For those of you who are new to rooting, that's the practical advice I would give you:
[SIZE=+2]"Don't bother setting up your SD card to use A2SD/APPS2SD"[/SIZE]
The reasons? It's a bit of trouble, and a problem-maker ... for almost no benefit.
1) One of the claimed benefits is that you can get more app space. That is "sort of" true, but it may not matter. Most users don't have trouble with lack of space in the /data partition - for them, they gain no benefit for their efforts. (I will admit that a few users - "app hoarders", will run out of space in /data, and for them they need to use A2SD/APPS2SD on 2.1. But most users never find themselves in this situation)
2) It has been spuriously claimed that A2SD/APPS2SD "improves performance". Unfortunately, there is no hard evidence of this claim whatsoever.
3) One of it's claimed benefits is that it makes jumping between 2.1 ROMs a little faster, because you do not need to reload apps from the Google market. Yes, that's also true - but leads to problems of its own, too. OTOH, if you are the type of person jumping between ROMs frequently, you are probably want to try a Froyo (Android 2.2) ROM out every once in a while - and they will not boot up with a partitioned SD card.
That means that every time you want to flip-flop between a previously saved (Nandroid backup) A2SD ROM and a Froyo ROM - and you don't have a spare SD card to use, you will have to backup everything on your SD card to your PC, partition or unpartition, and then restore the SD card. If your card is a nearly-full 8 Gb card, it will take you 90 minutes just for those steps alone.
I have a bunch of A2SD-enabled ROMs backed up in Nandroid+ext (BDES-) backups - and I am sorry I ever used A2SD/APPS2SD now that I have been using Froyo ROMs. I never needed it for space reasons, and now it makes a pain in the butt to flip-flop between different ROMs saved in Nandroid backups.
You can use two SD cards if you want; but who wants to synchronize the FAT32 partition between two cards - especially since you will be dropping Nandroid backups in there?.
And there are ways to fool around with Nand backups (e.g. take the tar file from a Nand+ext backup and put it in a regular Nand backup folder, fix up the MD5 signature file, and then rename the folder prefix from BDS- to BDES- ; or, use the reverse procedure to strip the 'ext' backup from an Nand+ext backup). But really, why?
Opinions welcome
[SIZE=+2]"Don't bother setting up your SD card to use A2SD/APPS2SD"[/SIZE]
The reasons? It's a bit of trouble, and a problem-maker ... for almost no benefit.
1) One of the claimed benefits is that you can get more app space. That is "sort of" true, but it may not matter. Most users don't have trouble with lack of space in the /data partition - for them, they gain no benefit for their efforts. (I will admit that a few users - "app hoarders", will run out of space in /data, and for them they need to use A2SD/APPS2SD on 2.1. But most users never find themselves in this situation)
2) It has been spuriously claimed that A2SD/APPS2SD "improves performance". Unfortunately, there is no hard evidence of this claim whatsoever.
3) One of it's claimed benefits is that it makes jumping between 2.1 ROMs a little faster, because you do not need to reload apps from the Google market. Yes, that's also true - but leads to problems of its own, too. OTOH, if you are the type of person jumping between ROMs frequently, you are probably want to try a Froyo (Android 2.2) ROM out every once in a while - and they will not boot up with a partitioned SD card.
That means that every time you want to flip-flop between a previously saved (Nandroid backup) A2SD ROM and a Froyo ROM - and you don't have a spare SD card to use, you will have to backup everything on your SD card to your PC, partition or unpartition, and then restore the SD card. If your card is a nearly-full 8 Gb card, it will take you 90 minutes just for those steps alone.
I have a bunch of A2SD-enabled ROMs backed up in Nandroid+ext (BDES-) backups - and I am sorry I ever used A2SD/APPS2SD now that I have been using Froyo ROMs. I never needed it for space reasons, and now it makes a pain in the butt to flip-flop between different ROMs saved in Nandroid backups.
You can use two SD cards if you want; but who wants to synchronize the FAT32 partition between two cards - especially since you will be dropping Nandroid backups in there?.
And there are ways to fool around with Nand backups (e.g. take the tar file from a Nand+ext backup and put it in a regular Nand backup folder, fix up the MD5 signature file, and then rename the folder prefix from BDS- to BDES- ; or, use the reverse procedure to strip the 'ext' backup from an Nand+ext backup). But really, why?
Opinions welcome