Re: Swimming in the Android pool
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dmccunney
Aug 30, 2014, 5:20:48 PM8/30/14
to VDE_Editor
On Sat, Jul 26, 2014 at 11:47 PM, dmccunney <dennis....@gmail.com> wrote:
> We all have time sinks that soak up spare hours. My current one is an
> Android tablet.
<...>
An update on this: I mentioned that the scarce resource was
application storage space, capped at 787MB. Well, no longer.
The tablet has a 32GB microSD card. It's intended to be used for
storing data, like eBook, pictures, videos, and music files. (It's
where my eBook library lives.) It *can't* be used to store
applications.
The issue is the file system. SD cards are formatted as FAT32 as
delivered. and FAT 32 doesn't support various needed attributes, like
ownership and permissions.
That can be corrected, but you must have a rooted device to do it. I
popped the card out of the tablet, plugged it into an adapter, and
accessed it from my desktop. The idea was to repartition the card,
and install a Linux file system on the new partition. I used a
freeware Windows program called MiniTool Partition Manager, though it
can be done from Linux with GPartEd or with GPartEd booted from a live
CD. I created a 2GB partition on the card, and formatted it as Linux
Ext4. I also changed the partition ID to indicate a Linux FS was
present instead of the default FAT32.
Then I put it back in the tablet and rebooted the device. When it
rebooted, Android was aware there was another Linux file system, and
mounted it. A freeware app on the Play Store called Link2SD can move
things from internal application storage to the card, and create a
symbolic link in the root file system to the new location. This is
why the device must be rooted: a stock Android device won't let you
make that sort of modification to system files.
It worked a treat. I moved just about everything installed to the
external card. And I was able to install enormous applications, like
a beta Android port of Open Office, and Terminal IDE, which bundles a
full development environment. At this point, I have just about
everything *including* the kitchen sink on the device, and it still
thinks I have 300MB of internal storage free. (That's more than it
had as delivered out of the box.)
Fun, for suitable definitions of the term.
______
Dennis
https://plus.google.com/u/0/105128793974319004519
> We all have time sinks that soak up spare hours. My current one is an
> Android tablet.
<...>
An update on this: I mentioned that the scarce resource was
application storage space, capped at 787MB. Well, no longer.
The tablet has a 32GB microSD card. It's intended to be used for
storing data, like eBook, pictures, videos, and music files. (It's
where my eBook library lives.) It *can't* be used to store
applications.
The issue is the file system. SD cards are formatted as FAT32 as
delivered. and FAT 32 doesn't support various needed attributes, like
ownership and permissions.
That can be corrected, but you must have a rooted device to do it. I
popped the card out of the tablet, plugged it into an adapter, and
accessed it from my desktop. The idea was to repartition the card,
and install a Linux file system on the new partition. I used a
freeware Windows program called MiniTool Partition Manager, though it
can be done from Linux with GPartEd or with GPartEd booted from a live
CD. I created a 2GB partition on the card, and formatted it as Linux
Ext4. I also changed the partition ID to indicate a Linux FS was
present instead of the default FAT32.
Then I put it back in the tablet and rebooted the device. When it
rebooted, Android was aware there was another Linux file system, and
mounted it. A freeware app on the Play Store called Link2SD can move
things from internal application storage to the card, and create a
symbolic link in the root file system to the new location. This is
why the device must be rooted: a stock Android device won't let you
make that sort of modification to system files.
It worked a treat. I moved just about everything installed to the
external card. And I was able to install enormous applications, like
a beta Android port of Open Office, and Terminal IDE, which bundles a
full development environment. At this point, I have just about
everything *including* the kitchen sink on the device, and it still
thinks I have 300MB of internal storage free. (That's more than it
had as delivered out of the box.)
Fun, for suitable definitions of the term.
______
Dennis
https://plus.google.com/u/0/105128793974319004519
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