Using 2 Gb Sd Cards On Tosa, with and without special driver support Options

[malik]

hello,

i have several questions.

1) which roms support bigger sd cards on the tosa? what about
the tetsu kernel?

remark: i know that oz with a 2.6 kernel does, but the image of
dirk is quite experimental and not (yet) for a daily use.



2) i would get me immediately one if the following is true:

is it possible to partition bigger sd cards into 1 gb parts and
use them with the zaurus?



thanx in advance, malik

[Meanie]

hello,

i have several questions.

1) which roms support bigger sd cards on the tosa? what about
the tetsu kernel?

remark: i know that oz with a 2.6 kernel does, but the image of
dirk is quite experimental and not (yet) for a daily use.



2) i would get me immediately one if the following is true:

is it possible to partition bigger sd cards into 1 gb parts and
use them with the zaurus? 



thanx in advance, malik

no & no

u cant use the 2.4.20 kernel module from a clamshell on a tosa and tetsu cannot recompile it for you because he doesnt have the source code for that module.

partition size doesnt matter. the system cant handle the larger disk geometry.
its like putting a 10GB hdd into a 386. u can make small 100MB partitions but the bios still wont recognise the big hdd.

[speculatrix]

it's not quite like that - there's a reason why 1GB was the limit for SD cards for a while... 1GB cards has a 512 byte block. 2GB cards have 1024 byte block and 4GB cards a 2048 block... thus the addressing of data blocks doesn't exceed the original SD specification, just that the data transferred increases

This is why the old fixed-block-size drivers really barf!

[Hrw]

According to available SD specifications every SD card has to work in 512 byte block mode. Thats how many card readers work, thats how linux 2.6 handle SD/MMC cards and it works. I tested 2GB card in my c760 (2.6.17 kernel) and it was working without problems (card normally used in PocketPC).

[the_oak]

So are you saying that as long as we set blocksize to 512, any Zaurus will be able to use a +2 GB SD card?

[Hrw]

Thats how it is resolved in our 2.6 kernel.

[speculatrix]

thanks, Hrw, I wondered if I had the whole picture, and you've corrected my ignorance.

[the_oak]

Anyone tried using blocksize of 512 in default Sharp rom for cards larger than 2 GB? I would try this, but I do not have a 2+ GB SD card to try this out and do not want to buy one unless it is possible. (I did try C-guys SD driver for C860's and that did not work for 1 GB card with blocksize = 1024.)

[malik]

thank you oak, i wanted to ask the same question: if a 2 gb sd card runs well under the sharp rom with a block size of 512 Byte, i will buy one. did anyone tried this with a tosa and the stock rom?

mkfs.ext2 seems only to allow block size of 1024, 2048 and so on with the option -b,
but you will get a block size of 512 Bytes (4096 Bits) with the option "-T news".

malik