Firmware 4.29.18730 available

[frostschutz]

Originally Posted by Carmelocotonto

Could we change the size of the rootfs in the future, if necessary?

Yes, it's possible and should work fine as long as the partition numbering remains the same and the reserved bootloader+kernel area is untouched. That's where the hard coded offsets are, everything else depends on the partition table. Even so it's a risky modifcation that should not be done without sdcard access and a good backup of the original state.

I don't have a Sage so no idea if it's partitioned any differently.

Updating firmware works even if the filesystem is near full, provided the files unpacked replace existing files (so a file is deleted, its space freed, then overwritten with its new version - effectively the required storage space is not increased throughout the updating process).

It's adding new files (installing mods) where issues can appear if the mod author did not optimize for low storage space. You can write a program in Go but if it has a 5MB binary it should be put on the user partition, not in the rootfs as it could be already full. You can add a symlink in the rootfs or a small wrapper script if required, then make sure it's not blocking the partition so USB connection still work (all user partition data vanishes while USB is connected, "eject safely" has to be observed on both ends).

[Deobulakenyo]

Originally Posted by frostschutz

Yes, it's possible and should work fine as long as the partition numbering remains the same and the reserved bootloader+kernel area is untouched. That's where the hard coded offsets are, everything else depends on the partition table. Even so it's a risky modifcation that should not be done without sdcard access and a good backup of the original state.

I don't have a Sage so no idea if it's partitioned any differently.

Updating firmware works even if the filesystem is near full, provided the files unpacked replace existing files (so a file is deleted, its space freed, then overwritten with its new version - effectively the required storage space is not increased throughout the updating process).

It's adding new files (installing mods) where issues can appear if the mod author did not optimize for low storage space. You can write a program in Go but if it has a 5MB binary it should be put on the user partition, not in the rootfs as it could be already full. You can add a symlink in the rootfs or a small wrapper script if required, then make sure it's not blocking the partition so USB connection still work (all user partition data vanishes while USB is connected, "eject safely" has to be observed on both ends).

Are patches adding mod files or just replacing configurations? I have to say sorry again as i am not a ptogrammer and all these techy talk is Chinese to me 😁 but i want to understand as much as my brain would allow me

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by frostschutz

I don't have a Sage so no idea if it's partitioned any differently.

[root@kobo ~]# df -h
Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/mmcblk0p1          282.5M    225.9M     52.6M  81% /
none                    170.3M         0    170.3M   0% /tmp
none                    170.3M     16.0K    170.2M   0% /dev
none                     16.0K      4.0K     12.0K  25% /var/lib
none                     16.0K         0     16.0K   0% /var/log
none                    128.0K     24.0K    104.0K  19% /var/run
/dev/mmcblk0p3           28.4G    819.5M     27.6G   3% /mnt/onboard

[taos]

Originally Posted by frostschutz

Yes, it's possible and should work fine as long as the partition numbering remains the same and the reserved bootloader+kernel area is untouched. That's where the hard coded offsets are, everything else depends on the partition table. Even so it's a risky modifcation that should not be done without sdcard access and a good backup of the original state.

I did this a couple of years ago when I replaced a 16 GB microSD card in my GloHD with an even bigger 64 GB one. After cloning, I increased both rootfs and recoveryfs to 1 GB each (you never know...) - and the user partition to 40 GB. I did this under linux so I didn't notice at first that the user partition was no longer active. Everything worked fine until I connected the Kobo to a Windows computer that just wouldn't mount the user partition. I just initiated a factory reset (at that time and firmware version it was still a "full" factory reset) because I also wanted to check if this would still work okay after resizing rootfs and recoveryfs. It did and this also set the user partition to active again, my Kobo was recognized again by Windows. So far, I haven't noticed any problems with the larger rootfs and recoveryfs.

Of course, such experiments are always less "dangerous" if you know that you can just put in your old microSD card if something goes horribly wrong...