I hope I am not replicating something someone has done, but I needed to create ext2 partitions from the Iliad, so I built the e2fsprogs package for it.

***Please be careful with it***

The Iliad doesn't support inodes bigger than 128 bytes, so if you are creating a file system that you want to use on the Iliad, use the "-I 128" option. I also usually don't need to reserve space for the super-user, so I use the "-m 0" option.

For example: If you want to create an ext2 partition on the compact flash, run
mke2fs -I 128 -m 0 /dev/hda1

You might need to run fdisk on the partition to make the file system type "linux" (83).
For example: to make a partition on the compact flash be an "ext2" aka "linux" partition
type: fdisk /dev/hda
then type 't' and select type 83 (for a single partition drive)
then type 'w' to write the new info to the drive.

Again... please be careful :builder2:
I hold no responsibility for anything that may happen.
________________________
http://blog.amirshimoni.com/

just to confirm , it works perfectly on iliad :) i formated my USB stick to ext2 through this utility as i did not had access to linux , any how follow are the areas to be carefully checked before formating. ( i am writing specificly for USB but i guess same will be applied for oher storage. )

- You should have terminal porting available on iliad.
- first run only mount command wich will help you identify the real device name of the sd card / cf card / or USB device.
- after noting the device name unmount this device as till it is not unmounted it will not be formated
- now run the commands by replacing the device name exactly the way written by amir in above post.
- after that use the ext2 driver for windows to access this usb in windows as by default windows will not be able to read/write usb with ext2 format.
- now copy the wikipedia etc. or any other program you want to run from this storage.
- now when you will connect it back to iliad that time surprisingly iliad does not detect it automatically ( does not mount actually automatically ). I handle this problem by writing a one line "mount" script to mount it manually. (you might consider changing /etc/fstab things for automation business ).
- after this the last problem is by since you copied it from windows and now this is ext2 so your program might not work at first as there is no execute permissions on the binaries so settle that through terminal program again by running "chmod" commands.
- and finally your progarams ( in my case wikipedia full english edition ) start working.

I changed the line
/dev/hda1 /mnt/cf vfat defaults,iocharset=utf8,sync,dirsync 0 0
into:
/dev/hda1 /mnt/cf auto defaults,sync 0 0
in /etc/fstab.

Now my iLiad automatically mounts the CF card that is in there, regardless of whether it is formatted as vfat or ext2.
EDIT: I guess a similar change will work for the USB drive.

Hi everybody,

Understanding the logic of Atk instructions, I lack the syntaxis. How to mount-unmount a CF in the iLiad?. Can you at least point me to any reference source?

I suppose for you this question may look näive, but it has been 12 years since I left HP UX environments to work on the windoze side and lots of things have changed... I am getting old:bookworm:

Thanks mates!!!,

Partition Magic 8 will do the trick of partitioning to ext2 if you are a windows user, without minimum, minimum risk.
Then Ext2IFS can be used to access the partition from Vista, XP, NT 4.0 or 2000.

Thanx again:D

Understanding the logic of Atk instructions, I lack the syntaxis. How to mount-unmount a CF in the iLiad?. Can you at least point me to any reference source?

I've not tested the following in the iliad, but it should work ;).

To list the supported filesystems:

# cat /proc/filesystems

To mount /dev/hda1 in /tmp/mnt, letting the system to guess the filesystem

# mkdir /tmp/mnt
# mount -t auto /dev/hda1 /tmp/mnt

To umount /tmp/mnt

# umount /tmp/mnt

If you have to specify the filesystem, the most common ones are vfat for windows-formatted partitions (digital camera SD cards and the like) and ext2 for linux ones (explicitly formatted with mke2fs):

# mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /tmp/mnt

or

# mount -t ext2 /dev/hda1 /tmp/mnt

In all the above examples I've used /dev/hda1, that is the first partition of the CF, but if you have more partitions, you would have to look at the exact number using fdisk diskdev "print[ENTER]quit[ENTER]"or "sfdisk -d diskdev" (probably in you laptop instead; anyway out of scope for this little reminder).

Hope that helps :).

I just converted /mnt/free to ext2 from vfat.
Here is my steps:
0. backup /mnt/free
1. edit /etc/fstab and add a "#" in front of the line containing "/mnt/free"
2. reboot
3. execute "mke2fs -I 128 -m 0 /dev/tffsa6"
4. remove that "#" added in step 1.
5. reboot and /mnt/free will be ext2 format

One question:
What is /mnt/protected used for? It occupies 32MB and seems not used. If possible, I want to merge it with /mnt/free.

Added:
Martjin's suggestion is convenient. Do remember to retain "iocharset=utf8" or characters beyond ascii won't display correctly.

I guess that /mnt/protected was created for containing upgrade pacakge download from iRex. Since iRex no longer provides firmware upgrade, maybe there is a better way to use those space.

I guess that /mnt/protected was created for containing upgrade pacakge download from iRex. Since iRex no longer provides firmware upgrade, maybe there is a better way to use those space.

/mnt/protected will be used by the iLiadOS community project for updates as well.

I'm not sure that repartitioning the internal file system of the iLiad is such a good idea... It seems like a big risk for something with little reward.

I'm not sure that repartitioning the internal file system of the iLiad is such a good idea... It seems like a big risk for something with little reward.In the long run it would be good to have a larger root partition (upgrading to newer gtk/gdk/ark/glib/etc will need more room). /mnt/free can be smaller...

In the long run it would be good to have a larger root partition (upgrading to newer gtk/gdk/ark/glib/etc will need more room). /mnt/free can be smaller...

I agree, it would definitely be nice to have.

But until we can perform a hardware level reflash, I think that it will be too dangerous to do en masse for the average user.