russm wrote:

while ! grep -q $USER /proc/partitions; do sleep 1; done

Hmm thats a pretty good idea, this looks like a good answer to inconsistent usb recognition time.

I really like this idea as I too am hoping to dual boot windows but leave /dev/sda1 intact with the standard Xandros.  But I keep reading this is not (easily) possible as Windows has to be the first partition.  So albkwan, I'm waiting eagerly for your guide on how to achieve this!

Also I just got my 4GB SDHC card the other day - I moved my entire firefox profile onto it and it seemed to slow down the firefox startup time significantly.  This suggests that using SD for everything may have a performance hit.

Was talking about SDHC Class 6 card, but I appreciate the read speed still won't be as fast as the internal SSD.

Albkwan, you, sir, are a steely eyed missile man.

I have been waiting to get my mitts on an Eee for ages and due to a combination of my own impatience and the 4Gb models being like gold dust, I ended up saying "to hell with it" and buying a 2Gb surf.

Your instructions plus a 4Gb SD card have basically got me back up and running (given that my 2Gb Eee came with approximately 2K free space that very quickly ran out after just a few additional apps being installed).

I have a 16Gb class 6 on its way and that should do me for the foreseeable.

Am a little surprised the Eee doesn't come with a "use SD card as additional system space" option. UnionFS would seem to lend itself ideally towards it and it'd be a useful feature even for the "my first computer" original target audience of the Eee.

Solidus wrote:

For some reason, Puppy (or its Breeezy offspring) wouldn't work for me - the Eee just kept complaining about missing OS or other things when I created these sticks.

Puppy Linux need to boot from a usb stick with no partition, i.e. say sdb instead of sdb1. You have to use the whole USB stick for it unless you edit the syslinux config file to reflect the change.

Solidus wrote:

2) When I edited the initramfs as instructed, the Eee wouldn't boot. It reported that none of the USB driver files existed

Seems that I have missed out one point editing init: you need to uncomment the line: VERSION=`cat /proc/version | cut -f3 -d" "`
and move it to before the lines for loading USB modules. Have edited the steps for this. You can also refer to the complete "init" I posted in my webpage.

Actually, later I have worked this out completely from within the eeepc (no need to boot from USB). Only need to boot into rescue mode to move the 4 files to sda1 after I built them in sda2.

But if you want to resize your SSD, completely remove sda2 to give more space to sda1, then you definitely need a Puppy Linux on USB or something like this with a re-partitioning program available.

Here is how I do it last time from within Eeepc (without booting from USB). The steps are actually quite similiar, but I am writing this for those who are unfamiliar with Linux.

There are basically 3 parts to this:
(A) Prepare your SDHC
(B) Edit the boot scripts to use SD instead
(C) Boot into rescue mode and move the edited files to sda1

==========================

Part A: Prepare the SDHC

1) Usually a SDHC comes formated as fat32. For use as part of the filesystem in Linux, you will have to fdisk and change it to ext3. And before you do that, it is better to umount it first (because Xandros will automatically mount it). Open a terminal and enter the following commands:
[NB. Read this wiki for how to work with the command line in a terminal]

sudo bash
umount /media/MMC-SD/xxxxxx
cfdisk /dev/sdb
Delete > New > Primary > Enter > Write > "yes" > Quit

This will delete the existing partition, and create a new primary partition with the whole size of the SDHC.

The first command give you root privilege. For the 2nd command, you need to find out the folder name where your SD is mounted. An easy solution is just press [TAB] after your enter "umount ... MMC-SD", then the system should be able to auto-complete for you.

2) Format the new partition (sdb1) to ext2 and label it as USER. Then create a journal file system (ext3) on it.

mke2fs -c -L USER /dev/sdb1
tune2fs -j /dev/sdb1

3) Mount the drives and copy all data from your existing USER partition (sda2) to your new USER partition (sdb1)

cd /mnt
mkdir sda1 sda2 sdb1
mount -t ext3 /dev/sda2 /mnt/sda2
mount -t ext3 /dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb1
cd /mnt/sda2
cp -ax * /mnt/sdb1

Now your new USER partition in SDHC is ready for use.

==========================

PART B: Edit the boot scripts to use SD instead

In this part, you will need to modify the initramfs image and the scripts /sbin/formatuser.sh and /sbin/scanuser.sh to use sdb1 instead of default sda2. Alternatively, you can download the initramfs image I have hosted here. Then you can skip steps 1 to 4.

1) Create a temp dir (e.g. called temp) and unpack the original initramfs image there.

sudo bash
mkdir /boot/temp
cd /boot/temp
gunzip < /boot/initramfs-eeepc.img | cpio -i

This will create a folder tree inside /boot/temp with a file called "init" which is the bootup script we need to modify.

2) Edit "init"

kwrite init

Copy and paste the content from the init on my website to here.

3) Create a device (sdb1) as the mounting point for the SD during the boot up process in /dev of the temp folder.

cd /boot/temp/dev
mknod -m 660 sdb1 b 8 17

4) Now re-pack the initramfs image:

cd /boot/temp
find | cpio -H newc -o | gzip -9 > ../initramfs-eeepc.img

5) Open a File Manger, copy the 2 script files /sbin/formatuser.sh and /sbin/scanuser.sh to /home/user, then open in Text Editor to edit them, searching and replacing all "sda2" with "sdb1".
[NB. Verify the files have execute permission by Right click > Properties > Permission > check all "exec" boxes.]

==========================

PART C: Boot into rescue mode and move the edited files to sda1

As the SYSTEM partition (sda1) is always mounted read only, you can not make any change to it unless you boot into rescue mode. Read this wiki for details. Here I will only give brief instructions.

1) Reboot and press F9 repeatedly. This will take you to the Grub boot menu.
[NB. There is only 1 sec you can access F9. If you have difficulty to get this working, you can try to press ESC first (keep depressed). Then ENTER after the BIOS screen show up, and immediately followed by F9]

2) Press 'e' to edit the Normal Boot entry. Add XANDROSBOOTDEBUG=y to the end of the line that reads "kernel /boot/vmlinuz … ". Then press ENTER, and then "b" to boot.

3) Now you should be taken to a BusyBox shell. Enter the following commands to mount sda1 and sda2, backup and move the files you have created to required locations in sda1.
[NB. You can use the TAB key to auto-complete, wherever applicable]

mount -t ext2 /dev/sda1 /mnt-system
mount -t ext3 /dev/sda2 /mnt-user
cd /mnt-system/boot
mv initramfs-eeepc.img initramfs-eeepc.img.orig
cp /mnt-user/initramfs-eeepc.img .
cd /mnt-system/sbin/
mv scanuser.sh scanuser.sh.orig
mv formatuser.sh formatuser.sh.orig
cp /mnt-user/home/user/scanuser.sh .
cp /mnt-user/home/user/formatuser.sh .
cd /
umount /mnt-system
umount /mnt-user

[NB. The "." at the end of some of the commands above stands for current folder. Don't miss it or you may overwrite your /boot folder.]

EDIT 2009/3/17: I have changed the move command (mv) to copy (cp) in the 4th line to avoid possible mistake by the user (forgetting the . at the end of the command, thus overwriting the whole /boot folder.

Now wait at least 15 sec to make sure all data is written to the disk and all disk caches are flushed. Then reboot.

One reminder: Be sure to get a good quality SDHC (in terms of both reliability and speed).

Additional: Like this, your system won't boot without a SD card. So, I also add a RAM mode to play safe. If you like, you can download the initramfs image for RAM mode from my webpage: http://eeepc.fire.prohosting.com/ or you can follow the wiki instructions to build it yourself.

Last edited by albkwan (2009-03-17 7:00:27 am)

May be the USB modules are unloaded during suspend mode. Personally I never use the Suspend mode - Just a waste of battery power. After all, the Eeepc switch off and boots up so fast.

Just to add my thanks to albkwan for this excellent piece of work. Have used an 8GB Transcend Class 6 to extend unionfs and this has enabled me to install OOo 2.3, Crossover Office with MS Office 2003 and MS Project 2003 plus a whole host of other stuff and I've still got nearly 6GB free.

As an added bonus I've reformatted /dev/sda2 and mounted it as an extension to /home/user.

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs                7.4G  1.3G  5.8G  19% /
/dev/sda1             7.4G  1.3G  5.8G  19% /
unionfs               7.4G  1.3G  5.8G  19% /
tmpfs                 443M   12K  443M   1% /dev/shm
tmpfs                 128M   64K  128M   1% /tmp
/dev/sdb1             7.4G  1.3G  5.8G  19% /media/MMC-SD/USER
/dev/sda2             1.4G  397M  953M  30% /home/user/wrightn1

Awesome work.

BTW: Slight increase in boot time and very slight increase in shutdown time but nothing to complain about. Not tried suspend yet but if I get the same problems as already mentioned I'll post back (and try to fix it).

Cheers

Thanks Solidus - nice to know it isn't a major issue - I'm sure you're right about the cache flush else I'm sure we'd have many more reports of SD's getting corrupted on suspend by now!

While we are on the subject, does anyone know how to prevent the card also automounting to /home/user/MMC-SD/xxxxxx (as demonstrated in my df -kh output above)? This automount is pointless really as it (the card) is already mounted as part of unionfs when the autodetection dialog kicks in and while there is no harm in two mount points, I like everything to be tidy

It isn't important - more of an annoyance really. I did do a search on the forum and of course read the wiki and while I know how to change the mount point by virtue of serial number identification etc. I can't find any reference to surpressing the automount for a given device - while of course leaving other USB devices still automounting (i.e. USB memory sticks and the like).

Like I say - not important but any pointers gratefully received.

Cheers

First : please forgive my bad english, I don't speak this language fluently.
Your method is awesome good news : now we can have this very simple machine AND a reasonable space to save datas.
However, for a real linux newbie like me, such methods seem exceedingly uneasy to understand... I've not used it yet, because I want to know some other things about the way linux/xandros works (I've always used Windows till today, since Linux seemed really too hard to install and to use efficiently without spending hours trying to understand everything). When Linux gurus like you create such a method to do something (using SD card as the main "hard drive", changing the icons in the system menus, etc.), isn't there a way to create the equivalent of a batch file for windows, a simple file that you can click and which does all the command lines for you ?
I know some of you will think I'm just lazy. I'll try to explain my point of view : I'm a "computer teacher", and I teach different kind of people (children, teenagers, but also adults and old people). Some of them just want to "learn computer science", and they really love to learn new things, new technologies, and the special logic of the computers.
Some of them just want to do something, and they want the job done without being forced to learn something that has no link to what they want to do. When a nice grandma tells me : "I'd like to communicate with my grandchildren", I can't explain SMTP and POP to her, and most of the time, she won't even want to know that the software she'll have to use is named Thunderbird or Foxmail or Outlook. She just wants to send a "letter", you see ?
I know that one day, someone will just ask me : "well, my eeepc is full, and I want to add extra storage, but when I put an SD card in, nothing seems to work as I would want to."
I'll have to use your method (it's very well explained for someone who knows a few things about computers, and it's a wonderful work). But it would be better if I could say : "well, there's a simple way to do this. Juste install this .deb package, and then, you juste have to click on your SD card icon, and then on "make my SD card a secondary hard drive", and it will work.
There is a gap between some computer users : the real linux fans who know how things work, but who seem, most of the time, unable to explain in very simple terms (I've surfed on MANY "beginner" websites, and found only two in french who were really explaining, with day to day terms, what linux does and how it does it, the repositories, for example), and the computer user who just wants things to work.
As long as this gap exists, people will prefer using windows...
Thanks for your wonderful work, albkwan, because your posts answered many questions I had about Linux, the eeePC and your method to use SD cards ! I have the feeling that the eeepc is a machine that can begin to close the gap, and connect the newbies and the real linux users.

Last edited by sendoshi (2008-02-15 8:29:56 am)

sendoshi wrote:

First : please forgive my bad english, I don't speak this language fluently.
Your method is awesome good news : now we can have this very simple machine AND a reasonable space to save datas.

CUT

But it would be better if I could say : "well, there's a simple way to do this. Juste install this .deb package, and then, you juste have to click on your SD card icon, and then on "make my SD card a secondary hard drive", and it will work.

CUT

Thanks for your wonderful work, albkwan, because your posts answered many questions I had about Linux, the eeePC and your method to use SD cards ! I have the feeling that the eeepc is a machine that can begin to close the gap, and connect the newbies and the real linux users.

Sendoshi - First, your english is just fine and you have made your point very well indeed.
Another member (Loccy) made a similar point earlier in the discussion...

Loccy wrote:

Am a little surprised the Eee doesn't come with a "use SD card as additional system space" option. UnionFS would seem to lend itself ideally towards it and it'd be a useful feature even for the "my first computer" original target audience of the Eee.

However, given the original target audience for the EEE - I have to say I can understand why ASUS didn't do this - they view the SDHC slot (and the USB slots) as a way to add extra storage and functionality without the complication of modifying the operating system to permanently reside onto a wide variety of storage options. Also - ASUS can't really extend their guarantee of functionality (such as it exists) to third party storage devices, this being especially true of SDHC cards where some cards have proved very troublesome if you read elsewhere in this forum.

Albkwan (or indeed anyone) can't make a .deb package to do this for us as the steps involved (especially booting into rescue mode or booting into puppy linux) are somewhat manual and can't be successfully scripted.

So sorry Sendoshi (and indeed Loccy) - if you want to do this - have faith in Albkwan's instructions - they do work - but do this at your own risk!

Oh and welcome to Linux and the EEE

Thanks Nickw and everyone !

To Solidus :
I understood that you can use the SD card/USD to store your documents/files, etc. But if I install many softwares ("heavy" ones), will the SSD suffice ?
How many softwares can you install on such a small space before the eeePC tells you : "Not enough space to install this software" ? I mean : when there isn't enough space anymore, you have to use this kind of method (mounting SD card as a additonal "system space"), don't you ? 
These are newbies questions, of course, but I'm more and more interested by linux (I have to confess that I installed a Debian on an old PC I had at home... An "avowedly geeky" act - I love that expression !  - I'm probably contaminated now... ^_^).
The eeepc really converted me to Linux and I think (and hope) I won't be the only one in the months to come...