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Posts: 6 | Thanked: 0 times | Joined on Aug 2011
#1
Hi all brand new owner of n810 here. I needed a device that could access internet and email on the go and I cannot afford a smartphone plan. thought about an android tablet but wanted something smaller so this fit the bill and the price. got it used/new. now while I'm not familiar with linux I did learn PC on a DOS system so command line does not bother me. anyway my big question is about storage. in no time at all I am getting unable to install messages from application manager and I realize that I just have a few megs of free space on the 256mb "hard drive". Now I assumed apps would just go to the internal 2gb drive when that was full but that has not happened. additionally I thought I could just install them to my 8gb micro sd card but that option is not available. searching the forum the only solution I find is cloning to and SD card and booting from there...but that can't be true can it? I would be shocked to find that is the only answer, I mean nokia must have realized 256mb would be filled up by a few essentials and would have thought to provide another way to add some space for apps. now I'm not talking about media or maps or docs or pdf's etc, I know I can just plop them on the internal or removable memory and they will be available. I mean installing packages from the app manager or a 1click link. I have searched and though I get that feeling I didn't find anyone clearly say that it was not possible to install apps to either the internal memory or sd. that really doesn't make sense if it's true and would be really short sighted. although this device does bascially what I wanted it to do (albeit slooowly) the bonuses that additional apps provide would really be nice. there were a few games where the packages were over half the 256mb drive so really, what sense would that make? I like the unit, but it's slow cpu certainly hampers it and it's main draw, web browsing is PAINFULLY slow. not to mention the wifi reception seems to be weak, but then I haven't used compatible devices so maybe they all are on this type of platform. so if someone could tell me if cloning and booting from sd is the only way or not I would appreciate it.
 
Posts: 875 | Thanked: 918 times | Joined on Sep 2010
#2
Originally Posted by Prfondorosso75 View Post
searching the forum the only solution I find is cloning to and SD card and booting from there...but that can't be true can it?
You can find apps that use a lot of space, copy certain directories to the internal 2gig drive and link them back to the 256meg drive. I think there is also a thread or wiki page that lists unneeded files you can remove.

Cloning to and booting from the 2gig or external SD will not only gain you a lot more space for apps but also give you a way to get back into your device when it breaks, and it will break. A bad application or a crash could require you to reflash the device, losing all settings and data that haven't been backed up. If you boot from SD and this happens then you might be able to boot from the 256meg flash and fix them problem without a reflash.

Originally Posted by Prfondorosso75 View Post
I like the unit, but it's slow cpu certainly hampers it and it's main draw, web browsing is PAINFULLY slow. not to mention the wifi reception seems to be weak
The Tear browser is fast on most of the sites I visit but the slow processor is unable to handle bloated sites.

Do you have wifi power at 100mW or 10mW? You can find the setting in the advanced section where you configure the access point.
 
Posts: 1,101 | Thanked: 1,184 times | Joined on Aug 2008 @ Spain
#3
The 256 MB system flash has a compressed filesystem, so it holds about 1 GB of installed software. Unfortunately, it is true that it is quite easy to fill up, in particular with games which can have non-compresible data (images, music, etc).

To overcome this limitation, you have basically 3 options, but you need some linux knowledge to understand what you are doing and not become stuck at the first minimal mistake.

First one is to do as auouymous said, manually move data after each install and link to it. Sometimes it is tricky because the fat filesystem in the SD cards doesn't have permissions, but you can overcome this limitation by repartitioning the SD card and making an ext2/3 partition where to move things.

A more brave and risky approach (here, because it is usual in the desktop/server linux world) would be to make the partition, move an entire filesystem branch there (/usr/share is a good candidate, or even all /usr), and directly mount (or link) the partition in the filesystem branch.

And the last and easyest way, clone to SD, which in addition has the advantages auouymous already explained, but take into account what I said about the compressed filesystem and make a linux partition of at least 1,5 GB.

When partitioning SD, for performance reasons of the underlying hardware, make the partition always start at a 4MB bondary.

So, Nokia took a really shortsighted approach when designing the filesystem, but thanks to the power of linux, it is trivial to fix it.

About the browser slowness, try opera and tear.
And install CSSU, Diablo Turbo, Telescope and Advanced SystemUI, you'll see quite an improvement.
Originally Posted by auouymous View Post
Do you have wifi power at 100mW or 10mW? You can find the setting in the advanced section where you configure the access point.
And make sure your wifi is transmitting at 100 mW.

Last edited by maacruz; 2011-08-21 at 14:39.
 
Posts: 6 | Thanked: 0 times | Joined on Aug 2011
#4
Originally Posted by auouymous View Post
You can find apps that use a lot of space, copy certain directories to the internal 2gig drive and link them back to the 256meg drive. I think there is also a thread or wiki page that lists unneeded files you can remove.

Cloning to and booting from the 2gig or external SD will not only gain you a lot more space for apps but also give you a way to get back into your device when it breaks, and it will break. A bad application or a crash could require you to reflash the device, losing all settings and data that haven't been backed up. If you boot from SD and this happens then you might be able to boot from the 256meg flash and fix them problem without a reflash.

The Tear browser is fast on most of the sites I visit but the slow processor is unable to handle bloated sites.


Do you have wifi power at 100mW or 10mW? You can find the setting in the advanced section where you configure the access point.
OK, so my darkest fears have come to pass, lol. it makes not sense to me but I guess that is what I will have to do. what is really strange is there is the 256mb boot drive and then 2gb internal storage. that internal storage also cannot be used for software install I assume? it never asks when I try to install an app so I figured not. moving apps after install is just silly to me so won't be doing that. so for the cloning to sc which is apparently my only option, any adivce as to which class card is as fast or faster than the 256mb? I don't want to go slower, so if the internal's speed is that of a class 6 say, I would have to try and find that.

yes the tear browser if faster, but then on some sites it tanks. I like it better than the microb. is there an add on to block flash like firefox? I couldn't find one. also it doesn't seem to handle java well, or do I have soemthing configured wrong? also it can't download or is there a fix that I didn't find? and is there actually a way to get it to view flahs video?

I could not find a setting to adjust wifi power anywhere. I suspect it's low because unless I'm right on top of a router it's always an "iffy" conn. could you please explain exactly how to get to this setting, as if you were talking to a child

thanks for the help. it is appreciated. since you seem to be well versed with this, there are many tutorials for this cloning, can you point me to one that you used and worked, just to make sure I don't f-it up. lastly do you have a favorite repository? I added a bunch to mine and still seems like I'm missing a bunch of stuff
 
Posts: 6 | Thanked: 0 times | Joined on Aug 2011
#5
Originally Posted by maacruz View Post
The 256 MB system flash has a compressed filesystem, so it holds about 1 GB of installed software. Unfortunately, it is true that it is quite easy to fill up, in particular with games which can have non-compresible data (images, music, etc).

To overcome this limitation, you have basically 3 options, but you need some linux knowledge to understand what you are doing and not become stuck at the first minimal mistake.

First one is to do as auouymous said, manually move data after each install and link to it. Sometimes it is tricky because the fat filesystem in the SD cards doesn't have permissions, but you can overcome this limitation by repartitioning the SD card and making an ext2/3 partition where to move things.

A more brave and risky approach (here, because it is usual in the desktop/server linux world) would be to make the partition, move an entire filesystem branch there (/usr/share is a good candidate, or even all /usr), and directly mount (or link) the partition in the filesystem branch.

And the last and easyest way, clone to SD, which in addition has the advantages auouymous already explained, but take into account what I said about the compressed filesystem and make a linux partition of at least 1,5 GB.

When partitioning SD, for performance reasons of the underlying hardware, make the partition always start at a 4MB bondary.

So, Nokia took a really shortsighted approach when designing the filesystem, but thanks to the power of linux, it is trivial to fix it.

About the browser slowness, try opera and tear.
And install CSSU, Diablo Turbo, Telescope and Advanced SystemUI, you'll see quite an improvement.

And make sure your wifi is transmitting at 100 mW.
Thank you for your help. I will go with the cloning as that seems to be the best idea. so if the device uses a compressed partition to make 256mb able to hold 1gb, can you use that same compression to partition you sd card to increase it's capacity? I have an 8gb sd, so 32gb in compressed form? or am I misunderstanding something here?
I will try those items to increase performance as soon as I free up some space. right now I'm not enjoying the device as much as I should be because of the space limitations and poor wifi and browsing problems. as I mentioned above I can't find a setting to change it's voltage so it's at whatever the default is. I assume changing it higher will affect the battery life but how much?
All I really want to be able to do is surf the web with acceptable brwsing speed,, watch flash video, check email, have enough space to install apps and have a conn that doesn't drop every 5 minutes. doesn't seem like to much to ask. I have a super cheap chinese 7" ipad knockoff tablet that does all of that and more and is faster...but the screen is not as nice and it won't fit in my pocket. Oh, and you can install apps to or from the sd, not issues at all. weird. the nokia device is of a higher build quality to be sure. it has better battery life and the battery is user replaceable which is nice. if I can get it to do this simple things I outlines I will have a winner. I can't afford data phone plans as I said so that route is out. one last thing. with the android tablets there is often customer roms that enable all sorts of things. is there anything like that for the n810? Thanks again.
 
Posts: 1,950 | Thanked: 1,174 times | Joined on Jan 2008 @ Seattle, USA
#6
Back to your original issue and the very solid suggestion that you clone. Here is the automated way to do that: Penguinbait's Console-Tools.
 
Posts: 6 | Thanked: 0 times | Joined on Aug 2011
#7
That's great. Thank you! I will try it just as soon as I get a 16gb card. I would do it on the 8 but then I don't think I will have enough room for movies and music and apps all totaled. I found several ways to convert movies for watching on the n810 but all failed. anyone have any suggestions? I rip my dvd's to divx 1gb files. they will play on the n810 but very choppy and not watchable and of course too big. I would like to make them as small as possible with descent image quality.
 
Posts: 875 | Thanked: 918 times | Joined on Sep 2010
#8
Originally Posted by Prfondorosso75 View Post
I will try it just as soon as I get a 16gb card. I would do it on the 8 but then I don't think I will have enough room for movies and music and apps all totaled. I found several ways to convert movies for watching on the n810 but all failed. anyone have any suggestions?
Just clone to the internal 2gig and use the external card to hold your data.

http://mediautils.garage.maemo.org/

Open connection manager, press menu hardware key below dpad, tools...connectivity settings. Or tap the wifi statusbar icon and select connectivity settings. Now tap the "Connections" button, select your WAP and tap "Edit". Press "Next" twice and then "Advanced" and go to the "Other" tab. And there is the 100mW setting.
 
Posts: 6 | Thanked: 0 times | Joined on Aug 2011
#9
Originally Posted by auouymous View Post
Just clone to the internal 2gig and use the external card to hold your data.

http://mediautils.garage.maemo.org/

Open connection manager, press menu hardware key below dpad, tools...connectivity settings. Or tap the wifi statusbar icon and select connectivity settings. Now tap the "Connections" button, select your WAP and tap "Edit". Press "Next" twice and then "Advanced" and go to the "Other" tab. And there is the 100mW setting.
ok thanks. I checked and it is indeed set to 100mW which seems to be the default. I tried the different power mgmt settings but it made no difference as to connection quality or stability. I wonder if there could be something wrong with it? if I'm close to a router I get a strong signal and stay connected. but when are we close to routers? I wish there was some way to tweak that, internet access was the main reason I got it. Thank you though for all your help. I will try the media encoder, that is one I did not see.
 
Posts: 6 | Thanked: 0 times | Joined on Aug 2011
#10
Originally Posted by Prfondorosso75 View Post
Thank you for your help. I will go with the cloning as that seems to be the best idea. so if the device uses a compressed partition to make 256mb able to hold 1gb, can you use that same compression to partition you sd card to increase it's capacity? I have an 8gb sd, so 32gb in compressed form? or am I misunderstanding something here?
I will try those items to increase performance as soon as I free up some space. right now I'm not enjoying the device as much as I should be because of the space limitations and poor wifi and browsing problems. as I mentioned above I can't find a setting to change it's voltage so it's at whatever the default is. I assume changing it higher will affect the battery life but how much?
All I really want to be able to do is surf the web with acceptable brwsing speed,, watch flash video, check email, have enough space to install apps and have a conn that doesn't drop every 5 minutes. doesn't seem like to much to ask. I have a super cheap chinese 7" ipad knockoff tablet that does all of that and more and is faster...but the screen is not as nice and it won't fit in my pocket. Oh, and you can install apps to or from the sd, not issues at all. weird. the nokia device is of a higher build quality to be sure. it has better battery life and the battery is user replaceable which is nice. if I can get it to do this simple things I outlines I will have a winner. I can't afford data phone plans as I said so that route is out. one last thing. with the android tablets there is often customer roms that enable all sorts of things. is there anything like that for the n810? Thanks again.
OK, I installed those things except diablo turbo. I am going to wait until I clone for that. The opera web browser totally ROCKS! I can't believe I have not seen this mentioned before. not only does it seem as fast as tear, but it scrolls much better and the interface is super. the ui on tear, ff, and mb looks like the version of ie I had on my compaq pocket pc 10 years ago, lol. opera is the best reason to surf the web on a n810 imo. thanks! I am anxious to clone so I have another question. if I clone to a sd, can I make a copy of that clone to an image so when I get a larger card I can copy it to that? seems like I should be able to but I just want to check. I can test it out with a 2gb card to see how it works then copy it to a 16gb class 10 when I can afford it. that would be nice. any other tweaks, enchancements are welcomed. with a bit of work this is becoming a much more useful and enjoyable tool.
 
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