yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] RoryB:
I thank @frantisek.nesveda for his Agnostic-kernel - partition independent kernel flasher on which I base this. I also thank everyone he thanks. Additionally, I thank anyone who posted about F2FS and formatting partitions. I read a lot of threads and I’m sure I gleaned something from everything I read.

For now this has to be done after flashing your preferred firmware (ROM). I recommend you make all your desired changes especially changing kernels.

Copy the files to your sdcard where you typically put flash files. I recommend an external card, because this is the only way I do it and I have not tested the other way. If you put it on your internal card it needs to be outside the /system and /data partitions because you'll lose them during formatting.

Also, I have only tested this on PhilZ Touch 6.58.9 recovery. I would appreciate anyone testing on other recoveries if you find one that supports f2fs.

If you are not on PhilZ 6.58.9, flash the zip and reboot to recovery.

Make a full back up of your ROM.

I also recommend you have an Odin based recovery plan. During my trials I ended up with a blank screen and used Odin to get back. This may not be the case with this latest PhilZ.

Format the partitions to f2fs.

It is in "Wipe and Format Options", then "Custom Format Options" then "Toggle f2fs <-> ext4 migration"

Remember, to format data you pick /sdcard. Also, this will remove everything on your internal card.

See warnings in post #2

I include a testF2FS zip to confirm the formatting.

Then use custom restore to get the data and/or the system from the backup. You can skip cache since it gets rebuilt.

Then flash GS3-F2FS-kernel-fstab-Fixer to adjust the kernel boot image to support the new formats.

This only fixes the fstab and if the kernel does not have f2fs support it will not work.

As always, no one is responsible for what happens to your phone. Everyone does this on their own and at their own risk.

Please do NOT mirror these files.

It appears to only work with the PhilZ recovery I built. If someone finds another please let us know.

Also, it does not work on TouchWiz ROMs. If someone finds one that it does work on please let us know.

Do not use the phone setting Factory Data Reset

XDA:DevDB Information

F2FS, Tool/Utility for the AT&T Samsung Galaxy S III

Contributors

RoryB

Version Information

Status: Beta

Beta Release Date: 2014-11-13

Created 2014-10-21

Last Updated 2014-12-06
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] RoryB:
Reserved

Latest files on Android File Host

Remember, to format data you pick /sdcard. Also, this will remove everything on your internal card.

Do not factory reset through the phone settings. This appears to format as ext4 and does not keep your formatting.

If you do you would need to try the f2fs fixer before rebooting. I have not so let us know how it goes if you try.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] RoryB:
[OLD WAY]

For now this has to be done after flashing your preferred firmware (ROM).

Copy the files to your sdcard where you typically put flash files. I recommend an external card, because this is the only way I do it and I have not tested the other way. Also, I have only tested this on PhilZ Touch 6.48.4 recovery. I would appreciate anyone testing on other recoveries.

Make a full back up of your ROM.

It seems it is best to get everything the way you want before the back up, including any kernel changes.

I also recommend you have an Odin based recovery plan. During my trials I ended up with a blank screen and used Odin to get back.

Flash the zip file for what format you want to change. I include a testF2FS zip to confirm the formatting. For some reason it sometimes takes more than one try to format the partitions. Sometimes rebooting recovery helps before trying to confirm the formatting.

NOTE: Sometimes the phone reboots on its own while formatting. Be prepared to press the home and volume up buttons for two vibrations to get back to recovery. The first is the final power down and the second is the powering up. Remember to wait for the blue text in the upper left corner.

Then I use custom restore to get the data and/or the system from my backup. You can skip cache.

Then I flash GS3-F2FS-kernel-Fixer to adjust the boot image to support the new formats.

This only fixes the fstab and if the kernel does not have f2fs support it will not work. If they are getting upstream changes they should have it.

As always, no one is responsible for what happens to your phone. Everyone does this on their own and at their own risk.

Please do NOT mirror these files.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mrrocketdog:
yahoo!!!! thank you for what had to have been alot of research , testing , and i cant imagine what-nots.:victory:

will try out tonite and report back

err on the side of kindness
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] PwnCakes193:
Saving my response until after class... Thus is awesome
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] TheSchatz:
Look forward to testing tonight! Will post with results when I have them :D

Sent from my CARBON-SGH-I747
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] aircooledbusses:
Two different phone both liquid ROM. F2fs all versus f2fs none
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] aircooledbusses:
Thanks again Rory!!
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] TheSchatz:
Didn't work for me in TWRP, with latest Carbon Nightly. Just finished in about two seconds, and the test zip failed, indicating nothing changed.

Next step is a CWM I guess!

Sent from my CARBON-SGH-I747
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] aircooledbusses:
I tried some stuff before with formatting partitions in twrp and it always failed. Even the newest 8.whatever just freaks out with unrecognized file system. I've not been a fan of philz ever before, but since that's what is working I Will adapt
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] TheSchatz:
I guess Philz it is, as latest CWM failed in the same fashion.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Genesius01:
Yeah, same here with CWM.

Running vanilla CM11. Took a full nandroid, formatted system, cache, and data with Philz. Restored nandroid, installed latest Quantum kernel and flashed the kernel fix.

Everything is up & running, but performance has downgraded. AnTuTu score down by about 20%. I have seen other f2fs discussions that said it needs time to settle in, so I'll let the phone on all night and check it in the morning.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] aircooledbusses:
Just some more scores I am not too sure what to make of. But obviously f2fs has the edge.

Html5 test seems a bit fictitious but again shows f2fs showing some advantage....... If more birds is a good thing that is.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mrrocketdog:
one more to confirm: failed with twrp 2.6.3.1 . tried multiple times. running Q v3.66 with appropriately dated kernels = QK / dkp / BMS .

ohh philzzz , where are you ? time to come and play.!

err on the side of kindness
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] aircooledbusses:
https://goo.im/devs/philz_touch/CWM_Advanced_Edition/

I used one for d2lte. Please ignore the update to latest binary message
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] RoryB:
Remember, sometimes it takes a few times. I've been trying things like adding sleeps to "rest" between each format command. It did not help. I sometimes had to format, reboot to recovery, format again and then maybe it showed up as changed.

I think I got things mixed up. I have to set up boot image to support the new format and then flash quantumkernel. I"ll update the first post.

Yup, I use this one https://goo.im/devs/philz_touch/CWM_Advanced_Edition/d2lte/philz_touch_6.48.4-d2lte.zip
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] TheSchatz:
Well, now I can't get past the kernel splash. Philz finally sees everything as f2fs, but I can't mount data at all... I've managed to royally screw up everything, lol. Off to Odin, I'll try again sometime but it's a no go for now.

Thanks for the files though, I'm really excited for the opportunity!
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] aircooledbusses:
Yes, formatting is a bit wonky but the test zip file is very helpful. After formatting I'd run the test zip till desired partitions showed f2fs and not unknown. I also rebooted recovery before restoring. That custom restore really messed me up and I had to have only one back up to keep stuff straight. Then the fix file and a reboot. I only flashed qk 10.11 after it was all running.

Don't know if This will help anyone but it worked for me.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] TheSchatz:
Eventually everything read f2fs, but I wasn't doing any data restoration. I was just going to start with a fresh rom install, but that's when I was stuck on the kernel splash with no adb. I'll probably try again tonight after work, maybe I'll have better luck!

Sent from my CARBON-SGH-I747
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] RoryB:
Many ROMs have format built into their updater script and that would undo your format to f2fs unless the ROM is written to support it.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] RoryB:
The reason I wrote the format zip files is PhilZ did not offer formatting data to be f2fs. Can someone try using PhilZ to format system and the zip to format data and cache to see how that works? Does any of the other recoveries offer format f2fs for all three partitions?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] JJohnson1988:
AFAIK, PhilZ can format all three partitions as F2FS. The data partition you want to format is actually /data/media.

Samsung Galaxy S3 (AT&T)

i747UCUFNE4 baseband/bootloader
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] RoryB:
When I checked that it does not offer me to format to f2fs. Does it for you?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] JJohnson1988:
Yes. You have to select the option named EXT4 <> F2FS Conversion (or something like that) first. Then select the item that says Format /data and /data/media. A prompt that asks for the type of partition should then appear.

Samsung Galaxy S3 (AT&T)

i747UCUFNE4 baseband/bootloader
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] RoryB:
I have done all of that, and have not seen that offered. I am on MJB, perhaps that is why. I have been looking for an excuse to go to NE4 this may be it.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] aircooledbusses:
I am on MJ2 and have no reason to upgrade to a non downgradable boot loader........yet.

I updated to liquid 10.21 with quantum kernel 10.11 and all went well. using your f2fs conversion zip and restoring a fresh back up works and the end result is f2fs all. I would like to know if updating with the liquid updater will retain f2fs, but will wait for the next update to come out. I am thinking that flashing any rom will re-write the system to ext4.

I am becoming more familiar with Philz, but am not sold on it yet. hopefully someone can hack twrp for us.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] RoryB:
Yes, I think most ROM updater scripts include formatting system. So, unless it is written to format as f2fs it will convert it to ext4. I think you would get an error since it tries to mount system as ext4 near the beginning of most scripts.I'm trying to read up on how PhilZ does it to see if it can be added for other than NE4 if that is the only way now.

Do you guys want me to break the zips into one for each such that their would be 6 zips? One for converting each to f2fs and each to ext4 separately.That way people can use Philz to format what it can and use a zip for the one it cannot.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] TheSchatz:
I tried again today, and it seems to have worked!

However, my internal storage card was wiped in the process. Has this happened to anyone else? I take semi-regular backups, so no harm done, but it was unexpected.

Sent from my CARBON-SGH-I747
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mrrocketdog:
yup. lost a LOT of stuff. i think its the way philzzz works. srry it happened to someone else.

guess we know now though.

err on the side of kindness
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] TheSchatz:
At least it wasn't just me. I was so sure I didn't read properly, or did something wrong!

That said, all is running smoothly here! Not sure how placebo it is but everything certainly feels quicker, haha!

Sent from my CARBON-SGH-I747
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] nirogu325:
T999 user here, and yes, once you press that option it offers you to select either F2FS or EXT4 for formating when you select /system, /cache, or /data with /media. It does not offer F2FS if you just select /data, you have to format it along with /media. There goes the internal SD contents! On the other hand, sadly TWRP (my favorite recovery) only offers up to EXT2, 3, 4 and FAT, that's it.

Yeah I noticed it too. Apps sure do open and react quicker. Feels like the old GS1 days RFS to EXT4 differences. Although I've read (on another XDA thread, just googled yesterday can't find the exact link - too many threads) that F2FS has some data loss issues and is not yet so ready. Guy suggested not to put important files on a F2FS partition. Then I kept reading and some other users faced data loss so I don't know what to make of it. I know this is an alpha project though. I'm now back on EXT4 for precautions, but that speed felt great on my unit.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] RoryB:
Sorry you lost SD card stuff, but it is on the data partition. I'll add a warning.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] nirogu325:
??? No, not me. Other people in other threads. I already had a backup and knew beforehand that I had to format /data and /data/media.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] RoryB:
I'll ask again:

Do you guys want me to break the zips into one for each such that their would be 6 zips? One for converting each to f2fs and each to ext4 separately.That way people can use Philz to format what it can and use a zip for the one it cannot.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mrrocketdog:
i think that would be good. and thanks again for your work and time. :GOOD:

err on the side of kindness
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] gvsukids:
After choosing system and data to restore, what option do I choose at the next screen with regards to boot.IMG or one of the tar files?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] JJohnson1988:
I haven't run benchmarks, but F2FS feels like it performs very similar to EXT4 in my realistic trials. Is there an app anyone can recommend where a clear difference is noticeable?

Samsung Galaxy S3 (AT&T)

i747UCUFNE4 baseband/bootloader
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] RoryB:
I usually pick one of the tar files that matches what I pick to restore. I am not sure it matters because it then asks you to pick the backup file name again.

Not sure why it does that. I guess it is a quirk of PhilZ.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] RoryB:
Done
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] gvsukids:
Do I flash the kernel file every time I update the kernel? Or once it's flashed I can just flash the new kernel without worrying
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] RoryB:
It depends if your kernel update includes the part that has the fstab in it.

I know I did not say that well, but I can update Quantum kernel after doing the "fix" for f2fs without having to run the fix again.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] aircooledbusses:
My two cents is don't keep only copies of anything important on a phone that is modded daily.

I can report zero data loss and have been f2fs all since a day or two before this thread went public.

I have found no downside to f2fs but the loss of Twrp....... I can deal with that
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] nirogu325:
I am very well aware of that. Just warning others about the Alpha nature of this (you know people usually do not read). The loss of TWRP should be temporary. I bet the TWRP devs are working on adding F2FS support.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] aircooledbusses:
I did not intend to minimize your findings or your knowledge, sorry if it came across wrong. I am hoping also Twrp implements the f2fs feature soon as well. I encourage contacting them to request this update since our device is becoming almost a legacy device.

http://teamw.in/contact

Maybe the more requests the more focus they will put toward it. Maybe not, but it can't hurt.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mrrocketdog:
will request also. :good:

err on the side of kindness
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] TheSchatz:
Request sent! I don't mind having to learn my way around philz, but I like TWRP :)
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thirdzcee:
Not sure if phone became better and smoother or placebo... Feels fast and smooth but could be due to a a fresh install rather than a restore from back up... Just a little modification in updater-script and got spirit ROM to flash without changing f2fs back to ext4... Anybody got any random black screen then reboot issues after f2fs convert, happens rarely but it happened to me... Twice
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mp3deviant721:
Is that how you switch a ROM over to F2FS? Just make changes to the updater-script and flash a F2FS compatible kernel?

GS³: Carbonized, leanKernel'd, Philz'd

Have a Doki Doki ☆ Morning!! ?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thirdzcee:
Basically yeah... Don't forget the kernel fixer though ... Or in my case I just took out the fstab for f2fs for all 3 partitions and replaced that one on my kernel, I build my own custom kernel...
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] RoryB:
There are a few threads out there about converting a ROM to not mess up f2fs. Also, I saw a windows based program to make the fizes to the ROM for you. I forget what phone it was for.

I read everything I could find on converting to f2fs trying to figure this out and saw that while looking. I did not save it since I was concentrating on getting our kernel and fstab to cooperate.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mp3deviant721:
I used the tuner app that comes with the KT747 kernel to convert my ROM. I'll try doing the actual conversion tonight. Thanks for all the replies guys.

GS³: Carbonized, leanKernel'd, Philz'd

Have a Doki Doki ☆ Morning!! ?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] NikoZBK:
Not sure if it's placebo, but everything just feels a lot snappier with f2fs.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] RoryB:
Go to the OP.

I started building PhilZ recovery to try to understand how he formats to f2fs and when I finished I had version 6.58.9 of his recovery instead of the 6.48 that I had found as the latest version.

This supports converting cache, system and /data|/data/media to f2fs.

Remember /data/media is your internal sdcard so you lose everything on the internal card when you format it. Normally when you select format /data it only does a remove all files and folders except /data/media.

Now all we need is PhilZ and the kernel fixer. I'm keeping the TestF2FS zip up because it is nice to have to confirm what your partitions are formatted as so you can decide what needs changing .

I'll start working on having all possible combinations of the conversion since with PhilZ we can pick and choose what to convert. DONE, updated file in AFH.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mrrocketdog:
thank you thank you.;)

err on the side of kindness
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] nirogu325:
[MENTION=1190747]RoryB[/MENTION] - Curious question! Do you think a KitKat TouchWiz ROM can ever have F2FS compatibility? I've tried doing a nandroid, formatting to F2FS, then restoring and applying the kernel fixer but it never boots past the boot animation. I think the issue might be the kernel, right?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] RoryB:
This zip file is supposed to fix the kernel. What KK TW ROM are you using?

Can you give me more details?

Have you tried with the new PhilZ recovery I posted?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] nirogu325:
Currently using the latest S3Rx, previously tried with Likewise, and yes, using the latest PhilZ you posted. I will try again once more with S3Rx. It just won't get past the boot animation despite using the kernel fixer as I said.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] RoryB:
I know this sounds crazy, but when it gets stuck at boot animation could you try rebooting into recovery and wipe cache and dalvik to see I that will let it boot all the way.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mrrocketdog:
hey [MENTION=1190747]RoryB[/MENTION].......that sounds crazy. lol.

err on the side of kindness
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] nirogu325:
Ah don't worry the nandroid already had those cleared beforehand. I did try your suggestion though. Sadly, no results. It must be the kernel. It happens with both the ibuddler kernel and KToon for 4.4.2 TW ROMs, so it must be lack of F2FS support from...somewhere? I'm puzzled. :confused: Either way, it didn't work, even with the provided tools and following OP's instructions to the letter. It just won't boot. It stays at the GS3 main screen. If I flash the kernel then the fixer (the other way around) then it goes past the GS3 screen...to a black screen with the blue LED pulsing, and if you press the power button, the phone vibrates twice (due to lack of kernel perhaps).
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] RoryB:
Okay, one more try.

Get your ROM going the way you like it.

Make a full backup.

Use PhilZ to convert the partitions you want to be f2fs.

Run the tester to be sure those partitions are formatted to what you want.

Restore only those partitions you formated. Exclude Boot, recovery, and anything else you did not convert.

Run the kernel fixer and boot to see if it boots.

If it does, yeah!

Be sure your desired kernel does support f2fs. Then go back and flash it to see if it will boot after that.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] nirogu325:
Problem bolded in red. KToon for TW doesn't support it, never mind ibuddler kernel which is based on stock NE4 kernel. Those are the only two custom kernel alternatives KitKat TouchWiz has as of this post.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] RoryB:
Okay, another try if you are willing.

After formatting and recovering, flash the kernel. Then reboot to recovery and flash the fixer. See if that works.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] nirogu325:
When I did that, a blue LED pulsed, black screen, no response besides the two vibrations when I pressed Power. Must be the non-F2FS kernel. I bet once (a big IF cuz everyone's focused on Lollipop now) a 4.4.2 TW kernel gets F2FS compatibility, everything shall boot.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] RoryB:
Please post links to their threads.

I found [MENTION=4730253]ibuddler[/MENTION] and read his updater script. I think you are going to have to flash his kernel before you format things.

Then recover and then run the fixer. He is trying to mount partitions as ext4 so it has to be done while you are ext4.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] nirogu325:
Hmm. I will get back to you with the results (also thanks for analizing the ibuddler kernel which is the best of the two battery-wise lol).
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] RoryB:
I went back and looked at it again. I noticed he makes changes to stuff in system, so you will have to make a backup after you flash his kernel and then do your formatting. That way when you recover it will have his stuff in it.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] nirogu325:
Wait...the nandroid I toyed with yesterday already had the kernel and you read the results. What do I do now then?