[IDEA] RAM Builds for stock android devices? - Android Software/Hacking General [Developers Only]

Hi Everyone,
I have a HD2, and I am using Android on it since it was avaible.
If you have an HD2 you may/may not know that now we have a particular build type wich is called "RAM", i.e. the entire OS is loaded to ram to archieve amazing speeds bypassing the bottleneck of SD card or NAND memory (and since the device has a lot of ram, it doesn't interfere with other applications)
Since now we have NAND+RAM builds (best of both worlds), I was wondering, is it possibile to implement such build type in normal android devices?
Leaving the OS files on the device, and loading them to ram during boot (via bootloader or kernel, I don't really know)
What do you think?

Related

Running android on WM6 phones... general question.

I've seen videos of Android running on a multitude of WinMo phones.
All seem to boot android by the use of a boot loader called Haret.exe
Once android gets booted though haret, does the base OS still run/remain in the background?
So if my device has 128Mb ram (program memory), and say I'm currently using 80MB (due to whatever software I have open) and I run haret/android, does the Android OS see the full 128MB? Or whatever is remaining (48Mb in this example)
WM allocated memory is discarded when Haret loads Android, you will have full 128 Mb available to Android.

Integration vs Installation

I've searched in the forum but i cannot find anything about that.
Which are the main differences in having a program integrated in a ROM or to install it in the main memory after the ROM has been flashed in the device??
I mean, are there any benefits in integrating a software in ROM in terms of speed, memory footprint...or any others?
Thanks
integrated don't take up storage space
integrated can't be upgraded to a newer version without getting a new rom
application memory foodprint is the same
So with latest device that have a good amount of internal storage the integration doesn't have real benefits...
The possibility to upgrade a program to a newer version for me is more important than some more MB of free space in the internal storage...
Thanks for the explanation
it saves time installing random apps after flashing if they are already there for you.. certain usefull ones like total commander and such.. Ditto on the not being able to upgrade, some program are able to, but most arent, you just get errors. Someone here on XDA made an app that allows you to store cabs in a specific folder on a storage card and on first boot those cabs will be installed, thus making the issue of having your favorite preinstalled apps less of a hassle after a reflashing, or moving to a new device.

[Q] Idea for hacking 64GB storage to an Android phone

Hi Guys.
What I was thinking is blooming genius, but I need an Android and electricial engineer to look over it to se if the theory is sound.
What I want to ask is could android support a JBOD array through it's Microsd (theorectically)?
My plan is basically to get a PhotoFast GM-5500 (see below) and use it's array and controllers as a base remove the casing and USB port and then either:
1 - Create a microsd interface so that it plugs into the current microsd sd slot
2 - solder it onto the micro USB pins to it's always connected.
Anyone interested in the practically of this, I was thinking of doing it to a Desire and then getting the back cover for a battery extender (see below) to create the space to house the array.
Mostly impossible because the OS, and the processor doesent know how to understand memory larger then 32Gb.
I've seen that the Samsung Galaxy Tab comes in a 64GB flavor with additional 32gb MicroSD slot. Is it just honeycomb that can support it or are you saying its a physical limitation imposed by the SOC?
In windows, or on Linux - what limites the HW expansions?
If you have a HD movie like 6Gb and you want it to be on a FAT16 partition it's imposlible. So if you have an 64Gb of RAM on a PC do you use it all??
It's about 0 and 1
I'm not sure what point you are trying to make...
Firstly, I'm talking about Android as this is the Android hacking forum.
Secondly I never mentioned HD files, this is irrelavent to my quesiton.
Thirdly, I didn't talk about file systems, however I will now, I was thinking 90% FAT32 ( Easily supported) and the rest EXT3 for system and apps.
Fourthly, I never mentioned RAM, I'm on about Storage.
I've tried to find a tear down of a 64GB Galaxy tab to see if they are using an SSD or flash memory ( i know they're mostly the same).
The galaxy proves it's possible to store more, I'm just wondering how the devil they did it and can it be replicated on the cheap?
Ok, m8 how will you tell the mother board, and the processor to alocate that extra storage, and how to write partition on it? It's not the OS itself, it's the whole thing.
Dont you think that Android development didn't think of that? To lets say put a small SSHD (solid state hard disk) to Android performance with dual core processors, and stuff
If tou think of extra lagre OS - then take a PC and run a Linux distro or a Windows.
For that mater buy an new Azbox STB with Android on it
This is what i was wondering, if it's only honeycomb that's able to do it then updating will soon be possible .
If we say theoretically we have Honeycomb on it, and the cards are partitioned correctly ( using gParted before being installed in the phone).
I know it's not possible to start swapping major components out of the phone.
I'm thinking of an SD array as it's already got the firmware to address SD, an SSD would require some serious OS tweaks.
I think we're getting a bit off topic of my original question, which was would/could Android support JBoD array?
Ok - there is no difference is there an 64Gb, 160Gb of an external storage - is it an SD, or an SSD, or a floppy. The point is that OS+CPU+MB of any now available phone is able to understand addressing 0-es and 1-es to extra storage.
It's like with old PC mother boards with old BIOS-es, HDD then couldn't be reckognised if larger then 30Gb.
So are you saying its possible?
Lets simplify it a bit, will android support a JBOD (Just a bunch of Disks) array?
Yes or no.
Forget the size of the storage, is really irrelavant to what I'm asking.
From simple to complicated.
Android OS - Yes (rewriten to match CPU and MB)
Android Hardware - NO
Android completly new level of development - Yes.
Bump.
Any ideas if this is possible?
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

Where android is located?

I Just fonder where ROM's are installed to?
Is it installed to RAM or Phones own space...
Just help a noob. That's me when we are speaking about phones?
If it is installed to RAM, if i delete system files, can i free up RAM.
Any other ways to free up RAM? i already used ROM-Cleaner...
TheLnxDrd said:
I Just fonder where ROM's are installed to?
Is it installed to RAM or Phones own space...
Just help a noob. That's me when we are speaking about phones?
If it is installed to RAM, if i delete system files, can i free up RAM.
Any other ways to free up RAM? i already used ROM-Cleaner...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The rom is installed in phone memory, and deleting system files will not free up ram.
If you are having trouble with ram, try installing a swap partition in your phone memory...what that does is uses part of your phone memory as ram (you will be unable to use it for storage then)
Search for swap on the Sensation android development forum, you will find atleast a couple...read the post well before installing.
TheLnxDrd said:
I Just fonder where ROM's are installed to?
Is it installed to RAM or Phones own space...
Just help a noob. That's me when we are speaking about phones?
If it is installed to RAM, if i delete system files, can i free up RAM.
Any other ways to free up RAM? i already used ROM-Cleaner...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are a few basic terms you need to understand:
RAM- Random Access Memory - Where data used by the processor is stored (like variables of calculations), and that means - what your app uses while running.
ROM - Read Only Memory - And in our context - the OS.
The ROM and RAM are different memories, by that RAM is deleted when the computer (in this case - the phone) is shut down, while the ROM (and other data stored on the flash memory) is kept.
You can use the ROM to have more RAM, by making a SWAP space.
And for general knowledge - there are a couple of partitions on our phone. What interests us is (mainly) these three:
/data - That's the storage available to us - where we install apps etc.
/system - where system apps and the ROM itself is
/boot - the kernel - what makes the whole OS tick.
Basically, unless on very limited resources, android will handle RAM without you even knowing it. However, when the phone runs with heavy apps all the time, it could get full easily. There are task killers, and also, a reboot can clean your RAM (there could be "memory leaks", however, I do not know of it being an issue on android), and allow it to start fresh.
There are also RAM tweaks such as ZRAM etc. And also, some kernels offer even more optimization.

Need a Rom to bring back to life this phone

wich Rom do you recommend that is stable and goes beyond 4.1?
Hi Roberto,
I was fed up with the stock ROM (and lack of updates), especially because the firmware was getting slower over time - maybe because the (out)dated firmware is not quite compatible with some newer apps, or - perhaps - even worms got into the phone because of dated firmware? I can only guess. Doing a factory reset didn't help at all.
So I tried Cyanogenmod 12.1. Haven't tried other ROMs yet, but I quite like Cyanogenmod. Overall it is way more usefull compared to stock so far, mainly because it is way faster than the latest OTA. However, I'm missing a few features from the HTC ROM / Sense; To name a few, the Camera application is way more spartan (i.e. no HDR, no Panorama mode). The phone application / contacts management is less featurefull and the keyboard is different (I got used to the one in Sense). But some of these might be remedied with some installable applications, but haven't had time to try them yet.
However, even with the 12.1 Cyanogenmod, I still had the issue of storage space running out for applications (I had the same issue with stock / latest OTA), which I was hoping the ROM would fix. I could only install a few applications before running out of space (and, moving apps to the "sdcard" offers very limited help). As you may know, this issue stems from the stock ROM (and all subsecuent OTAs) partition scheme, where ~4GB is available for apps (with the HTC system taking ~2GB) and ~10GB available for media as /sdcard/. (I believe the remaining 2GB is reserved for recovery etc.).
However, upgrading to hboot 2.16 will also modify your partition scheme, so that there is no separate partition mounted ad /sdcard/. This means there is just one storage space for apps and media. But also, you will not have a vfat formatted /sdcard/ anymore partition, which means no UMS mode (but, the stock ROM does not provide that, either). So no easy access to the phones file system via USB, but at least for my use case, this configuration is way more usefull!
Whatever ROM you will choose to try, make sure it will support the hboot you are going to use.
I agree with Wild Penguin
I use Snapshot release of Cyanogenmod 12.1 (since October 2015) and it's better in every way than stock. The only thing that is missing for me is the HTC Camera App which had superior photo quality and burst mode etc...
Big games automatically put files on 9GB partition so it's not that bad but 2GB system partition is a pain if you like to have more than 2-3 screens of apps.
There is no reason to stay on stock rom other than Camera App.
For my usage, I find that battery life is a bit better on Maximus HD 10.
After posting the above I noticed that the Google Camera app (I hadn't installed it previously) has some of the missing features the HTC Camera app had (HDR and Panorama), although some are still missing.

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