oooooohhhhhhhhkaaaaaaaaaay.
So, with a2sd, you wont need to download apps again if you switch to a new rom? And thats only if you have redownloaded the your first rom with a2sd and set it up that way first right?
Yes to the first question. As for the second question, you can use the recovery console menu item "Other... Move apps+dalv to SD" (after you have partitioned the SD card, of course). Note that this mucks up the current rom, so you want to have a nandroid backup of that before you begin. For instance, starting from a non-a2sd ROM:
Read through these instructions completely before you begin, making sure you understand
why each step is being performed. (Obviously, they apply only to a rooted phone with Amon_RA's recovery partition.)
(0) Put the .zip file for the new ROM in the root folder of your SD card.
(1) Make a complete backup of your SD card to your PC. Everything!
(2) Boot Eris into recovery (Vol-Up+End)
(3) Partition the SD card. It's up to you how big the FAT portion and ext2 should be; obviously, the FAT portion should be big enough to hold all your stuff you backed up in (1) plus a lot of space for Nandroid backups.
(4) Restore everything from your PC backup (step #1) into the FAT partition on your SD card. If you are going to boot the phone to do this, expect some quirks, as the SD card will be blank to begin with.
(5) Shut down phone (if applicable) and boot into recovery (Vol-Up+End).
(6) Perform a nandroid backup of your current ROM. (Make sure it succeeds!)
(7) Do the (recovery console) "Other ... Move apps+dalv to SD" menu option. Note that this sort of "wrecks" your current ROM state (but does not render it unbootable - but it surely will take a long time to boot if you try booting it this way).
[Optional- 8] Do a Wipe /data and Wipe dalvik cache, and then a nandroid restore of the backup you just made in step (6). This step is not really needed, unless you have a last-minute issue before you switch to the new ROM. (Perhaps you want to look at something one last time, or whatever).
(9) Do a Wipe /data and Wipe dalvik cache, and then flash the new ROM from the root of the SD card
Enjoy.
Im assuming we will still get updates to apps with a2sd even tho its on a sd partition? seems like a dumb question but thought it would ask.
Yes.
If a2sd works by mounting the ext2(or ext3) partition from the SD card on /data (instead of the phone flash memory partition), then the Market software literally has no idea this is taking place (until such a time as HTC's security folks intentionally try and screw us), so everything should work as you expect.
How does this affect doing nands? Say we set our EE2.0 rom up with a2sd and then decide to flash to a new rom that just came out that doesnt have a2sd enabled. I'm guessing we will have to download all our apps again, but say we do a nand restore back to EE2.0, will nand save all our a2sd info or would we have to go back thru the a2sd set up process?
You need to be a little bit careful and understand what you are trying to do. If you revert to a non-a2sd ROM, you prior Nandroid backups will be fine for reverting to whatever state the phone was in when you made the backups. (The ext partition on the SD card is ignored in that case)
As far as backing up what is in the ext2 (or ext3) partition on the SD card, you can either use the Nandroid "Nand + ext backup", or resort to god-like Unix/Linux skills to do it in other fashions (not documented here).
Technically speaking, you don't need to do "Nand + ext backup", because the regular Nandroid backup/restore doesn't ever fool with the ext2(3) partition on the SD card - whatever was there in the ext partition will still be there the next time you fire up a a2sd-enabled ROM. OTOH, phones fail or get lost, and SD cards fail from time to time too - having Nandroid backups with ext makes it convenient to back up your entire phone to a PC or other offline media.
The only thing which you can't do conveniently (it can be done, but again, those mad Unix/Linux skills are needed) is to get apps from an a2sd ROM to a non-a2sd ROM.
Guess the biggest thing for me is how it incorporates with the recovery image. I tend to like flashing to other roms to give them a look and test them out, if its going to be complicated to go back to my fav a2sd enabled rom, it might not be worth it.
Only the conceptual part is difficult initially - it's no more difficult than using the regular Nandroid backup and restore.
eu1
