Root What is the best Custom Recovery

[jared1234]

Hi again, so now that im comfortable with flashing rom's, radio's and kernels i would like to partition my SD card.

Although learning i am still not 100% clear on how the 3 partitions work.

I understand one is for where all the apps (apps2sd) music, photo's and video's go, another one is for increased system performance...like increasing the phones virtual memory or something????

and i have no clue what the other is for.

Also i am hopeing that you all can recommend what custom recovery you are all using, i understand that some of the new recovery's have a few diffrent options on partitioning the sd card.

So basically i am looking for a little clarity in what the diffrent partitions do and recommendations on a good custom recovery tool...also do i install the new recovery tool just like flashing a new rom? i don't know how to replace the new recovery over the current one...

and i cant seem to find a forum thread that explains enough of this for me...been looking for a few hours.
still learning.............
cheers again everyone!!!

 

[Xyro]

The three types of partition I guess you're thinking of are SWAP, FAT and Ext.

SWAP was common in the past and was indeed used to improve performance. But nowadays nobody seems to use it - so don't waste the space on that partition.

The ext parition holds only your apps.

FAT is your 'normal' SD card file system. This is where all of your doccuments, musics and everything that isn't an app goes. At the moment your card is 100% FAT.

The best is amon ra, which you can install by flashing this .zip. Bear in mind this isn't the typical way to install a recovery menu, but someone took the time to make a .zip of this version, which is much easier

 

[Slug]

I've always used Amon_RA recovery images.

The standard partition is a single FAT32 one. To use third-party Apps2SD a second partition is required; this has to be formatted with a Linux-type ext file system. Back in the day a third Linux-swap partition could also be utilised to increase virtual memory using the Swapper app to enable it, but this fell out of fashion (iirc) when the kernel source code became available under GPL and folk started optimising it. I've seen mention of a swap partition somewhere recently though, so perhaps it's making a comeback?

Partitioning a microSD card with the RA_Recovery is a piece of cake, although as it's a destructive process you need to back the contents of the existing FAT32 partition up beforehand. Then it's simply a matter of selecting the menu option and following the on-screen prompts, after which you can mount the card to the PC and copy the contents back.

The Amon_RA support thread at XDA might be a worthwhile read.

p.s. with Android 2.2 (Froyo) it is now possible to install apps to the external memory card. However the methodology is completely different, using a secure folder on the FAT32 partition instead of a discrete partition itself. As Froyo-based ROMs are becoming increasingly popular for the Hero this is worth remembering.

 

[jared1234]

perfect thanks!!!! and what is a good partition size? for apps?

 

[Slug]

You mean size-wise? 500MB should be ample, certainly no more than 1GB.

 

[jared1234]

ok perfect, so then since no one uses linux swap anymore do the roms just have stuff built in to be efficient enough?

and does installing apps to the sd increase system performance?

like do you guys use any sort of virtual memory enhancing tweaks or whatever?

 

[Slug]

since no one uses linux swap anymore do the roms just have stuff built in to be efficient enough?

Basically yes. Darktremor Apps2SD has the option of using a swap partition though, so I assume there's still some virtue (for some) in using it.

does installing apps to the sd increase system performance?

No, as the internal memory will always be faster. However the difference isn't (to me anyway) noticeable in normal use.

do you guys use any sort of virtual memory enhancing tweaks or whatever?

Not any longer. Froyo appears to manage resources efficently enough on its own so I'm running it "virgin".

 

[jared1234]

ooooook i see,
Also, sorry to keep asking, i am assuming that the recovery tool made the ext partition ext2, and from what ive heard i should upgrade the ext2 to ext3, so if i do so will any data in that partition be lost? like is it basically reformatting that ext partition in order to upgrade it?

and what the heck is the diffrenece between ext2, ext3 and ext4???

cheers guys

 

[Slug]

from what ive heard i should upgrade the ext2 to ext3, so if i do so will any data in that partition be lost?

No, conversion is not destructive so no data will be lost. However, whether you should convert is open to debate.... I've personally gone back to ext2.

and what the heck is the diffrenece between ext2, ext3 and ext4???

See here for an overview of Linux extended file systems.