Biggest problems forseen with Honeycomb conversion? - G Tablet General

To all the Devs:
What do you all think will be your biggest hurdle to overcome with the advent of the Honeycomb ROM? I tend to think the two gnarliest parts will be the video and the accelerometer.
Just curious as I'd like to try dipping my feet into the ROM cooking waters and was wondering what y'all most have the problems with.

Not a dev, but:
Storage management may be a biggie. Honeycomb apparently changed from fixed allocations to dynamic storage management. Motorola is trying get Android to create a mod for them and their Xoom so the microsd works. Question may be is the space treated as a total of the storage or its own logical location? If the former, the card will not be able to be removed, since part of the storage total system (some data and media will be on the card, some on internal, but no based on location).

rushless said:
Not a dev, but:
Storage management may be a biggie. Honeycomb apparently changed from fixed allocations to dynamic storage management. Motorola is trying get Android to create a mod for them and their Xoom so the microsd works. Question may be is the space treated as a total of the storage or its own logical location? If the former, the card will not be able to be removed, since part of the storage total system (some data and media will be on the card, some on internal, but no based on location).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now I somewhat understand why iDevices haven't had a SDCard slot and why WP7 devices have non-removable SDCards.
Why exactly is it so difficult to have dynamic storage management, alongside a SDCard with it's own logical location? Would that maybe create issues for each specific vendor or make it so Honeycomb would have to be more tailored for different configurations of devices?
Is it that much different from say, Windows 7 or Linux being on a drive, able to use as much space as possible on that drive but allowing for usb storage and sd card storage on drives of their own?

Related

Application for bridging SDHC as device memory

Guys,
Is there somewhere else who create an application that can make SDHC card as device memory?
Thanx.
irmanpribadi said:
Guys,
Is there somewhere else who create an application that can make SDHC card as device memory?
Thanx.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The storage card can only be used as a storage card, not for device memory. nice idea though, it would be nice to have 16gb of ram
Regards
Jay
maybe this is not about ram but about having the sd card as primary partition, which might be possible although it has never been done before. in wm2003 the ramdrive was the primary partition and the "storage" was listed as a storage card. these days the storage is the first (and on most devices and roms only) partition. but when a ramdisk is added, it is listed as a storage card. that means the order of the drives is variable and a storage card could also be the first partition.
but what would you want with a theretical answer like that? an expert rom chef, who started with cooking wm2003 might know the answer or could do that for you.
but for all realistic means, you should simply try and save all documents, pictures, videos and music, install bigger programs, derive the cache for your browser, store email attachments all on the sd card. the only problems with completely leaving out on the internal storage, especially for program installation, is that it is slow.
It should be possible but you will probably need to cook a new ROM to get it working. It's mostly just a matter of telling CE which mounted volume you want to mount as root for the emulated objectstore.
This document on MSDN should give you an idea of what to do:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms885839.aspx
The MPx200's WM5/WM6 ROMs do this already. If you do this, keep in mind you likely won't ever be able to eject the card while the device is booted as the registry will be stored there. Now, maybe you could write some sort of app that would dismount/remount and reinitialize the registry at the press of a button but that doesn't seem too practical unless you have no choice as on the MPx200. Another workaround might be to store the registry hives on an internal flash partition and store the rest of the system folders on the SD card.
As for implementing the RAM/ROM based filesystem like in WM2003, I'm not sure. The Windows CE 5.x kernel used for Windows Mobile 5/6/6.1/6.5 certainly won't prevent you from doing it but I'm unsure the Universal's hardware can persist the ram contents between "soft" resets. If it can, then I imagine it's only a matter of using an NK.exe that doesn't force a clean reboot and using a different filesys.exe than the included ROM only/hive registry configuration it ships with. Heh, if you ever looked at the MS news groups you will see a whole bunch of posts by OEMS getting yelled at for using the ram based configuration in their beta WM5 roms. "Not supported" doesn't mean it can't be done and work, it just means MS doesnt' want you to do it for either marketing or other reasons.
Chef_Tony said:
maybe this is not about ram but about having the sd card as primary partition, which might be possible although it has never been done before. in wm2003 the ramdrive was the primary partition and the "storage" was listed as a storage card. these days the storage is the first (and on most devices and roms only) partition. but when a ramdisk is added, it is listed as a storage card. that means the order of the drives is variable and a storage card could also be the first partition.
but what would you want with a theretical answer like that? an expert rom chef, who started with cooking wm2003 might know the answer or could do that for you.
...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The ramdisk you are talking about is very different from the Windows CE object store used in WM2003 and many current non-PPC WinCE devices.
They don't even use the same filesystem! The ramdisk driver commonly circulated on these forums basically just formats/mounts a chunk of RAM as a FAT partition. It can't be resized and appears to the OS as any other flash card. You can even format it with StorageTools or whatever. The dynamic ramdisk or objectstore is built into the WinCE OS. It uses a proprietary filesystem optimized for RAM usage that is closely integrated into the kernel. As I understand it, It's more like a database than a filesystem like FAT. The registry, files and DBs are all stored in the same internal format and then abstracted by the OS and it's APIs. It couldn't even be disabled until more recent WinCE versions. More info: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa910544.aspx

Is this the future of Android's memory system?

The iPhone allows apps to be stored anywhere on its memory but you cannot use the phone as a USB mass storage device or upgrade its memory. This isn't likely to change.
The WP7 allows apps to be stored anywhere on its memory but you cannot use the phone as a USB mass storage device. You can upgrade the memory on some phones with certain SD cards and in the future there will likely be more SD card options.
For Android, the current system is "internal" or "ROM" memory that houses the OS and apps--ranging from 512MB to 8GB--and media memory. You can generally upgrade the memory and use the media memory as a USB masss storage device. Some apps will allow you to Apps2SD and install a portion of the app on the SD card.
Other phones certainly have sacrifices but you can utilize 100% of their memory for whatever you like. On Android, you have part of your phone you can only utilize for apps and part of your phone you can only use for media. This results in wasted space--you may have multiple GBs free of media space but no more space for apps, or lots of free app space but no where to store more media.
Is this the future for Android? Hoping that your new phone comes with the same ratio of ROM/external as apps/media you want? Does Google have plans for Android's memory architecture?
I'd say yea rather waist of space but with fro yo developers can start code it to allow storage on device. This means that they see our issue and trying to solve it on further launched os updates.
If you can't wait for that I recommend installing titanium backup, to force apps over to your SD. This is a method I use and no I might be unable to use certain widgets but I don't find them THAT important anyhow.. Specially regarding you free up space!
So I guess it's a question of patience and what you would prefer at times, use of some widgets or not.
Example handcent hope spelled it properly. They disallow moving to SD, so I just force it over there and ignore that 1x1 widget showing unread text messages.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App

Linux/Android OS newbie question

I'd like to search this forum for help, but am uneducated enough on the internals of the android OS that I'm not sure what to search for.
i'll ask my question expecting an answer on either (1) how to search for such information in the future, or (2) how to solve the issue.
I installed a 16GB class 10 SD card in my transformer keyboard and would like to edit the appropriate config files so that all future software installs and downloads are on that storage card rather than the internal 16GB memory. So my question is what files do i edit to accomplish this?
thanks...
marvin
You want Apps2SD. Unfortunately, unless something has changed recently, you can't use it on your TF.
www.transformerforums.com/forum/asus-transformer-help/3514-tf-not-letting-me-move-apps-sd-save-things-sd.html#post27629
mncessna said:
I'd like to search this forum for help, but am uneducated enough on the internals of the android OS that I'm not sure what to search for.
i'll ask my question expecting an answer on either (1) how to search for such information in the future, or (2) how to solve the issue.
I installed a 16GB class 10 SD card in my transformer keyboard and would like to edit the appropriate config files so that all future software installs and downloads are on that storage card rather than the internal 16GB memory. So my question is what files do i edit to accomplish this?
thanks...
marvin
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd probably try searching for "Move apps to SD" if I was searching for that topic(I know it's hard to figure out the right search terms sometimes, but by posting in Q&A, you've at least posted a fair question in the right place), here's my answer in two parts:
1. I don't think Apps2SD would work with the Dock SD slot.
2. You have the entire 16/32GB internal storage shared between apps and the /sdcard mount. Is that really not enough space?
Also, the internal storage is faster than a Class 10 card, so there will be a performance hit running from SD.
thanks...you've given me food for thought
2. You have the entire 16/32GB internal storage shared between apps and the /sdcard mount. Is that really not enough space?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
there's never enough space!! I've always attempted to offload temp files, downloads, and various other files from the same partition as the OS. prevents excessive fragmentation etc. i'm assuming this would still be an issue even with non-spinning storage, maybe it isn't?
Also, the internal storage is faster than a Class 10 card, so there will be a performance hit running from SD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
now that's an interesting comment. i thought Class 10 was the fastest AND that internal storage on the transformer was the same technology. Hmmm.....more research for me.[/QUOTE]
thanks for the information and advice.
marvin
mncessna said:
there's never enough space!! I've always attempted to offload temp files, downloads, and various other files from the same partition as the OS. prevents excessive fragmentation etc. i'm assuming this would still be an issue even with non-spinning storage, maybe it isn't?
now that's an interesting comment. i thought Class 10 was the fastest AND that internal storage on the transformer was the same technology. Hmmm.....more research for me.
thanks for the information and advice.
marvin
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Theoretically, fragmentation can slow a flash drive down, but I've never known anybody to notice the difference or to bother with defragmenting regularly on a flash device. Maybe somebody here is into that, but it's just not practical IMHO. Apps2SD is for people who run out of internal space and need MORE room for apps. If you are pushing 12gb (the ballpark usable space on the internal memory of the TF) of apps, you need to get back into the work force. You're better off trying to keep large data files on the removable drive first, even if it means just relocating them every once in a while.
The bottom line is, the way the Transformer treats the built-in memory as an SD card is going to be an issue when trying to use an external card for Apps2SD (which I still haven't heard of anybody succeeding at), but you may be able to set your default download folder to the removable card. If you're dealing with a browser, it would depend on which one. If you're doing your own file transfers, just get a file manager that allows you to set your "home" directory and point it to the /Removable/MicroSD directory.
SilverZero said:
Theoretically, fragmentation can slow a flash drive down, but I've never known anybody to notice the difference or to bother with defragmenting regularly on a flash device. Maybe somebody here is into that, but it's just not practical IMHO.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Even on hard drive it's most of the time not worth the effort. On SSD just forget about fragmentation.
i thought the reason fragmentation is a performance hit for HDDs is due to the fact it has to spin to get to the rest of the file.
SSD does not need anything like that.
fragmentation causes delays
finalhit said:
i thought the reason fragmentation is a performance hit for HDDs is due to the fact it has to spin to get to the rest of the file.
SSD does not need anything like that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
a disk read consists of a seek op to place the read head over the correct cylinder, then rotational delay while the correct sector rotates under the head, then a data read, and then a transfer to core memory. when a file is fragmented, this operation is repeated multiple times in order to read the entire file into memory. disk drives are pretty fast these days, but they are still the slowest part of most modern computers. cpus and memory are very fast, but disk drives slow things up, therefore, adding to io delays with fragmented files is a real performance hit.
however, i have no data on how fragmentation affects flash memory...perhaps not at all?!.
thanks to all for inputs.
Here's one perspective on flash fragmentation:
www.wizcode.com/articles/comments/flash_memory_fragmentation_myths_and_facts/

[Q] Why does no Mod Rom or Custom ROM allow official ext4 external?

Dear All,
I have a simple question to open a discussion here. We all know that modern android phones are having the ability to understand ext4 (and if my research is right - the internal storage in most Android 4.x phones is formatted in ext4). Why is dev or mod build like Cyanogenmod or even a OEM like Xiaomi which develops MIUI not removing emulated sdcard functionality (optionally) and instead allow users choose to reformat their actual sd to ext4 when inserted (and mark that as internal SD - to allow standard App2sd)? Thereby enabling secure app + media storage a reality? And in the same way as Internal Storage, I think we can use MTP to read the external storage (ext4) when connected to PCs.
Furthermore, we can have a setting to warn the users about this compatibility change (that once they take up/choose this method)- they will not be able to read cards in normal way when connected directly via card reader to Windows PCs because of no direct ext4 support in Windows.
Additionally, can't we at least have this as an advanced or developer only setting, if we want novice users to not mess with the functionality?
Do you all agree? Or am I having a over-simplified understanding of making such a change?
Lastly, given an option, I would definitely choose such a change at the cost of compatibility rather than paying tons of extra money for higher internal flash storage
Nobody wants to answer this? We have so many experts here - I am really surprised to see no replies

Storage on modern devices.

Hey guys, I'm posting here to discuss a common feild of today's modern Android devices. That is nowadays you all might be frequently seeing devices with a sort of "combined" internal storage for apps and media both at the same place as both fill the space from the same internal partition or perhaps the only internal partition. My question is that how is this possible as how can both the user media files and apps be on the same partition without affecting or getting in contact with each other as file manager does not show apps but the space is used and same for app storage.
So how does this happen or how does this work and is there any way to implement this on regular phones with partitioned internal storage for apps and media separately (as this partitioning by the oems are sometimes frustrating as mostly the give very small app storage space and unnecessarily larger storage space which is usually replaced by a larger external micro SD card on small storage devices like 4 GB or so)?
Eg of combined storage devices include most Lenovo devices and never Micromax devices.
Thanks in advance for replying.

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