• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Root Link2SD and you (a tutorial)

You don't have a choise for fat partitions, its always set fat32, and you don't have a choice for the sd-ext partition, it's set to ext3. That's if you do it from recovery.
But Andy, you can use my QtADB which will tell the recovery to make sd-ext type ext4 or whatever you want, and it will backup and restore sdcard data from/to your new fat32 partition. Is that easy.

And one tip from me regarding Link2SD. It happen to me a few times there were few death links in my /data/app partition pointing to missed apps on sd-ext. So I think it's a good idea from time to time to check for that. I came up with a small peace of code to do that:
Code: 
@echo off
adb shell ls -L /data/app/*.apk > "%~dp0APPS.txt"
adb kill-server
notepad "%~dp0APPS.txt"
del "%~dp0APPS.txt"
Just copy and paste the code above in notepad and save it as .bat file. Run it and text file will open listing all apps/links in data/app like this:
Code: 
/data/app/ales.veluscek.sdtools-2.apk: No such file or directory
/data/app/com.abc.abcnews-1.apk
/data/app/com.adobe.reader-1.apk
...
The ones with ": No such file or directory" are the death links. take a note of them, browse to /data/app and delete those links. Open Link2SD and cleanup 2nd partition and dalvik-cashe. Now you are ready to reinstall the apps that were missing.
 
MacFett said:
It would depend how it formats, I'm guessing you'll have the choice of which FAT32, FAT16 or EXT2/3/4. It also has to make them both primary and basically do it the same way you do it with Minitool in the tutorial as far as which is the first and which is the second primary.

But it should work, when I did the tests for you with ROM manager or whatever it was it did everything correctly, just small partitions.
Click to expand...
Correct. ClockworkMod recovery v3.2.0.1 would only allow a 512mb partition size which is really too small. That's why I've brought up the Xionia recovery that allowed for the proper size partition.
 
I personally would rather pop the card into my notebook and it do it that route. You have to do that to back up your card anyway.
 
nijel: Maybe you could work up a tutorial on QtADB. This seem like a very useful utility that will benefit all the members. All give it a through going over and testing and point out areas that need to be improved for easy understanding by new members. Then once you have it perfected I'll put it in the All Things Root Guide. Sound like a plan?
 
Sure. My changes were just merged to github project master branch so they are official now I guess. I'm just waiting for the guys to merge some more code and I gonna build and test again.
QtAdb is pretty much self explaining. It keeps the user informed in details what exactly is about to happen with his phone:). But I'll see what I can do about some tutorial.
 
MacFett said:
I personally would rather pop the card into my notebook and it do it that route. You have to do that to back up your card anyway.
Click to expand...
I've been reading the posts in this thread for quite some time, and I was just trying to find ways that would make your tutorial a little more inviting to those members with very little computer or smart phone experience/skill. Trying to find the simplest way to allow for the the proper functioning of Link2SD.
Partitioning a uSD card and making sure that everything is set up right for the proper functioning of Link2SD can be very intimidating to new members.
Most new members hate using a computer or another app there not sure how to use or use shell commands to install anything.

The advantage's of installing Link2SD needs to be experienced by all rooted user's.

I'm a ROCK when it comes to new things and have a tendency to get it wrong 75% of the time(overthinking kills). If a procedure is made that would engineer out all possibilities for mistakes, to allow a rock like me to breeze through it and get it right the first time, then anybody could get it right the first time. More members would be using Link2SD.
The simpler the better. Know what I'm trying to say.
 
MacFett said:
I don't know if you've fully read my warnings, do not link the market even though you can. My nandroid of my stock backup has no access to the market because I had linked it. Still working on getting it back on there.
Click to expand...
Oh yeah, I left the Market alone. After seeing how much free space I ended up with, I wish I'd left Google Maps alone too! I think it'll be fine though.

I don't feel bad about having deleted Twidroyd. :)
 
Is it necessary to factory reset the phone before performing this method? I backed up the apps/games and I see there is still 94 Mb of my internal is been used.
I installed a couple of new apps to test this method but I can't create a link.
 
No, if you are rooted (which you must be to use this) you must never factory reset your Optimus.

You can not link apps from SD, you must have them on the internal and then link them. It may take a few minutes or even a reboot for the changes to be shown as the OS moves the files and clears the space.
 
App was updated today some interesting new features:
2.0.1
- added the ability to convert system apps into user apps
- added the ability to convert user apps into system apps
- added "Updated" mark to show if the app has been install as an update to a system (built-in) app
- added "Updated" filter option
- added the ability to integrate "Updated" system apps into system
- fixed freeze/unfreeze bug on some ICS devices
- improved ICS compatibility
- optimized link/unlink/move operations and speed improvements
- some fixes and UI tweaks
 
MacFett said:
No, if you are rooted (which you must be to use this) you must never factory reset your Optimus.

You can not link apps from SD, you must have them on the internal and then link them. It may take a few minutes or even a reboot for the changes to be shown as the OS moves the files and clears the space.
Click to expand...

Yes my phone is rooted and it is a Samsung Galaxy Gio.
So you mean that I first need to have the apps on the phone and then move them on SD by linking them?

I have made the second partition on the SD card but Link2SD doesn't see it, I have rebooted several times and it is not seen by the program.
Also how can I make sure that the files systems by Link2SD is set to FAT? I remember it showed when I installed it but I can't find find it anymore.
 
I finally made it work, the second partition somehow needs to be ext2 and not FAT. Now its all working as you had written MacFett :)
 
Yes, it is - Actions->Create Link.
But if you "loose" your sdcard for some reason you wont be able to use them.
 
nijel, I can't see the option of Create Link when I press the Action button. The same goes for other system apps I tried to link them but the option doesn't exist.
What else can I do?
 
mach101 said:
Is it possible to move Google Maps and Gmail to SD card by link2sd? can you explain how you did it? thanks
Click to expand...
You will need to remove them from system apps. Ben said that link2sd can do this now, but as I no longer use it I will tell you the old method via titanium backup. Long press the app and press "convert to user app" then it should be able to be linked.

The only app you do not want to move is the market for any reason (there may be others, but really don't move the market).
 
mach101 said:
nijel, I can't see the option of Create Link when I press the Action button. The same goes for other system apps I tried to link them but the option doesn't exist.
What else can I do?
Click to expand...

Didn't know you have maps and gmail as system apps.
Do what MacFett said. Make them first user apps and then you can link them on sd-ext. Link2SD can do all that now.
 
I just tried this method by Titanium but it was busy moving the app for a long time so I had to stop it, and now I can see the Maps, Navigation are completely removed.
Can I restore them again without hard resetting?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom