Root guide to browsing the web on i7500

[Andronix]

Drakaz took aggresive stance against apps regarding cleaning their cache or killing them in his latest Galaxo 1.6.3.1. That basically means if you surf the web and go to home screen, returning back will result in reloading of the page which takes time and bandwidth.

The phone is quite snappy because all apps got killed almost instantly when pushed to background. What you can do to be able to surf without that reloading, you can do the following:

• install minfreemanager (6,8,10,20,22,24) or
• recreate boot.img with modified init.rc

I don't use compcache from galaxo.conf, so if you want to try how I'm doing it, do the following:

• make sure the compcache is turned off in "Galaxo Configuraton"
• do 'adb shell' and then:
  

  su
  bash
  dd if=/dev/zero of=/sdcard/sd/swap.swp bs=1024 count=50000
  chmod 0600 /sdcard/sd/swap.swp
  mkswap /sdcard/sd/swap.swp
  swapon /sdcard/sd/swap.swp
  echo 60 > /proc/sys/vm/swappiness

  to make changes permanent, do the following:
  

  echo 'swapon /sdcard/sd/swap.swp' >> /system/bin/rc
  echo 'echo 60 > /proc/sys/vm/swappiness' >> /system/bin/rc

You'll then need to install some kind of "autokill" app or taskmanager to free that swap from unneeded apps, we want only browser to stay active in the background.

This won't make your phone snappier, but the phone will be much more usable if you use it for surfing the web.

 

[Mr.DNA]

I have a question related to the browser and chache that has been bugging me for a while: Often, when I jump from browser window to browser window, or from other app back to a previously open browser window, I will observe the previously loaded page reload. I do not mean when I jump back to the window that it is immediately in a reloading state (as if the cache had been emptied); I mean that I can physically see the page for a second or two and that it appears to be fully loaded (or as fully loaded as it was when I left the window), but that it then automatically reloads.

Does everyone experience this?

It seems like a pretty bad management of memory if it is holding onto the page while I am using other windows but then drops it/reloads when I come back to it. Is that really what is happening? At least in Galaxo you get the benefit of the freed memory while you are doing other things, even if it means the page must reload when you return.

 

[Andronix]

I have a question related to the browser and chache that has been bugging me for a while: Often, when I jump from browser window to browser window, or from other app back to a previously open browser window, I will observe the previously loaded page reload. I do not mean when I jump back to the window that it is immediately in a reloading state (as if the cache had been emptied); I mean that I can physically see the page for a second or two and that it appears to be fully loaded (or as fully loaded as it was when I left the window), but that it then automatically reloads.

Does everyone experience this?

It seems like a pretty bad management of memory if it is holding onto the page while I am using other windows but then drops it/reloads when I come back to it. Is that really what is happening? At least in Galaxo you get the benefit of the freed memory while you are doing other things, even if it means the page must reload when you return.

Wellcome to the main problem of Galaxy. Small amount of total hw RAM. What you see before page reloads is screenshot of previously loaded page, try to click on that screenshot before it reloads, you'll notice that you can't click on links.

The purpose of this thread is exactly to mitigate this problem using swap on external SD card. It's not a perfect solution because OS doesn't make difference between SD and onboard RAM and it will slowly take all swap space and make the whole device slow unless you use taskkiller to kill all apps (except browser of course).

 

[Mr.DNA]

So the aggressive step taken by Drakaz was to get rid of the cache of the screenshot?

 

[Rastaman-FB]

So the aggressive step taken by Drakaz was to get rid of the cache of the screenshot?

no its just a by product of aggressive timings

 

[Andronix]

So the aggressive step taken by Drakaz was to get rid of the cache of the screenshot?

Not quite. Aggressive timings tells OS to get rid of apps and vcache when free RAM reaches defined values. We don't want OS to kill tabs in our browser so we have to change timings drakaz defined and add swap to total amount of RAM. He wanted to make the ROM fast as possible and didn't take care about the issue you're experiancing.

Try what I posted and you'll see that you can have 4-5 tabs opened all the time and return to them without the need for OS to reload them.

 

[Xenon]

Agreed, constant page reloading is a major killer of the browser experience.
If you're using 2G, as I mostly am, clicking back is a trauma. I've switched
to Opera Mini for most stuff, the stock browser is useless when not on WiFi.

 

[Andronix]

nice, isn't it?

 

[bresslau]

...you can do the following:

• install minfreemanager (6,8,10,20,22,24) or
• recreate boot.img with modified init.rc

I don't use compcache from galaxo.conf, so if you want to try how I'm doing it, do the following:

• make sure the compcache is turned off in "Galaxo Configuraton"
• do 'adb shell' and then: ...

• 
  
  I am a bit confused. Is that an OR or an AND? Should I use minfreemanager AND the swap solution or is the swap solution over ADB an alternative?
  
  Cheers,
  Bresslau

 

[bresslau]

I am a bit confused. Is that an OR or an AND? Should I use minfreemanager AND the swap solution or is the swap solution over ADB an alternative?

Cheers,
Bresslau

with time comes experience and, hopefully, wisdom. I am a bit wiser now and understand that the timings are one thing and that the memory swap on the SD card are another.

But now I have more questions about swap:

1. Galaxo already has the option to format the external SD card for swap. Waht is preferrable, the solution described here or the native Galaxo swap partitioning?
   
2. On a thread on Drakaz' forum about the swap partition it states that it is important to have a high speed SD card, at least class 6. I believe that we want to increase the amount of memory space and are not as concerned with speed here, so could use lower speed cards and still get the desired result, right?

Thanks and hope to hear from you,
Bresslau