Re: N900 Specifications
 

If thats the case the first thing I am goign to do is create a partition on the 30GB spare for swap. I dont like the idea of my swap space being chewed up as I install new programs.

Re: N900 Specifications
 

Sure, you could format the whole of the 32GB eMMC ext3 and use it as application storage if you wished, but that 1GB will go farther than you think.

Re: N900 Specifications
 

Why would swap space be "chewed up" by installing programs? They are separate partitions.

Re: N900 Specifications
 

Swap is on a separate partition, so neither data nor application space will "chew up" swap space. Besides, there's no sane reason to have more than 768MB of swap anyway.

Re: N900 Specifications
 

Also, if the partition layout is known it should be quite doable (not risk free, but still, pretty painless compared to today's cloning) to provide a package that can resize the partitions and filesystems via parted/resize2fs.

Re: N900 Specifications
 

And in case you for some insane reason DO need more, you can always just add it on through a loop device (hey, if you're filling 768 MB swap, you're far beyond the point of being concerned with performance anyway :) )

Re: N900 Specifications
 

I think we would have a very positive problem, once for normal users they would have so many useful applications that 1gb of space would start to become an issue.

Re: N900 Specifications
 

Yeah, 768MB of swap "should be enough for anybody" LOL! j/k

Re: N900 Specifications
 

so do as GA says and just format as much as you want for the apps

Re: N900 Specifications
 

Based on the hardware specifications of the N900, not for all time, of course.

Re: N900 Specifications
 

bah, you ruined my quote for you in 5 years with a rational caveat... :p

Re: N900 Specifications
 

On a more serious note..I noticed from the spec sheet that the talk time is 9 hours GSM, 5 hours WCDMA. Is there a way to make it prefer GSM for voice without disabling WCDMA for data applications? Maybe it's a silly question, but when people start wondering about battery life and such I would think those kinds of optimizations would be kind of handy.

Re: N900 Specifications
 

@texaslabrat: I'd imagine the proper logic would be to stay on GSM until data transfer is required then. But with all the widgets and automated tasks going on all the time, you'd need a more intelligent profile\detection\preference mechanism to utilize the 3G smartly.

Attila77's shepherd app could be just the thing for this when it comes to fruition.

<3 FOSS.

Re: N900 Specifications
 

How fast is swapping on a flash memory going to kill it?
Do we know what type of flash is being used?
Evening algorithm?

Re: N900 Specifications
 

Not very.

eMMC, which handles its own wear-leveling.

Re: N900 Specifications
 

just to put things straight...
do i have the same storage space for everything or not (putting everything in one place)? im sorry, but this is the most confusing thing about the phone for me and i still don't understand eventhough i understand everything else...on Symbian it was easy...one phone memory, one card memory, one ram...here it's confusing..

Re: N900 Specifications
 

It's all completely transparent to the user, so there's absolutely no need to worry about it. :)

Re: N900 Specifications
 

Basically like creating partitions on the PC?
Without any risk?

Re: N900 Specifications
 

No, the partition arrangement between swap, application data and user data is completely transparent to the user. You really have no reason to think about where you're installing applications or worry about how much space you have.

Re: N900 Specifications
 

Not completely transparent if the user wants to store data with symbolic links or when the execution bit is important (this will be possible under /opt, but not under /home/user). Or when the 1-GB partition becomes full. I think I'll repartition the device, like I did on my N810.

Re: N900 Specifications
 

User is the operative term here, not a developer or a power user. /home/user is on the ext3, too, so execute bits wont be an issue there.

Re: N900 Specifications
 

It should be average user, then.

OK, so the remaining space is mounted on /home/user/$MYDOCS (I wonder what $MYDOC is), not /home/user. Then this means that the other files in /home/user are on the rootfs partition, which is limited to 256MB. This isn't much, in particular if packages don't use /opt for everything. BTW, is it really ext3, or jffs2 (hence compressed) like on the N810?

Re: N900 Specifications
 

I assumed that would be a reasonable conclusion to draw from the context of the conversation.

The ext3 partition is the 1GB partition on the 32GB eMMC. The rootfs is UBIFS.

Re: N900 Specifications
 

To be precise the big fat32 partition is mounted on /home/user/MyDocs which is same as $MYDOCSDIR

/home/user is on 1GB ext3 partition as well as /opt which is in reality a symlink to /home/opt.

edit:
it's $MYDOCSDIR not $MYDOCS

Re: N900 Specifications
 

OK, this now makes more sense!

Interesting. So, I'll repartition the 32GB memory to have the 768MB swap and for the remaining, a single ext3 partition mounted on /home.

Re: N900 Specifications
 

The tool mkfs, Is it available to change the partition in FAT32 to Ext2?

Re: N900 Specifications
 

What else would you change it with?

Re: N900 Specifications
 

The format of Fat32 partition to Ext2.

Re: N900 Specifications
 

I guess the advantage of this would be getting over the 2Gb file limit at the cost of losing windows compatibility? Or are there other reasons to favour ext? Just curious :)

Re: N900 Specifications
 

Well, FAT32 generally being a godawful filesystem. The only reason you need it is for Windows compatibility, so if you don't need that you might as well ditch it.

By the way, ext3 is going to be a better choice than ext2.

Re: N900 Specifications
 

@slate8: Compatibility with Windows don't interest me: I don't like use DOS systems. I use Windows only at school. In an emergency, I will keep an 8GB Fat32 miniSD in my N900. Do not have the limitation of 2GB file is not the only advantage. The very low fragmentation of Ext2 format is another.


@GeneralAntilles: Yes but Ext3 is a journaling FS. It is not good for flash memories.

Re: N900 Specifications
 

Thanks. I was a little bit worried about no Windows compatibility (not for me at my home PC but on any of my friends PC). But I can use the entire internal 32GB as ext2/3 and keep the microSD as FAT. So no need to worry anymore :-) ...

Re: N900 Specifications
 

Actually, ext3 is better for flash than having to repair the filesystem every time you run out of power. The journalling is a much smaller burden than fscking the whole fs on boot. So, no, you're mistaken.

Either way, modern flash memory is durable enough that pretty much no matter what you do you aren't going to wear it out within the usable lifetime of the device.

Re: N900 Specifications
 

The problem I see is that the number of times I've run out of power in the tablets is 0, which is what I'd expect considering they have their own UPSs (the batteries) after all. Metadata only journaling is nearly imperceptible in terms of flash durability, but it creates an additional performance hit.

Crashes are another story, and if we're to expect the kernel crashing a lot ext3 is the logical choice (or not , if some horror stories are to be believed...).

Re: N900 Specifications
 

Have a look at this puppy, spot the reference to 3G on ATT.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuHgB..._embedded#t=86

Personally i dont think he realises its running on Edge.

Edit: The text pops up later saying its Tmobile 3G.. lol.

Re: N900 Specifications
 

Well, Curse Of Monkey Island is nearly > 1 GiB. But of course, I'll assume we can still play it from FAT32.

Re: N900 Specifications
 

I think the idea for games like that is that the engine (i.e. ScummVM) would sit within the 1GB, but the data files would sit within the 30-ish GB.

Re: N900 Specifications
 

Yeah, I should've been less specific. Anything that causes the filesystem not to close properly. ;)

Re: N900 Specifications
 

Symbolic links and the execution bit. And IIRC, the ":" character (used, e.g., in the Maildir format).

Re: N900 Specifications
 

Seriously? Never lost power on the tablets! Wow, either you don't go out much or have some killer battery. I loose power all the time, which is why I use a ext3 partition on my SD instead of ext2. I mean, the tablet DOES die graciously, but sometimes it freezes and you have to pull the battery.

ext4 anyone? I have no idea what benefits it has, but...