hqh is right. Dactar's post isn't useful - and is potentially dangerous.
VFAT can't maintain the permissions, symlinks and other metadata necessary for a fully functioning Linux system. And /opt is already in the 2GB ext3 partition.
The trouble is that without fundamentally redesigning the OS structure (e.g. swap on 256MB flash and rootfs on eMMC) - which has both time, performance, tooling and QA implications - the only solution is to make sure stuff installs into /opt.
What about a bigger OneNAND Flash memory chip ? 512MB ?? or 1GB ??
Do they make such chips the same physical size as 256MB OneNAND chip (would minimise hardware re-design issues) ?
What sort of cost difference ??? Surely can't be much - all sort of memory seems so cheap these days ???
It's easy to say, "don't do x unless you know what you're doing," but many users will think that they know what they are doing. Effectively (it seems to me) the Nokia warning says "don't use your tablet normally; if you do, whatever happens is your fault". It is not unusual to install programs not from the manufacturer; I have done that on every computer I have ever had starting with the Sinclair I got at k-mart. And this is a little computer, not a mere phone.
So, I think that this problem will be solved and users will usually not encounter it.
Isn't /opt already symlinked to the home partition?
I'm sorry, I didn't know that /opt was already mounted on /home/users.
Originally Posted by
..And that might cause trouble for some applications because MyDocs has a FAT32 file system?
Yes...right for some applications. It was just a workarround, not the perfect solution.
But :
If /home/users is on the same card of /home/users/MyDocs, what about shrink /home/users/MyDocs and expand /home/users ?
If /home/users is on a separate card of /home/users/MyDocs, what about shrink /home/users/MyDocs and create a second partition (ext3) in it at /home/users/soft and move /opt link to this new point ?
Finally, there's a lot of possibility for advanced users...but when the N900 will be released is there a hope that all this mess could be different ? If not, I think that a configuration widget for end users could be necessary [and | or] a modification of installation process of extra packages could be refused if they are not "optified" [and | or] something else...let's start brainstorming
