[Gen8 Android Development] sweetypie:
@$aurOn.

thps raises the point I was going to make.

I've run your install many times now, to make sure I was doing it right, and to keep up with your revisions. I think I've done it all ok now, several times, and my results are consistent.

I've taken a pause here, to remind myself why I'm doing this. From your original first post, the aim is:

to get superuser rights

to get a bigger apps partition

to get better performance,

- while still retaining the "normal" use of the Archos. Is that about right?

I have my own "issues". I hesitate to call them problems, maybe you designed it to work this way?

1 - I use init.rc (in step 3) as a toggle. If I comment out "mount ext3" and comment in "mount ext4", my Archos becomes very slow. If I run Quadrant, it "freezes" at the IO (database writes) 2/4 step. So I can't even record a Quadrant performance figure when rooted AND with ext4 enabled in init.rc. Without ext4 enabled in init.rc the score is between 1400 and 1500.

Of course I understand that I'm only using a Class 4 sdcard, and I only used it to get the method established, before paying out for a high class sdcard. If that's all it is, then that's fine. If Quadrant ran slowly, but ran fully, then that'd be ok. But why would it "freeze" at database writes? Is that a different problem?

2 - I note what you said to cnewsgrp about folders and mounts, that was useful. There are so many "sdcard" folders that it's hard to remember what they all do (if anything). But this brings me back to the post above by thps.

My "folders and mounts" situation is that:

1 - / (512MB) mounts ok (otherwise the rootfs wouldn't work)

2 - /data (1GB "apps storage") mounts ok, and is read ok by the Archos "higher level" apps, which report in Menu> Settings> Storage> System storage> Available space - 783MB (nice).

3 - /mnt/storage/sdcard (third partition on sdcard) doesn't show in Menu> Settings> Storage> SD Card. This is where I would expect my usable area of the SD Card. All I see is Total space - unavailable. Available space - unavailable.

The sdcard space 3 doesn't show in Music app> Storage, or Video app> Internal> Video folder, or Android File Manager.

Basically, it's not available for use, or did I miss something?

Similarly, I connect my external USB Hard Disk Drive. But it's not "available for use" either. It doesn't show up in Menu> Settings> Storage> External drive, or any of the apps which read storage for content.

Now, if I open Better Terminal, su, and run dmesg, I can see that the external drive has been fully recognised and correctly identified by the operating system.

The last few lines of dmesg, after connecting the USB drive:

hub 2-0:1.0: state 7 ports 1 chg 0000 evt 0002

hub 2-0:1.0: port 1 enable change, status 00000503

scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access Freecom USB Memory 3AU1 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2 CCS

sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 61049646 4096-byte hardware sectors: (250 GB/232 GiB)

sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off

sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 38 00 00

sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through

sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 61049646 4096-byte hardware sectors: (250 GB/232 GiB)

sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off

sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 38 00 00

sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through

sda: sda1

sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk

usb-storage: device scan complete

init: untracked pid 5853 exited

init: untracked pid 5884 exited

So, although the Archos recognises the drive at os level, it's not usable by me.

With this root method, will the 3rd sdcard partition, and external drives ever be available for or within apps? Or only accessible as files in a "Root Explorer"?

Is this anything to do with "Automounter"? Is it just that these "areas" need to be mounted, to become available to "Higher Level" apps?

I'm just wondering if it's worth buying a high class sdcard, or just leave it as it is, without ext4 mounted, and only choose the "root boot" option as a quick way of using Root Explorer.

Also, it occurred to me that the apps installed in the large /data partition won't be available in "normal boot" mode.

You see, "the masses" in the Archosfans forum are soon going to be trying this method, and I wonder if they can reasonably expect to use their devices "normally" after the root boot (reason - 3), or only for "techy" purposes, and bigger app space, at the expense of normal app usage?