Format : Mantance Menu

[SJR3t120]

I have installed and unstalled a few programs, and I am thinking they have left behind files that are no longer need.  And I want to free up this space.

I am wondering what will happen if I do the Format under the Mantance Menu you can get after rebooting.  If I format can I boot again to do an upgrade from the same menu?

Steven

[tumnus]

Format returns your Z to the factory state. It won't trash anything other than apps you installed and data/settings you have entered since you first got it.

[Chaos]

Not entirely correct, tumnus.

It wipes the /home clean. 100% clean. So, basically, it'll revert to the default settings, etc. for whatever ROM you installed last.

It's generally a good practice to do it after updating the ROM (i.e. Sharp 1.00 to Sharp 1.32).

It's absolutely necessary if you change ROM versions though (i.e. Sharp to tKC).

[SJR3t120]

So format does not do anything to your OS, only wipes out setting stored in home.  So it does not do an upgrade afterwards.

Steven

[tumnus]

Ahem, I think you'll find _everything_ that you change or install goes into a directory under /home . /etc is a sym link to /home/etc. /usr/bin is a sym link to /home/root/usr/bin and so on .

So everything _does_ get wiped that you install or can change (except of course if you've made the ROM writable and done some modifications there). It also restores all the defaults from the hidden files under /root, which are in the ROM.

[Chaos]

Ahem, I think you'll find _everything_ that you change or install goes into a directory under /home . /etc is a sym link to /home/etc. /usr/bin is a sym link to /home/root/usr/bin and so on .

So everything _does_ get wiped that you install or can change (except of course if you've made the ROM writable and done some modifications there). It also restores all the defaults from the hidden files under /root, which are in the ROM.

That's exactly what I said. /home gets wiped. 100% clean slate. And I do know that most of the filesystem is a whole bunch of symlinks.

I was pointing out that what you said (said it returned to factory default), is incorrect. It's close, but remember, the read-only part does not get wiped. So if you changed from the Sharp ROM to, say, Zynergy or the tKC ROM, it would restore those to their defaults, not back to the original Sharp ROM.