a more in depth explanation, go to this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=534714&highlight=wipe+partition
Linux swap, I believe I explained in one of my early posts. The mytouch only has 192 mb of ram. The Hero's have 288 and so do the 32A board Sapphire phones like the HTC Magic and the Rogers Magic. Since we were unfortunate to get that low of Ram, if you try to run a hero rom without the linux partition, the phone will lag, freeze, and get load screens constantly. Using a linux swap partition makes it possible to run the Hero ROM's at a decent speed, though it will not be as fast as if you had the actual HTC Hero phone or a 32A Sapphire.
Introducing...
Darktremor Apps2SD 2.7.5.3 Beta 04
Date of Release: January 29, 2011
Download Current Version
Instructions - Change Log - Commands - ROM List - Developer's Guide
Darktremor Apps2SD Fan Page ----
Darktremor Apps2SD Development Group
Are you installing Darktremor Apps2SD on your phone? Here are the instructions to help you: Facebook
Are you a developer wanting to include Darktremor Apps2SD in your latest ROM? Here is the Developer Guide: Facebook
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Update on Beta 4
It seems I'm getting mixed results with these betas. I'm not sure why this is occurring, some people have been able to get this working right while others have had a hard time with it.
Currently, I'm rebuilding the entire program. This takes a while because I have to figure out how to pack all these options into the program but make it small enough to where it will run correctly.
I will say that some of the beta features are coming back out...one of them is the search for a partition code. I suspect that code may be leading me into issues with certain platforms, so I'm going back to the 2.7.5.2 method of mounting (mmcblk0p2 or mmcblk1p2).
Also, parts of the code will use Busybox Ash (the only code that won't will be starta2sd, which will still use Bash for the time being). The startup code will definitely use Busybox Ash.
Until then, here are the links to the the last two betas and the last official release:
Version 2.7.5.3 Beta 04 - http://www.darktremor.info/files/a2sd/dtapps2sd-2.7.5.3-beta04-signed.zip
Version 2.7.5.3 Beta 03 - http://www.darktremor.info/files/a2sd/dtapps2sd-2.7.5.3-beta03-signed.zip
Version 2.7.5.2-1 - http://www.darktremor.info/files/a2sd/dtapps2sd-2.7.5.2-1-signed.zip
And, if you want past versions, you can view the repository: ftp://dtuser:[email protected] (ignore the smiley face...that's XDA doing that.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Beta 04 took longer than I expected to release. I have done major changes to the code:
1. New commands: convert-ext4 - This will convert your EXT3 partition into EXT4. Just a friendly reminder on this command: Not every rom supports EXT4, so it is possible to go into a boot loop if you switch roms. Use with caution.
2. Reworked convert-ext3 (convert-ext4 gets similar code)...now a flag file is set before the reboot (no conversion is done before the reboot). At load time, the conversion is performed. This takes longer in the reboot process and you may think your phone has locked up...wait about five minutes before doing anything with the phone.
3. Repair is rebuilt...now it uses existing commands to repair the setup (reinstall, remove, cachesd, cachepart, nocache, datasd, nodata). Definitely shrinks the code.
4. Added fix_permissions program to the package. This may help with Superuser issues when using the datasd feature. It is used in reinstall, remove, datasd and nodata.
5. a2sd install is back!!! Both a2sd install and a2sd reinstall do the exact same thing.
6. Dalvik heap code has been shrunk and now creates a file called dalvikheap. Actually, the code has been doing this all along (since about 2.7.5.2, I think), but I never put the code in to use the file.
7. Low Memory Killer code has also been shrunk and uses a file caled dtset_lowmem to set the low memory killer parameter.
8. Replaced Busybox PS function with Toolbox PS. The issue with Busybox PS is that it gives a false reading when I look for android.process.acore (which is the main program when the GUI starts up). If that is present, the program thinks you are trying to run Darktremor without any command line parameters. This was because Busybox would report the process was there when, in reality, it wasn't (validated this when my phone was boot looping.) Toolbox's PS reports the correct setting. This should fix the bootlooping issues some people are experiencing.
9. New commands: usedtbusybox and usedefaultbusybox - these commands may help in diagnosing issues that is may be related to the native Busybox on your rom. a2sd usedtbusybox will use the Busybox that is packaged with Darktremor. a2sd usedefaultbusybox will turn back on the scan behavior of the program introduced in Beta 03.
10. Support for Darktremor Apps2SD version 2.7 and earlier has been discontinued. To upgrade correctly from one of those versions, use version 2.7.5.3 Beta 03b or earlier.
11. Finally fixed stalled boot issues (or at least my tests with several roms says so.)
See the change log for additional details.
You will notice that if the program runs repair and finds a problem, it will correct the issue and reboot. You will see a second reboot when the dalvik-cache clears (this is to fix timing issues with CyanogenMod...I can't control that startup as well as I can other roms). This only happens if repair is ran or you flash a new rom (as repair will realign all data). If you are upgrading from a previous version of Darktremor, you should not see the reboots.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is Darktremor Apps2SD, a multipurpose program that primarily allows a user to execute applications created for the Android OS on their Secure Digital card (with the proper setup...more on that later). But, Darktremor Apps2SD is all about stability. The goal is to be able for all users of the Android OS to be able to take advantage of a method to run their applications from a secure digital card.
But just because the Darktremor Apps2SD is all about stability, doesn't mean it isn't packed with features:
- Move applications (both free and paid) to the Secure Digital card.
- Move Dalvik Cache to run either from your Secure Digital card or from your cache partition and clears the cache on demand.
- Boot Loop Protection: prevents the phone from boot looping in the event the SD card could not be mounted.
- Dalvik JIT for faster performance on Roms which support it.
- User selectable sizes for the Dalvik heap sizes, allowing a user to freely optimize their system.
- Activate a swap partition on your SD card and sets how often the swap partition is utilized.
- Automatically fixes configuration issues.
- Users can check the free space on their SD card and check the installation to make sure all is setup correctly.
- Runs ZipAlign on demand...this makes your programs load faster.
- Built in help system for easy reference of commands.
- All features can also be reversed without repartitioning your Secure Digital card.
- New logging features assists in troubleshooting issues.
- Commands to set the Low Memory Killer feature at boot time. Great for those people who are the "set it and forget it" type.
- And more...
Darktremor Apps2SD is not the same as Froyo Apps2SD. Froyo Apps2SD creates a secure folder on the FAT32 section of your SD card (this is the section that you see when you mount your phone to your computer) and stores the programs there. This is nice as you don't have to do anything special with the phone, but it isn't backwards compatible with older versions of Android (Cupcake, Donut, Eclair) and, because of the way Froyo works, older programs not designed for Froyo will automatically stay on your internal storage (unless you install a program that forces the move to your SD card).
Darktremor Apps2SD takes a different approach. Based on the original CyanogenMod works, Darktremor Apps2SD uses symbolic linking to force Android into moving your applications to the SD card. Because Android will not allow anything to be ran from the FAT32 partition on your SD card (and, in Froyo, it will only allow you to run programs from a special folder), Darktremor utilizes filesystems called EXT2, EXT3 and EXT4. Each one of these filesystems is native to Linux (the operating system running Android), which allows you to run programs from them (same as, say, a computer running Ubuntu). This method is completely compatible with all versions of Android, including Froyo. In fact, you can run both the Darktremor Apps2SD and Froyo Apps2SD at the same time.
Check out the list of Roms that either have Darktremor Apps2SD installed or are compatible with Darktremor Apps2SD. Click on the link labeled ROM List at the top of this message.
what's the difference between the two installers?
The advanced installer uses updater-script, the same method that Cyanogen uses for CyanogenMod.
The other script is the standard update-script, for compatibility with older recovery programs.
Other than that one difference, they are identical.
hi2u2 said:
what's the difference between the two installers?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bump...new version released: 2.7.5.2
why is it i have to run a2sd repair just to get this to boot otherwise it chokes out
http://pastie.org/1197625
rom: ported 2.2 sensui rom on droid1
using 512ext3 partition as mmcblk0p2 with the init.d startup method(same issue with the init.rc methed, not like that would matter)
Do you have a /data/dta2sd.log file? That would help me more than the log file you sent (the adb logcat is too late in the process for me to see what Darktremor is doing).
If you have the log file, send it to me at [email protected] and I'll see if I can find out what's going on.
EDIT: Jr33 may also be able to help out on this...he's got this working in two Motorola roms, so he may have to do something special with the rom to get the program to start. It may be a similar situation that I'm running into for the Samsung Galaxy S platforms.
jamezelle said:
why is it i have to run a2sd repair just to get this to boot otherwise it chokes out
http://pastie.org/1197625
rom: ported 2.2 sensui rom on droid1
using 512ext3 partition as mmcblk0p2 with the init.d startup method(same issue with the init.rc methed, not like that would matter)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just want to make sure...
I am running Liberated R010. I have partitioned the class 4 sd card, in this order...6.5GB FAT 32, about 1GB Ext2, about 32MB Linux Swap. I have copied all of my old sd card into the 6.5GB partition. I'm wanting to stick this into the phone and let it do its thing. Will the apps be moved automatically? What control will I have during and after this big moment?
Do I need to reboot with the new card or can I do the unmounted hotswap?
Sent from my (liberated) HTC Liberty using XDA App
Apps will be moved automatically if the ROM supports A2SD+ or Apps2SD (Liberated should).
Not sure what you are meaning regarding "control". The move is pretty quick and happens at the start of the boot process. Technically, the user doesn't have control of the phone at this point.
duckredbeard said:
I am running Liberated R010. I have partitioned the class 4 sd card, in this order...6.5GB FAT 32, about 1GB Ext2, about 32MB Linux Swap. I have copied all of my old sd card into the 6.5GB partition. I'm wanting to stick this into the phone and let it do its thing. Will the apps be moved automatically? What control will I have during and after this big moment?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No...no hotswapping. The EXT2 or EXT3 partition is mounted...you could corrupt it. You will need to reboot with the card as the mounting of the EXT2 / EXT3 partition happens during boot time.
duckredbeard said:
Do I need to reboot with the new card or can I do the unmounted hotswap?
Sent from my (liberated) HTC Liberty using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did tried as you recommended and nothing changed except for the size of the SD card. The partitioned card showed as 6.6GB, (instead of the full 8ishGB) but the internal memory stayed at 185MB. I used the live ubuntu method, 6.6GB fat 32, 1GB ext2, 32MB Linux. Partition session showed as successful.
Sent from my (liberated) HTC Liberty using XDA App
Okay, try this:
From the adb shell, type a2sd reinstall.
The reason for this is that, if you were running Darktremor without the SD card partitioned, boot protection would activate and set the NoA2SD flag.
a2sd reinstall will clear the flag and move the apps to the SD card. That should fix your issue.
duckredbeard said:
I did tried as you recommended and nothing changed except for the size of the SD card. The partitioned card showed as 6.6GB, (instead of the full 8ishGB) but the internal memory stayed at 185MB. I used the live ubuntu method, 6.6GB fat 32, 1GB ext2, 32MB Linux. Partition session showed as successful.
Sent from my (liberated) HTC Liberty using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now that I'm on a real keyboard, I can better explain what got me to this point. Some of this you've heard before.
I did Nandroid backup, then copied all of my SD to a safe place on my PC. Partitioned the new Class 4 SD card using Linux LiveCd, with about 6.5GB Fat32, 1GB Ext2, and 32MB Linux swap. It took a few tries, I'm not a Linux person. Once It was successful, I went back into windows and looked at the card size. It was indeed about 6.5GB.
Powered off the Aria and inserted the SD card, then powered on like normal. No obvious change, other than the SD being smaller. No change to the internal storage. Found the darktremor .zip file and copied it to the root of my SD using a card reader, reinserted the SD (with power off) and rebooted in recovery, applied your .zip. Phone rebooted fine, again no changes.
I again tried to partition the card using ROM Manager, which had previously been unsuccessful on the new card. After it had been Linux partitioned the one time, ROM Manager seemed to have worked. I'd rather have more than 512MB Ext2, though.
I am perilously close to full on my internal storage, so I'm eager to get this going. Thanks for your replies.
hey tkirton,
upon installing 2.7.5.2 and running 'a2sd check', I see that swap does not start now ('partition not present or no swap support').
I installed it by rebooting into recovery and flashing the zip, same way I have been doing up until now.
Any ideas?
So, you setup the SD card via Rom Manager and all is working, but it didn't work via Linux LiveCD, correct?
It could be the EXT2 partition. It works, but because there is no journaling, the partition is more susceptible to corruption.
You may try the LiveCD method again. This time, create a 1GB EXT3 partition and make sure you unmount the partition before removing it (force removal while it is mounted is a good way to corrupt an EXT2 partition...can also corrupt an EXT3 partition). Don't worry about going into Windows to validate...you can do that with your phone.
I don't know if there is another recovery available to you. I run GodSpeed (based on Amon_RA's recovery) on my Hero and Amon_RA on my Evo. I know the Amon_RA recovery will allow you to select your EXT2/EXT3 size.
duckredbeard said:
Now that I'm on a real keyboard, I can better explain what got me to this point. Some of this you've heard before.
I did Nandroid backup, then copied all of my SD to a safe place on my PC. Partitioned the new Class 4 SD card using Linux LiveCd, with about 6.5GB Fat32, 1GB Ext2, and 32MB Linux swap. It took a few tries, I'm not a Linux person. Once It was successful, I went back into windows and looked at the card size. It was indeed about 6.5GB.
Powered off the Aria and inserted the SD card, then powered on like normal. No obvious change, other than the SD being smaller. No change to the internal storage. Found the darktremor .zip file and copied it to the root of my SD using a card reader, reinserted the SD (with power off) and rebooted in recovery, applied your .zip. Phone rebooted fine, again no changes.
I again tried to partition the card using ROM Manager, which had previously been unsuccessful on the new card. After it had been Linux partitioned the one time, ROM Manager seemed to have worked. I'd rather have more than 512MB Ext2, though.
I am perilously close to full on my internal storage, so I'm eager to get this going. Thanks for your replies.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm...works for both my Hero and Evo.
Which rom are you using? If you are using /dev/block/mmcblk1p3, it should work as it was introduced in this version.
I know this is going to sound stupid on my part, but are you sure swap has been working? The reason I ask is that earlier versions of CyanogenMod 6 Nightly Builds had the swap turned off in the kernel...of course, I didn't know that until I was working on another version of Darktremor (and I had already used three different versions of CyanogenMod prior to that).
hi2u2 said:
hey tkirton,
upon installing 2.7.5.2 and running 'a2sd check', I see that swap does not start now ('partition not present or no swap support').
I installed it by rebooting into recovery and flashing the zip, same way I have been doing up until now.
Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never got any different result from any method I tried. Except that after one attempt my Tasker widgets had lost their icons. I've put a lot into Tasker lately, which may explain my internal storage getting full.
I shall reattempt the Linux and pay particular attention to the mount status. I will also go with Ext3 if it is not a conflict with darktremor. Will the phone's storage be shown in addition to my partition (185+1024)? If my ROM (Liberated Aria R010) has DT A2SD, should I still install from .zip?
Sent from my (liberated) HTC Liberty using XDA App
Try flashing this one first: http://www.darktremor.info/files/a2sd/dtapps2sd-2.7.5.1-adv-signed.zip
That is 2.7.5.1...the first release was bugged...this is release 2. I don't know which one does Liberated Rom have.
If that works, then jump up to 2.7.5.2. Make a backup so you can restore if something goes wrong.
duckredbeard said:
I never got any different result from any method I tried. Except that after one attempt my Tasker widgets had lost their icons. I've put a lot into Tasker lately, which may explain my internal storage getting full.
I shall reattempt the Linux and pay particular attention to the mount status. I will also go with Ext3 if it is not a conflict with darktremor. Will the phone's storage be shown in addition to my partition (185+1024)? If my ROM (Liberated Aria R010) has DT A2SD, should I still install from .zip?
Sent from my (liberated) HTC Liberty using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
tkirton said:
Hmmm...works for both my Hero and Evo.
Which rom are you using? If you are using /dev/block/mmcblk1p3, it should work as it was introduced in this version.
I know this is going to sound stupid on my part, but are you sure swap has been working? The reason I ask is that earlier versions of CyanogenMod 6 Nightly Builds had the swap turned off in the kernel...of course, I didn't know that until I was working on another version of Darktremor (and I had already used three different versions of CyanogenMod prior to that).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am using /dev/block/mmcblk0p2. Followed the instructions here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=7372509&postcount=9
Ok...tried it again. Here's exactly what I did: Linux liveD method partition: 6.7GB Fat32, 1GB Ext3, 32MB Linux swap. I was sure I did the mount thing as well. Did nandroid backup then copied my old card (entirely) into the new Fat32. Stuck the new card into the powered off phone and booted into recovery. Installed the zip you posted in this thread. After install (with no problems) I reboot phone and no change to the indicated internal storage capacity. I am running liberated aria r010 which is purported to include dta2sd, but disabled by default. If this is my issue, how do I enable it?
Sent from my (liberated) HTC Liberty using XDA App
I just applied the stock221v13-bugfix-3 patch for dexter's froyo v1.3 on my XT720.
I have couple questions to ask you.
1. How do I verify that the patches are successfully applied on my phone?
2. How do I verify APP2SD is working on my phone?
3. How do I enable Link2SD feature on the phone?
Thank you for your help!!
1) not exactly sure, maybe in Settings > About?
2) Apps2SD is always activated in Froyo 2.2
3) if Link2SD is not installed properly it will give you a warning every time that you run it, so that is very obvious once the nagging stops then it means you have set it up properly.
make sure you have a 2nd partition in your external SD card that is EXT2 or EXT3 or FAT32, i'll suggest minimum 1 GB, but 2GB works best.
If you look in /system/etc/init.c & see 20_readahead the v3 patch was applied.
1. I verified by use Power buttom. There are two new options added (Reboot and Recovery).
2. Yes, this APP2SD is enable.
3. I am now using "app2sd" application to move apps to SD, but not all apps are movable! Is this normal that we cannot move every apps to SD?
4. Is "Link2SD" the same as "app2sd" application? Is there any apps that can directly install all APPs from market to SD?
5. Also, do you have step-by-step how to partition my SD card into two partitions. I do not know how to do this. Please help.
I'm running the **SMS* 3.02 by RSK team on my HTC Desire, the rom works great (I wanted the Amaze Cam) but I seem to run out of internal memory really quickly, ROM has only been on (again) for a week and I'm down to 25mb, all apps have been moved to SD.
I do have quite a few apps installed, but surely being on SD internal memory should be empty. The phone has a 16Gb SD card with a 2Gb ext partition created through recovery.
How to I get the memory back? I suspect it's going to be full in a day or 2, leading me to another full wipe
What i did to make more mem is using ''ram manager'' on the market and kill apps running in the background.
Thanks, I'm not sure how killing running apps is going to free phone storage space, though
I suspect I need to find a data2sd rom, ideally with the new cam
getting closer, I notice my Dalvik cache is ~170Mb, so taking up all that space. I installed 2 market apps to move it, the first, S2E just does nothing when IO tell it to move the cache. The second, a2sdgui, exits with the following message
"cannot start for one of these reasons
1. your phone is not rooted (it obviously is to be running custom roms?)
2. A2SD scripts could not be found o
3. No EXT partition found
Did you create a partition on your SD CARD? Does your custom rom support APP2SD (normally is natively included)?
Make sure.
Otherwise, I would suggest to try another rom to see what happen.
frosty68 said:
getting closer, I notice my Dalvik cache is ~170Mb, so taking up all that space. I installed 2 market apps to move it, the first, S2E just does nothing when IO tell it to move the cache. The second, a2sdgui, exits with the following message
"cannot start for one of these reasons
1. your phone is not rooted (it obviously is to be running custom roms?)
2. A2SD scripts could not be found o
3. No EXT partition found
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't assume that because you are running a custom ROM means your phone is rooted - the 2 have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Check that you have superuser installed, and if you do run terminal emulator and type the command su. If you're rooted you should get asked if you want to allow superuser privileges to the app. If it doesn't ask then either you've allowed (and remembered) the permission before or you're not rooted.
If an app's telling you you're not rooted then it's possibly right - always good to be sure.
Thanks, phone definitely rooted, and superuser installed (and titanium backup, which I've just used)
can't see mention of apps2sd on the rom page, though I was running a pretty old version.
Decided to do a full wipe, repartition the SD card and install a later version which has dalvik-cache to sd-ext, hopefully this will solve the problem of it filling.
Showing 174MB free right now, (+8.6Gb)
I take it if the cache does fill again I can just wipe it with no ill effects?
I wipe all my cache periodically with this:
https://market.android.com/details?...sMSwxLDEwMiwiY29tLmFhYy5jYWNoZW1hdGUuZGVtbyJd
I normally free up to 20 MB.
Hi There
Can someone explain what he\she did to partition SD card, and make all apps get installed on it.
Please note :
1. I don't want to use Titanium backup for this usage. I don't have the paid version and I'm tired of doing this one app at a time.
2. I saw some guides on the net, but they were all for GB.
(partition the microSD on PC using minitool) -can we use ext4 on our MTD ROMs ? What is the 1st partition for ? and the 2nd ?
(install busybox and super user) - Is it still needed ? (MIUI for example has LBE as su).
(install Link2SD) - Is it always in memory ?
(reboot and put partitioned SD card)
(Define Link2SD)
3. I also saw swapper instructions but I can manage with 170MB free RAM memory I get after removing all unnecessary system apps, and I remember ppl saying then that it kills the SDCard very quickly.
If someone has a clear guide or instructions that he knows work, that will be nice.
Thanks in advance.
Step 1. Partition your SD card to have a sd-ext partition. This can definitely be ext2 or FAT16. Anything else depends on your kernel. Most of them do support ext3 and 4, but... start with something fairly basic.
Regarding recoveries:
TWRP has always failed for me on this, so I'd avoid that.
This may be doable in CWM. I've seen reference to that newer versions of CWM removed the partition option, so you might need to flash an ICS ROM with an older kernel, repartition, and then flash back to the one you want.
Also note that if you use CWM to repartition, your SD-card will be wiped. So do a backup first.
Step 2. Install Mounts2SD. Either from XDA or the Play Store. Even if you do take it from the Play Store to get update notifications, I highly suggest grabbing the recovery script from the XDA thread so that you can get back your shifted applications without needing to re-download and install M2SD, since it likes to be on internal which means... shifted off.
Step 3. Open Mounts2SD. Grant SU rights at whatever point it asks for it during step 3. Hit the menu button. Go to Application Settings. Install the Startup Script. Tell it to use the built-in busybox as well, so that you don't need to install anything or worry about it failing. Back out of the Application Settings.
Step 4. Press on the Wrench to go into the actual specific settings. I currently have forced Cache, 1% Storage Threshold, Applications are the only bit moved, the File System Check is on and using the Ext4 Driver, 128KB Deadline for Internal and 4096 with Deadline for External, and Safe Mode is disabled. But decide on what you want yourself, set it, go back to the Eye to see your current info.
Step 5. Reboot.
Step 6. Wait 1-30 minutes for it to finish moving all your stuff around.
Step 7. Unlock your phone, open Mounts2SD, and make sure everything looks pretty on that first 'Eye' info tab. If you like it then close Mounts2SD and keep going on your merry way. If you don't like it or you've done something like offload your data and now your phone is wretchedly slow, go to the Wrench, change your settings, go back to the Eye, and reboot again. Repeat until satisfied.
I thought it would be simplier.
A few more questions:
1. If I partition SD on PC, then I don't need any partitioning on recovery so it should work fine even on TWRP or advanced CWMs. Am I right?
2. Why do I need scripts for? Isn't the app enough?
3. Why should/could it possibly slow down my device? TB 'move to SD' for all doesn't slow my device what so ever.
4. How and where do I see what partition is used for what?
5. How much RAM does the app take?
6. Have you tried other apps link2sd or something CM has built in I think.?
Thanks.
sent from me
New answers to new questions.
1. Skip step 1 if you've done it on your PC. I just suggested recovery as that's easy... if you've made your sd-ext partition on the PC, step 1 is done.
2. No clue on Link2SD. I use Mounts2SD instead since it lets me set things. It probably does the same thing though and sets a init.d script that gets run during startup.
3. True. For some reason though having all your data moved to sd-ext makes our phone go to a crawl. Same if you move off the dalvik.
4. That's in Mounts2SD. No clue how you can see if you're using Link2SD.
5. For Mounts2SD, none while it's being used, since it just runs as a startup script. The app is just to control the script.
6. Not successfully. I had tried 5 or 6 different apps back a year ago or so when I first started playing with sd-ext and Mounts2SD was the best and free, so... never looked back after that. Now you can also do some system-flag tweaking if you want to donate, but the sd-ext stuff is all free.
I was able to successfully partition SD and use mount2sd on 4.3 SlimBean.
however, it was rather slow.
CM 10.1 and CM10.2 by DJL. did not allow me to partition nor did they recognize SlimBean's partition even if I replaced them kernel (to NilTMT).
I'm currently using CM10.1 which is stable as a daily driver and manually swapping apps with TB, I hate it, but this is the best combination I've come so far.
I sold my wife's SGS4G and upgraded her to SGS3 and hopefully in a year I will do the same. it had its moments, but on the bottom line it's a pretty ****ty phone with its lack of internal mem...but hey, it drove so many of us to go deeper and deeper trying to understand and made us more tecnolgical and solution oriented.
Mounts2SD worked for me on CM10.1, so not sure why it failed for you. Ah well.
A few things I have found...
Yes, you can partition on Windows, but you're really asking for trouble. It's not too bad download Ubuntu or the like and you can boot off a USB stick without touching your Windows install.
The TeamAcid kernels that I know of handle ext2/3/4 file systems. All kinds of arguments as to which are better. I personally use ext4 and don't find it obviously "slow" for the way I use my phone.
That said, what the boot scripts (which are part of a flashed "kernel" for the SGS4G) actually do with a "special" partition is another story. In some cases the first stages of booting will look for special partitions and mount them in pre-configured places. For example, the second partition of the removable card might be mounted on /sd-ext/ in many CyanogenMod ROMs. Many (most?) SGS4G ROMs don't have these "special" mount rules defined.
Moving an app to SD using the "native" approach just moves the app and none of its data to the SD card. It won't for example, move 25 MB of mail from /data/data to your microSD
Moving an app to SD (or anywhere else) doesn't keep it from generating its classes in /data/dalvik-cache -- It isn't "free" to have an app on SD as far as internal storage goes, even if it doesn't write any data.
Moving an app to SD will absolutely slow down your boot time. It does it by creating a file that contains a file system that then gets read and mounted at boot time. You can watch the parade of them getting mounted using adb logcat. It can take a minute or two to mount them all. Once mounted, that double layer of file systems shouldn't slow you down too much, since it is basically a read-only kind of thing.
Scripts are required since you need to be able to "fake out" the operating system as to where things are stored for anything (except if you just use the native app to SD method). In most cases you need new partitions mounted before the Android part of the OS starts running.
Some scripts are more robust than others.
TitaniumBackup (paid version) has a way to move data to an external partition. It works like a charm for me (64 GB Sandisk UHS-1 / Class 10 microSD). It was very tweaky for me to get it to recognize the ext4 partition the first time. It can bulk-move app data to the partition. I don't know which, if any, of the other scripts move the data to an external partition.
On my phone, an ext4 file system can be significantly faster than the internal yaffs, especially for write. Alas, it usually seems to be read that is a killer for most things in an well-written app. On my phone, yaffs can be faster than ext4 for short reads. Who knows how this would play out in real-world usage.
Other things that TitaniumBackup can do that help free up internal storage, at least in the paid version, are:
Dalvik cache cleanup
Integrate system Dalvik cache into ROM
Integrate update into ROM
Convert to system app
I can confirm Link2SD works where Mount2SD fails, which is an ext3 partitioned sd-ext on AOKP. it doesn't get any simpler than that.
sent from me