New (very fast) lag fix using internal memory and playlogo1 hack

[Guest Reinder E]

A big thanks to everyone who has helped to create this fix! My galaxy S does feel snappier and I have got a Quadrant score of 2193!

Very happy this worked out so well (after reading a whole lot because I'm a n00b :)).. Also a thanks to tweakers.net forum for the help there.

Big thumbs up!

Hi all,

Sorry for being a n00b (seriously, sorrry!)

When I try to apply this, using the line

busybox mkfs.ext2 /dev/loop0

I get as response

mkfs.ext2: applet not found

Somebody who knows what I do wrong?

[Guest HarryRag]

Very nice fix, just added it to ddjg4, 2160 in quadrant, with all my apps installed.

Happy for now..

[Guest lometje]

Hi all,

Sorry for being a n00b (seriously, sorrry!)

When I try to apply this, using the line

busybox mkfs.ext2 /dev/loop0

I get as response

mkfs.ext2: applet not found

Somebody who knows what I do wrong?

You'll need to have Busybox 1.17.1 >> Read about it in previous posts...

[Guest Reinder E]

You'll need to have Busybox 1.17.1 >> Read about it in previous posts...

Ok, failed to install the correct version of busybox, now I get

failed on /system/bin/playlogos1 no such file or directory

cp: can't stat  '/sdcard/playlogos1': No such file or directory

unable to chmod /system/bin/playlogos1

Anybody?

Edited August 9, 2010 by Reinder E

[Guest scumbag77]

Ok, failed to install the correct version of busybox, now I get

failed on /system/bin/playlogos1 no such file or directory

cp: can't stat  '/sdcard/playlogos1': No such file or directory

unable to chmod /system/bin/playlogos1

Anybody?

i was having this problem until i came out of usb data transfer mode and simply had it connected without any specific mode, this then allowed the commands to run through, their is now a batch file to do all the commands without having to type them in!

[Guest Reinder E]

i was having this problem until i came out of usb data transfer mode and simply had it connected without any specific mode, this then allowed the commands to run through, their is now a batch file to do all the commands without having to type them in!

It doesn't matter if and how I am connected, I get the same message using adb shell, or using android terminal emulator..

Edited August 9, 2010 by Reinder E

[Guest scumbag77]

It doesn't matter if and how U am connected, I get the same message using adb shell, or using android terminal emulator..

well it worked once i unmounted the cards, so fixed for me, why not try the http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=749495 batch file? and not have any of the phones sd cards mounted.

[Guest masi0]

I've managed to follow all of the steps successfully, but now I'm getting a problem getting apps from the Market, I get "Download was unsuccessful" (with Google Maps and Layar).

Is anyone else getting this / can help?

TIA.

Same here :)

[Guest Reinder E]

well it worked once i unmounted the cards, so fixed for me, why not try the http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=749495 batch file? and not have any of the phones sd cards mounted.

Thanks a lot!

I started all over (format, re-firmware, re-unrooted, and used your one-click solution), and it works all smoothly. Got a Q-score of 2186 :)

[Guest scumbag77]

Thanks a lot!

I started all over (format, re-firmware, re-unrooted, and used your one-click solution), and it works all smoothly. Got a Q-score of 2186 :)

i only provided the link it aint my fix lol, btw i also wiped and started again, i think its the best way to do most mods.

[Guest Mike Beecham]

Has anyone got any real info about whether this fix will prematurely depreciate the handset? after all, it's running into areas where it wasn't supposed to run (if I understand it correctly)

[Guest Kipperfish]

Ok, the market is now working fine (a reboot sorted it).

I get around 1900 in Quadrant, but more importantly the phone feels awesome... super smooth and no lag (as yet) with loads of apps installed.

A massive thanks, I was going to try this when i saw someone post it on XDA and here but the guide really helped.

It would be good if you could update the guide to state the requirement of busybox 1.17.1 as this caught myself and quite a few other out.

Thanks again.

[Guest DistortedLoop]

I managed to hose my phone pretty well with this fix, but I did it experimenting with the one-click fix that ryan posted on xda, and I suspect I know what went wrong.

Anyways, before I try it again, and I know I will, since I'm a tweak-my-phone-whore, I wonder if anyone else has concerns about the fact that this fix uses ext2?

No one seems sure of the actual safety of using ext 2 on top of Samsung's RFS. ext 2 is normally not considered safe, no journaling, so if the phone crashes in the middle of something, your data gets hosed and no journal to recover. Other Android smartphones are using YAFFS for speed and security, and our mimocan fix uses ext 3 or 4 for security (journaling). Even RFS appears to have journaling, it's some sort of FAT32 system that's had journaling added.

Arguments for ext2 is that the RFS the virtual ext 2 partition in this fix creates will handle the journaling for the ext 2. Arguments against suggest the file that the virtual ext 2 is in will be RFS protected, and therefor the ext itself is? I don't know enough about this to know which is correct, but I'd advise the following:

HAVE A GOOD NANDROID BACKUP WITH CLOCKWORK ROM MGR IN PLACE BEFORE TRYING THIS - AND MAKE SURE YOUR UPDATE.ZIP TO START CLOCKWORK RECOVERY IS IN THE PROPER PLACE BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING.

RUN FREQUENT BACKUPS OF YOUR APPS AND DATA ON THE PHONE UNTIL IT'S CLEAR THAT THIS IS ACTUALLY SAFE AND NO EXT2 CORRUPTION OCCURS IF YOU HAVE ISSUES.

[Guest Kilack]

I managed to hose my phone pretty well with this fix, but I did it experimenting with the one-click fix that ryan posted on xda, and I suspect I know what went wrong.

Anyways, before I try it again, and I know I will, since I'm a tweak-my-phone-whore, I wonder if anyone else has concerns about the fact that this fix uses ext2?

No one seems sure of the actual safety of using ext 2 on top of Samsung's RFS. ext 2 is normally not considered safe, no journaling, so if the phone crashes in the middle of something, your data gets hosed and no journal to recover. Other Android smartphones are using YAFFS for speed and security, and our mimocan fix uses ext 3 or 4 for security (journaling). Even RFS appears to have journaling, it's some sort of FAT32 system that's had journaling added.

Arguments for ext2 is that the RFS the virtual ext 2 partition in this fix creates will handle the journaling for the ext 2. Arguments against suggest the file that the virtual ext 2 is in will be RFS protected, and therefor the ext itself is? I don't know enough about this to know which is correct, but I'd advise the following:

HAVE A GOOD NANDROID BACKUP WITH CLOCKWORK ROM MGR IN PLACE BEFORE TRYING THIS - AND MAKE SURE YOUR UPDATE.ZIP TO START CLOCKWORK RECOVERY IS IN THE PROPER PLACE BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING.

RUN FREQUENT BACKUPS OF YOUR APPS AND DATA ON THE PHONE UNTIL IT'S CLEAR THAT THIS IS ACTUALLY SAFE AND NO EXT2 CORRUPTION OCCURS IF YOU HAVE ISSUES.

Ouch, yeah that is why I always prefer to enter the lines one at a time, to make sure I know what is going on and see any errors and be able to react to them if there is an error.

Most scripts just keep firing commands out even if there is an error so can cause real problems.

I'd advise the following to all, don't use scripts unless they have been well tested, better to enter the commands yourself and then if you can get an error you can always ask in the forum on what to do next if you don't understand the error :)

As for the ext2 on top of RFS, yeah that was the first question I asked in here but I am not too worried about it, one its on top of RFS, not that I trust RFS much actually.

I think of this as a temporary solution anyway until either samsung fix it properly or someone puts a better file system on it natively somehow like YAFFS.

[Guest DistortedLoop]

Has anyone got any real info about whether this fix will prematurely depreciate the handset? after all, it's running into areas where it wasn't supposed to run (if I understand it correctly)

No real info, of course, since we're in uncharted waters, mostly. The primary concern would be that by using a virtual partition within the file system, we're not allowing the filesystem to manage the wear-leveling of the nand flash memory and we're forcing all the writes to the nand into one smaller area of the drive. Nand does have a limited number of writes, but I've heard that in real life application on SSD drives in computers, you're talking about 5-10 years before that's an issue. Of course an SSD drive is doing its own wear-leveling, and that's not being done here.

Realistically, though, what's the lifetime of the phone itself...a couple of years? Probably not even that if you're the power-user kind of person who would do this kind of hack. I've never kept a phone more than a year, and with Android phones getting exponentially better every few months I may end up on a six month upgrade cycle.

So the answer in my mind is that until the phone's entire filesystem is switched to something like YAFFS, yes, we're probably decreasing the phone's lifespan in that particular part of the nand, but will it happen before we've moved on to a new phone? If not, then it's not a concern. The other possibility is that it does wear out relatively quickly, but since nand space devoted to the ROM is so big, would we just be able to redo the fix after the RFS has identified bad sectors and moved on.

I suspect there's some risk with this fix on the hardware in the long term, but I'm much more concerned with the risk of data corruption in the shorter term.

[Guest DistortedLoop]

Ouch, yeah that is why I always prefer to enter the lines one at a time, to make sure I know what is going on and see any errors and be able to react to them if there is an error.

Most scripts just keep firing commands out even if there is an error so can cause real problems.

Absolutely. I read the scripts, understood what they were doing, and was in a hurry, so figured I'd alpha test for them. I detailed it all over on xda in the thread for the fix if anyone's interested.

I'd advise the following to all, don't use scripts unless they have been well tested, better to enter the commands yourself and then if you can get an error you can always ask in the forum on what to do next if you don't understand the error :)

Agreed. Like I said in the mimocan thread when that first came out, I think noobs doing this stuff should have some idea of what's going on and some basic understanding of what the commands being typed ing are doing. It's worth the time it takes to learn some of this stuff and very comforting to know that since you know what you did, you have a clue of how to undo it. I'm far from an expert, but I can figure my way out of most jams, and I don't have to wait for a forum response in most cases if I have an issue.

As for the ext2 on top of RFS, yeah that was the first question I asked in here but I am not too worried about it, one its on top of RFS, not that I trust RFS much actually.

I think of this as a temporary solution anyway until either samsung fix it properly or someone puts a better file system on it natively somehow like YAFFS.

My vote's for YAFFS. I wish I were sharp enough to contribute to that effort. Probably not that hard, actually: make sure the kernel supports it, then format it and go...? I wonder how much of the housekeeping and the like in the ROM depend on the filesystem in use, if any.

So, ext2, which isn't trusty, on top of RFS which you don't trust, but you're not too worried..? LOL. I agree, it just sounds funny when we put it that way.

I guess I'll give it another go when I get a chance today.

I'm actually thinking that it's not even necessary to undo the mimocan fix to install this method instead. When the commands call for copying over the /data/data to the new location, wouldn't the stuff from the ext 4 partition just copy over where it's supposed to? That's the whole point of the symlinks, to make the filesystem treat the new location as if it's the old.

I think I saw a post earlier where someone reported success without undoing mimocan first, but I know that you did.

[Guest Kilack]

Absolutely. I read the scripts, understood what they were doing, and was in a hurry, so figured I'd alpha test for them. I detailed it all over on xda in the thread for the fix if anyone's interested.

Agreed. Like I said in the mimocan thread when that first came out, I think noobs doing this stuff should have some idea of what's going on and some basic understanding of what the commands being typed ing are doing. It's worth the time it takes to learn some of this stuff and very comforting to know that since you know what you did, you have a clue of how to undo it. I'm far from an expert, but I can figure my way out of most jams, and I don't have to wait for a forum response in most cases if I have an issue.

My vote's for YAFFS. I wish I were sharp enough to contribute to that effort. Probably not that hard, actually: make sure the kernel supports it, then format it and go...? I wonder how much of the housekeeping and the like in the ROM depend on the filesystem in use, if any.

So, ext2, which isn't trusty, on top of RFS which you don't trust, but you're not too worried..? LOL. I agree, it just sounds funny when we put it that way.

I guess I'll give it another go when I get a chance today.

I'm actually thinking that it's not even necessary to undo the mimocan fix to install this method instead. When the commands call for copying over the /data/data to the new location, wouldn't the stuff from the ext 4 partition just copy over where it's supposed to? That's the whole point of the symlinks, to make the filesystem treat the new location as if it's the old.

I think I saw a post earlier where someone reported success without undoing mimocan first, but I know that you did.

Heh yeah two file systems I don't trust.. but at the end of the day I don't exactly carry around vital info on my phone and it is all stored on cloud and all backed up, non journalling systems were used for a long time on windows :) and we survived and they didn't run on batteries so no sudden power cuts here to worry about :D.

So worst case scenario I have to reflash my phone perhaps and restore a backup?

Just doesn't sound like a big thing. As for wearing out the nand.. as you said even if it is wearing it out faster the chance that most of us will be using these phones in 5 years is probably slim and if samsung havent fixed this issue well before then I'd be on another phone anyway which I will be anyway. I doubt I will have this phone by this time next year.. too many exciting ones on the horizon.. I've seen rumours of some pretty nice HTC goodies.. :D

I also think there is a good chance we will see other fixes or improved versions of this fix etc that might take care of any concerns about data integrity and wearing.. it is very early days but very promising.

It was interesting to see the comment from a samsung engineer working on android saying they are working on something when someone sent him an email about this fix... who knows what we might see soon...

[Guest bbtheory]

So what about the 1gb of app space this fix uses up, no one seems to care about that? I applied the fix to my rooted captivate and quadrant scores went up to 2290 but my app space is down to 633mb, should I be concerned I will need more app space?

[Guest Kilack]

So what about the 1gb of app space this fix uses up, no one seems to care about that? I applied the fix to my rooted captivate and quadrant scores went up to 2290 but my app space is down to 633mb, should I be concerned I will need more app space?

your apps are stored in that 1gb of space that it uses, that is why its faster.

[Guest DistortedLoop]

So what about the 1gb of app space this fix uses up, no one seems to care about that? I applied the fix to my rooted captivate and quadrant scores went up to 2290 but my app space is down to 633mb, should I be concerned I will need more app space?

your apps are stored in that 1gb of space that it uses, that is why its faster.

Exactly! This hack moves not only the /data/data that mimocan and Paul we're moving, but also the /data/dalvik-cache that I had suggested moving using mimocan, but also the entire /data/system folder, which means almost all your apps, your apps' data, and the dalvik cache for the apps is moved into the ext2 partition, so you've got a full gig for all that stuff. This also leaves the /system/media alone (market fix) so the battery charger icon and stuff should still work.

Remember, most phones so far have only had 512mb or 1gb to date for all that stuff anyways, so you've got all that, plus room to spare still on the ROM. That's one thing Samsung did right on this phone software-wise, give us that generous 2gb.

Another tip, if you check, the fix made backups on my phone of the various folders (/data/data/bak, /data/dalvik-cache.bak, /data/system.bak)), presumably to easily back out of this or as some sort of fail-safe. You could delete those, or better yet back them up to your /sdcard for future emergencies, and that would free up a lot of space (depending on how many apps you'd already had installed when running this.

[Guest questgraves]

having a nerve racking blast, lol. got up to mkfs.ext2 and get an error can't format a mounted filesystem.

i tried unmounting the internal storage. same error. also if i get stuck. do i need to start over or work through a bug and continue? love what you guys do. thanks a million

[Guest DistortedLoop]

I managed to hose my phone pretty well with this fix, but I did it experimenting with the one-click fix that ryan posted on xda, and I suspect I know what went wrong.

Anyways, before I try it again, and I know I will, since I'm a tweak-my-phone-whore, I wonder if anyone else has concerns about the fact that this fix uses ext2?

I couldn't resist and just ran through all the install steps by hand. Fairly painless, no problems. Should have done that in the first place. Anyways...

THIS HACK IS CRAZY SICK FAST.

The phone literally flies through everything. It's not placebo like some accused when mimocan first came out. I noticed the difference as soon as the phone booted into the lock screen and all the little apps I have autostarting just seemed to pop open and close very quickly, much more quickly than usual. Things feel snappier too, apps opening, app drawer scrolling etc. Some of that may be placebo, but I don't think so. I should have videod the phone before and after.

My SGS was never a speed demon, even on mimocan I only got low 1400s generally on Quadrant. I just got 2155. Pretty impressive.

Well worth the effort so far. We'll see if any of learn to regret this in a few days or weeks.

Heh yeah two file systems I don't trust.. but at the end of the day I don't exactly carry around vital info on my phone and it is all stored on cloud and all backed up, non journalling systems were used for a long time on windows :) and we survived and they didn't run on batteries so no sudden power cuts here to worry about :D.

So worst case scenario I have to reflash my phone perhaps and restore a backup?

Just doesn't sound like a big thing. As for wearing out the nand.. as you said even if it is wearing it out faster the chance that most of us will be using these phones in 5 years is probably slim and if samsung havent fixed this issue well before then I'd be on another phone anyway which I will be anyway. I doubt I will have this phone by this time next year.. too many exciting ones on the horizon.. I've seen rumours of some pretty nice HTC goodies.. :D

I also think there is a good chance we will see other fixes or improved versions of this fix etc that might take care of any concerns about data integrity and wearing.. it is very early days but very promising.

It was interesting to see the comment from a samsung engineer working on android saying they are working on something when someone sent him an email about this fix... who knows what we might see soon...

I do carry some important stuff on my phone, but point taken, most of it is also synced to the cloud, though not all app data, which as long as it's on the sdcard should be safe.

I'm not overly worried, and I agree, too many sexy phones coming out in the next 6 months to think I'll be satisfied with the SGS past Christmas. I hope I am actually, but considering how fast the Nexus One seemed like old news to me, the SGS is sure to as well. It's nice to be able to indulge ourselves like this in these times.

I think Samsung wants to do right by this phone. They clearly rushed it out a bit early to address the EVO 4G and iPhone 4 launches. Their reputation as a high end Android maker is a bit on the line with this one and they must know it.

[Guest DistortedLoop]

having a nerve racking blast, lol. got up to mkfs.ext2 and get an error can't format a mounted filesystem.

i tried unmounting the internal storage. same error. also if i get stuck. do i need to start over or work through a bug and continue? love what you guys do. thanks a million

It depends on how stuck you get, and what you do to get unstuck...

I'm not familiar with that particular hiccup you've got, first i've seen it reported, but I haven't read all the posts on xda re: the manual method.

[Guest NZtechfreak]

Applied the one click lagfix, great stuff, phone finally feels like its running as it should. Quadrant from 844 --> 2099, but as others have said, its not the benchmark thats great - its the actual performance boost.

[Guest edxter]

Hi all, first post here, glad to introduce myself with a quadrant of 2263 :-)

Expect some paypal soon!

thanks