System Root Partition Resize?

[jdaniel]

Is the iphone memory separated ? i.e system is restricted to a certain amount of the memory? And if i keep installing hacks and stuff on springboard is it going to fill up and slow it down? and how do I reallocate memory?

 

[jdaniel]

I found this online somewhere:
"You can increase the file size during creation of the iPhone custom firmware using Pwnagetool. On General Settings, specific any root partition size you want to reserve for your custom firmware, it’s recommended to set 1024 Mb, which can install up to 2 times of the number applications you’ve installed. Once Pwnagetool is done, restore or update your iPhone with the custom firmware through iTunes. The steps are similar to how you normally shift restore your iPhone, you just need to select the custom firmware instead. After restore completed, setup Cydia installer, go to Manage tab and select Storage and you’ll see System file size is 1024 Mb."

Thing is I jailbroke with greenpoison this time round. So I am kind of rusty with the whole pwnage tool thing so..... I have no idea how to set the root partition size. And I forgot.. am I supposed to download a stock IPSW from somewhere online point to that and let pwnage tool customize it?

Now I am on 4.2.1 and baseband is 03.10.01 I think and its factory unlocked. Greenpoison doesnt do anything to do this.. so I do not have to worry.. Is pwnagetool the same? I have 1Gb now but I was thinking of making it 2GB

THANKS

 

[oplix]

default size is all you should need.

 

[jdaniel]

default size is all you should need.

Are you not seeing that theres only 30% left? pfff and thats not the question btw

Anyways anyone else know anything about this stuff. I managed to do it by reformatting and restoring the whole phone and using pwnage tool to create a custom firmware and then use itunes to restore it...

now, thing is, springboard is showing me diff figures than cydia.. what do they mean? Is the springboard numbers after taking away wats used for ios4?

 

[WhatAmI]

jdaniel, I have absolutely nothing productive to add but am going to say this anyway. Unless you're crashing constantly b/o low flash mem it looks to me you're making an issue out of something that really isn't.

 

[HPLouis]

You're wasting space with a 2.5G partition. You're only using 30% of it. I have a 930MB partition and use 71% of it. You're only storing IOS and a few files from Cydia. There's no need for such a large partition.

 

[jdaniel]

You're wasting space with a 2.5G partition. You're only using 30% of it. I have a 930MB partition and use 71% of it. You're only storing IOS and a few files from Cydia. There's no need for such a large partition.

i was at 1GB before stock... and I was using 70%, its going to add up after a while Leave some wiggle room....i see lots of people on the other forums have 2 or 2.5 like me. Just testing to see how it works out plus 1.5gb more its not as tho I am using it for anything else.

 

[HPLouis]

i was at 1GB before stock... and I was using 70%, its going to add up after a while Leave some wiggle room....i see lots of people on the other forums have 2 or 2.5 like me. Just testing to see how it works out plus 1.5gb more its not as tho I am using it for anything else.

You have a point. If you have the space, then it shouldn't be a problem. My experience is that I've always kept my partition size as small as possible and it's never been a problem.

That's my experience though, others may be different.

Henry

 

[jdaniel]

You have a point. If you have the space, then it shouldn't be a problem. My experience is that I've always kept my partition size as small as possible and it's never been a problem.

That's my experience though, others may be different.

Henry

Yeah I redid mine AGAIN hehe and made it 2GB figured thats more reasonable double the stock 1GB

 

[moussekateer]

I found this online somewhere:
"You can increase the file size during creation of the iPhone custom firmware using Pwnagetool. On General Settings, specific any root partition size you want to reserve for your custom firmware, it’s recommended to set 1024 Mb, which can install up to 2 times of the number applications you’ve installed. Once Pwnagetool is done, restore or update your iPhone with the custom firmware through iTunes. The steps are similar to how you normally shift restore your iPhone, you just need to select the custom firmware instead. After restore completed, setup Cydia installer, go to Manage tab and select Storage and you’ll see System file size is 1024 Mb."

Thing is I jailbroke with greenpoison this time round. So I am kind of rusty with the whole pwnage tool thing so..... I have no idea how to set the root partition size. And I forgot.. am I supposed to download a stock IPSW from somewhere online point to that and let pwnage tool customize it?

Now I am on 4.2.1 and baseband is 03.10.01 I think and its factory unlocked. Greenpoison doesnt do anything to do this.. so I do not have to worry.. Is pwnagetool the same? I have 1Gb now but I was thinking of making it 2GB

THANKS

Yeah I redid mine AGAIN hehe and made it 2GB figured thats more reasonable double the stock 1GB

Yes I know I know about this stuff and I know you've just wasted space for absolutely no reason whatsoever. That partition is only used for a very small number of files and libraries that Cydia installs, such as mobilesubstrate. You will never ever fill that partition up. The only people who have a valid reason to increase it are developers running a working directory from there who need extra space. Really should check up on these things before you mess around with this stuff.

 

[willpower101]

Yes I know I know about this stuff and I know you've just wasted space for absolutely no reason whatsoever. That partition is only used for a very small number of files and libraries that Cydia installs, such as mobilesubstrate. You will never ever fill that partition up. The only people who have a valid reason to increase it are developers running a working directory from there who need extra space. Really should check up on these things before you mess around with this stuff.

There's no way you can say this. I wish I'd taken a screenshot of mine before updating. I had 165 packages installed and 85% utilization. My iphone would rarely crash, but apps would auto close a lot and my free memory status bar hovered around 30mb. I had to force close as much stuff as possible to get my free mem close to 200mb and the phone running snappy.

Just upped mine to 1.5 and we'll see what happens.

 

[Intell]

There's no way you can say this. I wish I'd taken a screenshot of mine before updating. I had 165 packages installed and 85% utilization. My iphone would rarely crash, but apps would auto close a lot and my free memory status bar hovered around 30mb. I had to force close as much stuff as possible to get my free mem close to 200mb and the phone running snappy.

Just upped mine to 1.5 and we'll see what happens.

None of your problems are caused by a small OS partition. They are caused by low free/inactive memory. Nearly everything downloaded via Cydia is placed onto the Media partition, not the OS partition. Plus, if you downloaded everything from Cydia onto an iDevice, you'd still have free space on your OS partition if its kept at its default space. That shows just how small the packages that do go into the OS partition really are.

 

[willpower101]

None of your problems are caused by a small OS partition. They are caused by low free/inactive memory. Nearly everything downloaded via Cydia is placed onto the Media partition, not the OS partition. Plus, if you downloaded everything from Cydia onto an iDevice, you'd still have free space on your OS partition if its kept at its default space. That shows just how small the packages that do go into the OS partition really are.

After doing some research I see that the memory problems are seemingly unrelated, although some people are saying that virtual memory is created on the root partition. Eg., if you only have 150mb free you only get a 150mb page file. I'm not sure where this is physically located.

Despite that, how do you explain the root utilization? 85% of 1gb (what it was set at) means I was using 850mb with 150mb free. That's more than the people who have theirs set at 500, 666, 750 etc. That's with only 165 packages installed, yet cydia has thousands of packages available. Not everything in a package gets stashed.

My point is how could anyone claim that it's impossible to fill up the root partition? You are saying that even if I restore all 165 packages and spend a few hours downloading more stuff there's absolutely no way I can max it out?

 

[Intell]

iOS doesn't use virtual memory or swap by default. If you use an ill thought hack to enable it, it still gets put onto the Media partition. And by your description you show that you don't fully understand how virtual memory or swap works on a Mac based system.

The OS partition's default size changes with different versions of iOS. With the newer versions having a bigger overall size. When jailbroken with some jailbreak tools, Cydia changes how the filesystem is laid out on its first launch. On a virgin iOS install, the OS partition is almost 95% full. But its set to read only. Because of this, there is never any need to make any extra space on it. With jailbreaking it permissions are changed to read and write. The first time you launch Cydia sometimes it will say "Preparing filesystem". When it says that here's what its doing: Its moving the /Applications, /usr/bin, /usr/include, /usr/libexec, /usr/share/, /Library/Ringtones, /Library/Themes, /Library/Wallpapers into the /var/stash/ folder and symlinking them back to their original place. When this preparation is complete, a few hundred megabytes are freed up on the OS partition.

Then as you download things, they almost always end up being on the Media partition and appear to be on the OS partition via a symlink. There are a few things though that do not end up on the Media partition. An example is Activator and MobileSubstrate extensions. But, looking at my own 3Gs' filesystem, I see that 154 MobileSubstrate files only equates to 2.7Mbytes.

By the limitations of available packages, there is no way to fully fill the OS partition on a 4.0 or greater device that is prepared via Cydia. Even if you did fill it to 100% (I did do that back in the 1.1.1 days) the iDevice will continue to function properly. Why? Because iOS is designed to never write to the OS partition. So it being full will not matter to iOS.

 

[willpower101]

Gotcha. But by what you've said, why is there ever any need for a root partition more than just a tad bigger than the os + mobilesubstrate addons? What is the point of redsn0w even setting the site to 1gb when it should function just fine on much less? If there's any sort of performance gain at all, when does it reach economies of scale?

 

[Intell]

iOS doesn't have the ability to dynamically change its partition sizes safely, like Mac OS X 10.4.3 and higher do. Because of this, the OS partition is always set to its default and it cannot be changed with anything less then a restore. That's why when you use redsn0w, an after restore jailbreak tool, you cannot change the partition sizes safely.

To the end user, there is never a need to have a big OS partition. All it does is waste space that could be devoted to apps, music, and videos. And there is no performance gains when using a bigger OS partition or one with lots of free space. Remember, iOS was designed to never write to the OS partition. Even with a mostly full Media partition, iOS will still run well. But some things that require lots of caching, like a Safari site with lots of pictures or a large YouTube video, may not work.