Root Use DarkTremor's A2SD on CM7

[spyder]

USING DT

 

[Rhonda1964]

2 Questions.

1. Does DT's A2SD automatically move the Dalvik cache to the sd card as well or are there extra steps for that?

2. Am I understanding correctly that this method will actually format the card and get rid of the original partition I still have from when I installed A2SD with Icarus? I was going to try your Linux method but haven't gotten around to it yet and I do like A2SD better than Apps2SD or whatever it's called.

OK, 3 questions. I have a spare sd card or two. I should be able to pre-format my larger card with everything I need, put in my smaller card, wipe everything and then swap to my larger card to flash CM7, gapps, ect instead of having to hook up the phone, dl and do all that battery dropping stuff, right? I dunno. Somethings wrong with this line of thinking but I'm not sure what it is. Am I missing something?

Edit: I see. I didn't read the instructions very well. I would still have to remove the card, hence having to remove the battery and drop back into place. Is it really necessary to hold power, volume and call buttons while dropping the battery in? Might it work out ok if I just put the battery in and then quickly press the three necessary buttons?

 

[spyder]

2 Questions.

1. Does DT's A2SD automatically move the Dalvik cache to the sd card as well or are there extra steps for that?

2. Am I understanding correctly that this method will actually format the card and get rid of the original partition I still have from when I installed A2SD with Icarus? I was going to try your Linux method but haven't gotten around to it yet and I do like A2SD better than Apps2SD or whatever it's called.

OK, 3 questions. I have a spare sd card or two. I should be able to pre-format my larger card with everything I need, put in my smaller card, wipe everything and then swap to my larger card to flash CM7, gapps, ect instead of having to hook up the phone, dl and do all that battery dropping stuff, right? I dunno. Somethings wrong with this line of thinking but I'm not sure what it is. Am I missing something?

Edit: I see. I didn't read the instructions very well. I would still have to remove the card, hence having to remove the battery and drop back into place. Is it really necessary to hold power, volume and call buttons while dropping the battery in? Might it work out ok if I just put the battery in and then quickly press the three necessary buttons?

1. NO by default it stays internal. You just go to terminal and type " a2sd cachesd " (w/0 quotes) and it moves it over.

2. NO, not really, you would need to go into a linux OS to get rid of the EXT. you could "Probably keep" the icarus type partition. Remember this is for with CM7. Personally, I would start fresh, go to linux Ubuntu or something, use gparted, make 1 big fat32 partition, then format and partition within clockwork just to be safe that it's totally clean from the start

3. NO your right, I did that before, I had the zips on another SD, put it in flashed and switched, had DT a2sd on the "Final" card and used it after all was cool. I don't know I just got used to using that method, it's silly I know, but it really works, switching cards back/forth is sometimes messy as when you flash CM7 / kernal update/gapps/etc. it will put stuff on the card, so you want to keep that card as the final. Your right though, you could probably do it that way no prob. Just have the ext3 part. and swap part. on the "Final card"

YES, it is possible if you put in the battery and real fast press the buttons, I just do that so that the instant it has power, it sees the buttons pressed, but I did a couple times toss in the battery and hurry and hit the buttons.

Also, yea your right, you have to switch the cards anyway, so might as well do it that way.

OK, keep me posted, I will do what I can, mine is running like a charm for a bit now, so NO problems. When your done, just go to terminal type " a2sd check " and read thru, you'll see any problems. OR if you type a2sd help, it will tell you all the commands, including those about moving the Dalvik....

GOOD LUCK...Jeff

 

[stamper]

Do you have a link to this a2sd zip download?
How is DT's a2sd different from the a2sd that is already in the CM7 05142011 for the ascend?

 

[nuttmeg]

Do you have a link to this a2sd zip download?
How is DT's a2sd different from the a2sd that is already in the CM7 05142011 for the ascend?

IF a2sd is flashed FIRST, some of the GAPPS and your apps have trouble going to the card.

 

[spyder]

Do you have a link to this a2sd zip download?
How is DT's a2sd different from the a2sd that is already in the CM7 05142011 for the ascend?

http://www.darktremor.info/files/a2sd/dtapps2sd-2.7.5.3-beta02-signed.zip


here ya go....
Jeff

 

[Rhonda1964]

1. NO by default it stays internal. You just go to terminal and type " a2sd cachesd " (w/0 quotes) and it moves it over.

2. NO, not really, you would need to go into a linux OS to get rid of the EXT. you could "Probably keep" the icarus type partition. Remember this is for with CM7. Personally, I would start fresh, go to linux Ubuntu or something, use gparted, make 1 big fat32 partition, then format and partition within clockwork just to be safe that it's totally clean from the start

3. NO your right, I did that before, I had the zips on another SD, put it in flashed and switched, had DT a2sd on the "Final" card and used it after all was cool. I don't know I just got used to using that method, it's silly I know, but it really works, switching cards back/forth is sometimes messy as when you flash CM7 / kernal update/gapps/etc. it will put stuff on the card, so you want to keep that card as the final. Your right though, you could probably do it that way no prob. Just have the ext3 part. and swap part. on the "Final card"

YES, it is possible if you put in the battery and real fast press the buttons, I just do that so that the instant it has power, it sees the buttons pressed, but I did a couple times toss in the battery and hurry and hit the buttons.

Also, yea your right, you have to switch the cards anyway, so might as well do it that way.

OK, keep me posted, I will do what I can, mine is running like a charm for a bit now, so NO problems. When your done, just go to terminal type " a2sd check " and read thru, you'll see any problems. OR if you type a2sd help, it will tell you all the commands, including those about moving the Dalvik....

GOOD LUCK...Jeff

Thank you, Jeff. It will probably be a while before I get around to it, could be weeks or it could be two or three hours from now if I can't sleep or something. I try not to second guess myself too much but sincerely, thank you for posting this information.

 

[nuttmeg]

this needs to be a sticky!!!

 

[stickypower]

What version of CW Recovery is required?

 

[spyder]

Thank you, Jeff. It will probably be a while before I get around to it, could be weeks or it could be two or three hours from now if I can't sleep or something. I try not to second guess myself too much but sincerely, thank you for posting this information.

COOL....Yea, if it's running fine, no hurry, BUT, think ahead a little, in terms of how much memory you have. I wouldn't wait till you have like 10MB then do it...lol....just go a little early to save yourself the space.

My rule of thumb for now? I had the Dalvik on the card for a long time, NO ISSUES, but I had to reinstall everyting due to another issue. SO this time, I left the Dalvik Internal.

My rule of thumb: When I drop below 100MB free, I'll move it over, that will free up darn near 100 itself (could be anywhere from 50-100 or so).

Anyway, GLAD IT HELPED.....(hit the "thanks"if you like...LOL...gotta take what you can get right?)...LOL.
Have a good day,

When you do decide to go for it, feel free to PM or post, whatever, if you want my email or something just PM me.

Take care.....Jeff

 

[spyder]

We all really have to hand it to Dark Tremor!!

This truly a great piece of code! To have survived all the upgrades, changes, etc. and it is STILL the best of the bunch.

Tons of copycats on the market, again, still the best.

NOW, I mean the thing was written way back. Then put on Icarus, ok, great. BUT, now we are up to CM7-Gingerbread

IT STILL IS 10 Times better than the "Move to SD" Android has on their system.

So, I just had to take a second and give credit where credit is due.

Thanks DT!!!!
AWESOME PIECE OF CODE!! PROBABLY MY #1, probably alot of peoples #1. so again, thanks and best of luck in the future.....look forward to some good things...

Take care.
Spyder5157 (JEFF)

 

[Tokenpoke]

Ok just tossing in kudos here. I had cm7 already flashed when I installed dta2sd. All I did was format my card in cwm2158 and partition using your numbers. Rebooted and put a2sd.zip on SD.

Reboot cement and selected "install zip from sd"

After reboot I ran the same commands as for Icarus. All works perfect. Thanks jeff!

 

[spyder]

Ok just tossing in kudos here. I had cm7 already flashed when I installed dta2sd. All I did was format my card in cwm2158 and partition using your numbers. Rebooted and put a2sd.zip on SD.

Reboot cement and selected "install zip from sd"

After reboot I ran the same commands as for Icarus. All works perfect. Thanks jeff!

Awesome, First - Thank you for "tossing the kudos". It really is amazing how well it works (Especially compared to using the 2.3.4 "Move to SD"), DT's opens up double what you get from doing it thru the ROM. AMAZING.

DT really does have a GREAT piece of code on his hands there.

I would have never guessed that it would still work up in CM7 until I started playing around with it, since I was so Memory dry.

Anyway, AWESOME, I'm stoked it worked to well for you.
Let me know:
DId you move the Dalvik yet. I had ZERO problems with that, didn't even notice a blink of speed difference. (ALso I do have that SD speed increase thing from CM6 on there, not sure if that makes a diff, it should)

OK buddy. Take care, keep me posted..
Jeff

 

[kevinrubio]

But i don't get it; can't you already move your apps to the SD? or is it much better to do the process in your thread?

 

[Anduiril]

But i don't get it; can't you already move your apps to the SD? or is it much better to do the process in your thread?

Here is the difference. With the stock move you can only move some apps but with DT's a2sd it moves all apps to the sd card, even the one that "can't be moved" and you can move you dalvik cache as well freeing up even more memory. It's the way that he wrote the code, everything thinks it's on the phone but it's really on the sd card.

 

[BlastGT1]

FYI, I don't see the need to hold buttons while trying to drop in the battery as well, you almost need three hands for that. I've never had an issue with inserting the battery and having the phone power on automatically, provided you wait for a good 10 seconds or so after removing it. Drop it in, hold Send+Vol Up, then press Power, should boot into Recovery as usual.

 

[spyder]

FYI, I don't see the need to hold buttons while trying to drop in the battery as well, you almost need three hands for that. I've never had an issue with inserting the battery and having the phone power on automatically, provided you wait for a good 10 seconds or so after removing it. Drop it in, hold Send+Vol Up, then press Power, should boot into Recovery as usual.

That's good. I for some reason, the instant I put in the battery, it goes to the Huawei screen. If I hold the buttons ahead of time, it instantly see's that button thing when it get's power.

I have a few times tried to put the battery in first and hurry and press, but I had 2-3 seconds and was successful. I just wrote that, because it's a guarantee to work that's all.

LOL, three hands....I've done it so much before when "Bricked" to enable the dload folder for back to stock, I have it down pat....

But, heck yea, try and if you don't get the buttons in time, do that.

Thanks for pointing out though...
Take care.
Jeff

 

[kevinrubio]

OKay so im understanding a little but not fully;
1.How will this process work if you formated the SD memory card? Because this will delete apps, i think?
2.Also i figured out somethings on my phone by pressing the "Move to SD" button in manage applications, that it will not allow you to put it as a widget (for an example, youtube). will this app, APPs2SD do that?

 

[spyder]

KevinRubino:

Do me a favor, I saw your PM with these exact questions, will you please post my answers for the benifit of others.

I didn't realize you had it on the thread, I just saw your PM with the exact same thing. Please put on the thread.
Thanks.
Jeff
Also, please, no biggie, but just ask 1 place or the other. Better on the thread so all can see.

Then if I don't see it, send a PM, saying HEY ANSWER MY THREAD QUESTION!

That will streamline things..
Thanks.
Good luck.
Jeff

 

[kevinrubio]

"1. You do format the card during the process, within ClockWork recovery, also you create the EXT partition and a swap partition. yes, this is going to delete everyting on the card, and even though some apps may survive, when you follow the process to install CM7, you clear all user data, etc. ALL apps will need to be put back on. Titanium Backup will help out.

2. In my opinion that "Move to SD" Button is useless, ok, it does save some, but not NEAR as much as this does. PLUS, that button will NOT move system apps. The code in DT's a2sd, "Tricks" the phone into thinking all the apps are on the phone, when they are really on the card. What it puts on the phone is a symbolic link (like a shortcut in windows).

I'm not sure about ALL widgets, but I can say I use them and have never had an issue.

Remember, after this - DO NOT PRESS that move to SD button.

Also, the reason I wrote it up like I did is even if you have CM7, just do this start totally fresh, that way no glitch somewhere or something. I know it's a PIA to put stuff back on, BUT, you'll be happy in the end.

last thing, of course you can install apps anytime, But, I was saying in the write up, if you install a bunch of stuff, then you flash a2sd, it will dump all that stuff to the SD, including system apps.
EXAMPLE FOR YOU: I have mabye 30 apps. about 200mb (160+ FREE).

After you boot after installing a2sd, go to terminal, type " su " (no quotes) for super user priv. type a2sd check and look thru, you will see. Look for it to say, apps running from sd, etc.
It also tells you how to move the Dalvik partition there too: a2sd cachesd (That saves about 80MB MIN), But make sure at least class 4 card, or it could slow you down.
My rule of thumb, when my mem goes below 100, I move the Dalvik.

Hope that helped...If you liked the write up...Hit thanks....LOL (gotta take what you can get....)

GOOD LUCK.
Jeff"
As said by Jeff in my message

 

[kevinrubio]

KevinRubino:

Do me a favor, I saw your PM with these exact questions, will you please post my answers for the benifit of others.

I didn't realize you had it on the thread, I just saw your PM with the exact same thing. Please put on the thread.
Thanks.
Jeff
Also, please, no biggie, but just ask 1 place or the other. Better on the thread so all can see.

Then if I don't see it, send a PM, saying HEY ANSWER MY THREAD QUESTION!

That will streamline things..
Thanks.
Good luck.
Jeff

please read the PM i sent u
thanks jeff

 

[DsyMnapTic]

okay....it seems to me that all of this really wouldn't matter or even make that much of a difference if the phones RAM is set at a specific Max. Apparently our phones have an internal SD as well as the RAM.....now I can see how your process would help if the RAM is governed by virtual memory (meaning that the phone would increase the RAM if there's more internal memory available) but however if the RAM is set the only thing I can see that would actually have anything to do with improving the phones speed and performance is the compression option in the performance settings. otherwise from my understanding all you guys are doing is freeing up certain system processes stored on the internal SD that might normally be using a certain amount of your RAM at all times......So in a sense it would be no different than killing process running in the background, except without having to kill them

 

[nuttmeg]

okay....it seems to me that all of this really wouldn't matter or even make that much of a difference if the phones RAM is set at a specific Max. Apparently our phones have an internal SD as well as the RAM.....now I can see how your process would help if the RAM is governed by virtual memory (meaning that the phone would increase the RAM if there's more internal memory available) but however if the RAM is set the only thing I can see that would actually have anything to do with improving the phones speed and performance is the compression option in the performance settings. otherwise from my understanding all you guys are doing is freeing up certain system processes stored on the internal SD that might normally be using a certain amount of your RAM at all times......So in a sense it would be no different than killing process running in the background, except without having to kill them

yes, and thats also a reason why this phone lags alot on 2.1 from the low space internal memory the phone came with and the other problem is the cpu/gpu!!!

 

[spyder]

okay....it seems to me that all of this really wouldn't matter or even make that much of a difference if the phones RAM is set at a specific Max. Apparently our phones have an internal SD as well as the RAM.....now I can see how your process would help if the RAM is governed by virtual memory (meaning that the phone would increase the RAM if there's more internal memory available) but however if the RAM is set the only thing I can see that would actually have anything to do with improving the phones speed and performance is the compression option in the performance settings. otherwise from my understanding all you guys are doing is freeing up certain system processes stored on the internal SD that might normally be using a certain amount of your RAM at all times......So in a sense it would be no different than killing process running in the background, except without having to kill them

Thanks Nutmeg very true.

Also, in my thinking too. We are NOT just talking about RAM here. 1. No the phone is not using the SD at all for "Virtual RAM" of any sort. So, no worries there.

The big thing is just plain old storage space for apps. Running stock toss on 20 apps or so, you will have 20 MB of "STORAGE" space left. With DT's A2SD 1. you can SET how much of the card to allocate to app storage, I use 512MB (But you can use from 256 up to a couple gigs).

That app reserved space is made to an EXT partition (Linux) and invisible in the file manager.

Also, you can MOVE the Dalvik partition (IF your not familiar just look wikipedia, explains well), to the SD, that frees up TONS of space. (This assumes you have min. class 4 sd for speed, otherwise it potentially could slow you down). I have an 8 Gig class 4 and it's fine. It was fine Before I put the SD accelerator on, now, a little better.

As far as the RAM for operation that you are refering to (I THINK?), the Linux programming of Android is designed to release programs from memory to get the RAM it needs (Thats why DO NOT use App killers), instead of App killers, use something like "Watchdog", it watchs for apps running amuk with your cpu a poorly coded app could take the cpu for a roller coaster ride, Watchdog will kill it if it's going nuts on your cpu. App killers do what Android does on it's own.

SO, Yes what your saying..why do this if your trying to save space for RAM....NOT THE CASE totally, you can put 10x the number of apps on, AND have alot of free space, which will help out ALOT. Yes, it helps with RAM.

BTW: There are basically 4 modes of storage AFTER this procedure (3 before):

Internal ROM: That is ONLY for putting the ROM on the phone, like CM7 or stock. It's about 180, after you put on CM7 there is about 72 left.

Internal Storage: Where all the Apps go w/o a2sd and where the phone gets it's memory: about 200MB, after a reasonable amount of apps you will only have say 40-50 left max, right now I have 140 free with a decent amout of apps (BUT I didn't move the Dalvik yet, if I did, I would have about 185 or so)

SD: Whatever you have in there minus how much you allocate for a2sd

SD (a2SD): Mine is 512MB (actually 503 after SWAP space taken out))-I have 390 left. IF you use TONS AND TONS of apps, just set this for 1024...

I hope that helps clear this up a little.

Again, Android (Linux), controls whats up in memory, just leave it there, it will release it when it needs RAM space. BUT, that watchdog isn't a bad move. Make sure to make necessary adjustments if you use CM7 since it's overclocked, otherwise it may thing something is cranking on the cpu..lol...

OK...GOOD LUCK.
WRITE WITH QUESTIONS>
JEFF (SPYDER5157)

PS: OH I just realized you were saying maybe the phone uses the INTERNAL SD for extra RAM. I will be honest I don't know if it can use that as Virtual RAM, just as windows uses the HD for Virtual RAM. I'll look into that, but sorry I misunderstood. But, the rest stands, I think it's on point

 

[nuttmeg]

and also to get the most and better performance and its recommended to use a class 4 but class 10 is better, to move your delvic to sdcard, and many other apps that wants the read speed to operate at it's best!!!