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

Root [Merit] Is there a way to make use of /dev

V

valueforvalue

Well-Known Member
I was looking at sd maid today and noticed that in its advanced view it shows a /dev partition on my merit that is about 200mb. Does anyone know if there is a way to make use of this wasted space? Or if it is harmful to do so?
 
I actually noticed this a few days ago as well. I haven't really looked into it very far though, but it does seem to be an awful waste of space.

Apparently its not writable, and from what I have read its only used for ota updates. It could probably safely be resized, seeing how I highly doubt us merit users will be seeing any ota updates. Lol.
 
Yea I doubt we will be seeing any updates like that. I have just barely done any research on it myself. I wouldn't know how to go about resizing it though. I suppose with busybox?


Also if it was resized, I figure that would mean having to resize /data as well to claim the newfound space?
 
Don't touch or try to modify the /dev. Don't hold me to it, because I'm making a educated guess, but this is where partition information, radio information and so on about the hardware.
Unless you want yo brick your phone. Have at it ;)
 
Thanks for the warning, I've noticed that /dev isn't really mentioned in any Google searches I've made as of yet. Maybe because it's not a good idea to mess with it. I wouldn't have jumped in head first and started tinkering with it without having solid info anyway but it's good to have a better idea. Seems like there is a command or two that references /dev come to think of it cat /dev/mtd or something like that, so it probably does have important information stored on it.


I'm still really new to android so I don't really know how it all works. I'm lost when it comes to mount points and all the init scripts, I don't get quite how the boot process works or any of that. Seems like all of the partitions actually are located somewhere else and the names given to them are a convenient abstraction.
 
i can't remember but it seems like there wasn't even 1mb used on my /dev partition.

if there is a way that the space can be used, i'm sure someone has found it and posted it somewhere.

it would be nice to use it for something, especially like an internal sdcard
 
From what I have read the resizing of partitions is risky and a pain. I was just thinking maybe we could link to it but am unsure if it would work or not. I haven't found any info yet on making use of it. I remember motorhead1991 posting something about a script to move the dalvik cache to an alternate location but I can't remember if it was /dev or where it was lol. And I can't seem to find the post.
 
Yeah he claimed to be able to move his to the dev partition and showed some screenshots, but I could never make heads or tails of it really...

call me a skeptic...

EDIT - But I'd love to get in there just as much as the next guy...
 
jamespfassett said:
Yeah he claimed to be able to move his to the dev partition and showed some screenshots, but I could never make heads or tails of it really...

call me a skeptic...

EDIT - But I'd love to get in there just as much as the next guy...
Click to expand...

I remember him saying that it was sensitive and if not done just right it would cause the phone to either freeze or boot loop I can't remember which. Supposedly their was a script he had written to do it but I'm not sure if he released it. Seems like he said it was part of his custom rom that wasn't for public release or something.
 
Yeah, Ive tried it when I was working on my euro version, it bootloops if run on boot, there are lots of init.d scripts here...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1808791

Ive got about 90% of these scripts running on boot now that I have init.d working, and the results are pretty amazing. SF 2.0 is going to be above and beyond what the stock rom can do.

There really is nothing WRONG with the stock rom, but it can certainly be improved on
 
i found a thread not too long ago that dispelled the myths about build.prop tweaks and init tweaks. it included the actual Android developers' comment lines which showed that what most people are adding to these files hurt the phone instead of helping it.

one of the first ones showed to be bunk and having negative effects on the phone's performance was "dalvik.vm.heapsize=xx"

there were plenty of others as well. i wouldn't trust much that is found over at xda regarding these types of tweaks. they are not proven nor explained, and from the thread i saw (hopefully i can find it again) they are mostly useless.

one thread, not the one i'm referring to though: http://www.jeffmixon.com/examining-build-prop-tweaks-for-android-ics-a-comprehensive-guide-part-1/
 
in Linux the /Dev folder stands for 'device' and has your drivers for hard disks and mount points and such. for example /Dev/USB is the driver to the USB ports. to mount for example a second hard drive you use the command mount /dev/hdd1 /mnt

i am not sure its use or relevance to the Android platform, it's not like we're plugging in external hard disks to our tablets/smart phones
 
nickdalzell said:
in Linux the /Dev folder stands for 'device' and has your drivers for hard disks and mount points and such. for example /Dev/USB is the driver to the USB ports. to mount for example a second hard drive you use the command mount /dev/hdd1 /mnt

i am not sure its use or relevance to the Android platform, it's not like we're plugging in external hard disks to our tablets/smart phones
Click to expand...


you're right about how if functions in linux and android is built on linux, but it's an actual partition on the phone--at least that is my understanding.

there are other thing though that are not clear regarding /dev that the information is not readily available.
 
stayboogy said:
you're right about how if functions in linux and android is built on linux, but it's an actual partition on the phone--at least that is my understanding.

there are other thing though that are not clear regarding /dev that the information is not readily available.
Click to expand...

Yea /dev is a bit of a mystery to me. And I haven't been able to find any reliable information on the subject.
 
there were a few empty folders in Linux that always got my fur up too...never really knew what they did. most of the time it was empty space. such as /proc
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom