How To Not Use Internal Flash?

[Arx]

Does anyone know if there is a way to set pdaXrom up to run completely from the sd card, ignoring the internal flash entirely? (except the bootloader I guess)

It doesn't sound like it should be all that difficult, though I'm not a linux guru, so I could be wrong.

I don't need to ever swap cards, so it seems to me that it would make sense to be set up on one big partition on a card which is replaceable if it ever wears out, rather than running the main filesystem off of a tiny little 128mb flash which can't easily be replaced.

I've got an SL-C1000 btw.

-Nick

[Bundabrg]

Theres no reason why you can't, but it would be painfully slow. The internal flash is supposed to be pretty good at balancing writes etc...

 - Bundabrg

[Meanie]

Does anyone know if there is a way to set pdaXrom up to run completely from the sd card, ignoring the internal flash entirely? (except the bootloader I guess)

It doesn't sound like it should be all that difficult, though I'm not a linux guru, so I could be wrong.

I don't need to ever swap cards, so it seems to me that it would make sense to be set up on one big partition on a card which is replaceable if it ever wears out, rather than running the main filesystem off of a tiny little 128mb flash which can't easily be replaced.

I've got an SL-C1000 btw.

-Nick
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it could, but you would need to be more technically capable to do it which from the sounds of it you aren't. so unless you brush up on your knowledge it would be very difficult
besides, of all the media for the Zaurus, SD is the slowest and hence the worst option to running apps off.
and yes, 128mb is tiny. that's why there are c3x00 models

[Arx]

it could, but you would need to be more technically capable to do it which from the sounds of it you aren't. so unless you brush up on your knowledge it would be very difficult
besides, of all the media for the Zaurus, SD is the slowest and hence the worst option to running apps off.
and yes, 128mb is tiny. that's why there are c3x00 models
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=134396\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

Looks like slightly less than 2/3 the speed based on a 40mb dd from the device to /dev/null   I think I'm alright with that.  Currently I install almost everything to it anyways, so it's just as slow, and I end up with a buttload of symlinks all over the place.

As far as technical capability goes, I think I could probably handle it just fine with a couple hints.  I guess really I'd just need to know how to set the location of the root filesystem during boot.  Previously I hacked around with some bind mounts in the fstab, but it was pretty cludgy.

I tried messing with the init scripts, trying to mount the sd card, followed by a chroot, but it didn't work.  I'm guessing the SD driver isn't built directly into the kernel, and may not be loaded yet at that point.

Am I barking up the wrong tree?

[Meanie]

it could, but you would need to be more technically capable to do it which from the sounds of it you aren't. so unless you brush up on your knowledge it would be very difficult
besides, of all the media for the Zaurus, SD is the slowest and hence the worst option to running apps off.
and yes, 128mb is tiny. that's why there are c3x00 models
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=134396\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

Looks like slightly less than 2/3 the speed based on a 40mb dd from the device to /dev/null   I think I'm alright with that.  Currently I install almost everything to it anyways, so it's just as slow, and I end up with a buttload of symlinks all over the place.

As far as technical capability goes, I think I could probably handle it just fine with a couple hints.  I guess really I'd just need to know how to set the location of the root filesystem during boot.  Previously I hacked around with some bind mounts in the fstab, but it was pretty cludgy.

I tried messing with the init scripts, trying to mount the sd card, followed by a chroot, but it didn't work.  I'm guessing the SD driver isn't built directly into the kernel, and may not be loaded yet at that point.

Am I barking up the wrong tree?
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=134398\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

have a look at the pivot boot thing. however, even though it might work, it might also lock up your system when you suspend.

[louigi600]

The pdaxrom for 5500 does this and it is desparately slow but suspend works.
You could get some ideas from there.
The slowness, as far as I understand, is dew to the way the SD is used. Dew to driver problems it's used in sync mode. But if you use kernel 2.6 you might be able to do better. Try fiddling with beta4 (u-boot should be able to boot directly from SD but you might need to rebuild it).
Good Luck.
David

[lpotter]

heh... Actually, 128 MB is huge for an 'embedded' device/handheld. The Zaurus 5000d only has 16 mb.

[louigi600]

Using the newest u-boot you can just have bootloader and kernel on internal flash .... the rest can be on SD.

You could also reconfig u-boot to load root from SD as default instead of having to press "1" while booting.

Currently I'm booting my modified beta4 version root from  SD.

Regards
David

[zedkatuf2]

Using the newest u-boot you can just have bootloader and kernel on internal flash .... the rest can be on SD.

You could also reconfig u-boot to load root from SD as default instead of having to press "1" while booting.

Currently I'm booting my modified beta4 version root from  SD.

Regards
David
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Aaah - does that mean the rest could boot from the microdrive (3200 model) also?

The two things that are delaying me trying out pdaxrom atm are >1gbyte sd support & using the MD...& usability/stability(??not sure if I'm right in questioning those) of the beta4 cut of 1.1 I guess.

zedkatuf

[louigi600]

Yes ... but you might need a special kernel.
Look here for details.

[zedkatuf2]

Yes ... but you might need a special kernel.
Look here for details.
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...but that looks like it's for C7XX hardware, not SL3XXX
(I've got the 3200)

[louigi600]

True but u-boot has been ported to the 3200 too .. so chances are that if you compile it fror your hatdware it will work. Actually I'm pretty sure because I looked at the patches and there is the same key setup for akita aswell as corgi.

If I were you I'd download u-boot sources and patches
http://mail.pdaxrom.org/download/1.1.0beta...t-1.1.4.tar.bz2
http://mail.pdaxrom.org/download/u-boot/u-...8-1106.diff.bz2
ad build it for akita using cross sdk.

Goot Luck

[silencer51]

I think 128 (121 in reality) MB is fine for pdaXrom.

What I do on my C3100, is install all essential ipks (wm, browsers etc.) into flash until there's about 10mb free.

After that I make a NAND backup.

Then I install secondary stuff to /dev/hda2 which I've formatted to ext3. ;-)

Everything works nicely...

[zedkatuf2]

I think 128 (121 in reality) MB is fine for pdaXrom.

What I do on my C3100, is install all essential ipks (wm, browsers etc.) into flash until there's about 10mb free.

After that I make a NAND backup.

Then I install secondary stuff to /dev/hda2 which I've formatted to ext3. ;-)

Everything works nicely...
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=138385\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

How is the stability/useability of beta4?

I need a system with stable (deep breath!): abiword, gnumeric, arecord, kdepim, wifi, working bluetooth, usb host, usb mass storage, apache, mysql,  php & python & 2gbyte SD support



zedkatuf

[silencer51]

Beta4 is highly unstable and many things are broken. Use beta3, it's great!