DLDI-EXT2

Ewan Meadows ewan.meadows at gmail.com
Fri Apr 18 03:32:14 CEST 2008


I've just put together a build based on GBAMP-EXT2 build, then main
difference being that rather using romfs, it uses a 'proper' ext2
filesystem as root.

The plus side to this is it does mean that romfs isn't needed and thus
saves precious RAM.  Also it means anywhere in the rootfs should be
writable and you can use permissions properly.  The downside is that
it requires you to partition your card and some card firmwares may not
support this.

So far I've tested it with a Supercard SD and it seems to work,
although I'm sure there are a few bugs here and there.  It all really
depends if your card firmware supports multiple partitions, the
Acekard RPG for example, doesn't.

I'm toying with the idea of making an installer which would
automagically do all of this (resize partition, make ext2, download
and extract) but I'm not too sure how much work I want to put into
this DLDI-EXT2 build.  On one hand, I feel it's the 'proper' way to
have a Linux system but on the other it will alienate a lot of people
who can't get their cards partitioned for one reason or another.

Another way to get rid of romfs and free up memory for slot-1 users is
to use initramfs instead and discard after booting, which would
probably be the easiest way for end users, but I like the idea of
using a proper Linux filesystem.  Using an ext2 loopback image file
isn't really feasible as it's quite slow from what I've been told.

Thoughts/suggestions?


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