Problems copying system to MMC

[DynaMight]

Hi,

I'm trying to boot from MMC, Been using this guide: http://examplified.net/guide/Nokia_770/Booting_from_MMC/

Get all the way down to where I copy the whole system to the MMC and after 15mins or so of copying many many files XTerminal just closes down, without any error messages or anything. I've tried it 3 times now, I couldnt say whether it's exactly the same place each time though but it's going for quite a while. I guess it's not meant to do this?? well I've followed the last remaining steps and it's not worked when I've chosen to boot from MMC Ext 2.

Any ideas? It's a Kingston 2GB MMC Mobile btw.

Thanks

[joefru]

Perhaps your partition is too small? When you say you've done it three times, how much did you redo?

[DynaMight]

I have re-partitioned the MMC once, originally done the VFAT to 20000, but after reading up realised this was a stupid amount, so re-did it to 40000.

I have followed everything through except the dual boot which worked fine first time.

[fanoush]

Hi,

I'm trying to boot from MMC, Been using this guide: http://examplified.net/guide/Nokia_770/Booting_from_MMC/

Get all the way down to where I copy the whole system to the MMC and after 15mins or so of copying many many files XTerminal just closes down, without any error messages or anything
....
Any ideas? It's a Kingston 2GB MMC Mobile btw.

This is caused by out of memory situation. MMC writing is so slow that growing buffer cache (which contains data waiting to be written to MMC) fills all memory and something in system may not cope with this and crash. At least try to boot clean system and run just what is needed (osso-xterm or even do it over ssh instead) and do NOT use n770 while it is running

For less pain when doing this I would suggest first to flash kernel with faster MMC (including the multiblock writing enabled) before cloning the system.

1. it will be much faster
2. such copy is very good test to see if hacked kernel is stable for you (it should, I have same card model and had zero problems for approx 1 year since I bought it)
3. it may not crash due to out of memory

check this http://fanoush.wz.cz/maemo/#mmcplus
and get this one
http://fanoush.wz.cz/maemo/zImage-su-18-200639-2gb-mmcplus52Mhz-multiblockw.zip (unzip before flashing)
or this (newer) one
http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?p=50004#post50004
(better check md5sum after download or get the zipped one http://fanoush.wz.cz/maemo/zImage-yuv420.zip and unzip to make sure it is not corrupted)
for flashing kernel you may follow this
http://www.internettablettalk.com/wiki/index.php/How_to_flash_the_SDHC_kernel_w/out_connecting_to_a_computer
but use the kernel above

[DynaMight]

I was going to install the MMC Plus Kernel but wanted to try the normal one out first.

Thanks alot mate. I reflashed back to the original flash, installed the faster kernel, followed the guide and it all went through perfectly. Seems alot faster too.

[spiritraveller]

I have re-partitioned the MMC once, originally done the VFAT to 20000, but after reading up realised this was a stupid amount, so re-did it to 40000.

I have followed everything through except the dual boot which worked fine first time.

I am confused about the purpose for the vfat partition. I have been following the guides for booting from MMC, and they don't explain why one should even have a vfat partition.

Why can't I just have one big ext2 partition on my 2gig mmc card? The user files are kept on the same partition right? I tried doing this, but for some reason, the device would not boot from the ext2 partition. So I know there's something I'm missing.

So why is a vfat partition necessary, and why should it be bigger?

Thanks.

[Karel Jansens]

I am confused about the purpose for the vfat partition. I have been following the guides for booting from MMC, and they don't explain why one should even have a vfat partition.

Why can't I just have one big ext2 partition on my 2gig mmc card? The user files are kept on the same partition right? I tried doing this, but for some reason, the device would not boot from the ext2 partition. So I know there's something I'm missing.

So why is a vfat partition necessary, and why should it be bigger?

Thanks.

It's there for synching via usb to a Windoze box. Windoze doesn't understand real file systems...