Using a filesystem from NAND+SD


PowerGod

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This is just an idea that came to my mind, but I totally ignore the argument, so I need some info about this possibility.

If I understood correctly, with Linux you just can tell (to the kernel ??) where the filesystem to be used is located (like Pandebian works ??), now, is it possible to monitor an SD so that if it has the /bin directory, then both the NAND /bin and the SD /bin are used as a single folder ?!

Maybe just creating some kind of symlink on the nand... 

It can be some kind of mess... or not ?! o_O

My purpose is to be able to have complete linux programs installed on a SD, so I can use them with SuperZaxxon without rebooting or installing the OS on the SD...
 
Yeah, just ask someone for a "man pnd" ^^.
 
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unionfs is what's being used for the PND system, btw ;)
Interesting, I asked for a banana while actually holding a banana XD

Yeah, just ask someone for a 'man pnd" ^^.
A "man pnd" is not the same thing, I like to have that command "ready to use" when I'm playing with the terminal, and anyway I have some other programs that I like to have at hand everytime without starting PNDs, but for now I don't need a full linux distro, too much to configure, SZ is just fine. :)
 
What is "too much to configure" ?
For example I need a big dedicated SD (that I don't still have), and put in it a distro, and even if it's premade like SL4P it have too much things I will not use, and I have to remove them to save space, then I should put all my things on this, and anyway it will use one of my SD slots... (I tried the Arch linux for panda because it was small, but I had may troubles with it even for doing basic things... and I didn't had all that time to read documentations and all at the time)

Maybe this is a thing I'll do in some (distant) future, but for now I just need that extra push on the basic pandora os 
 
Well, you can use a simple script with:

removepkg seamonkey gftp ModemManager etc...

to automatize the job, a script that you can reuse.

I thought about making a minimal distro, but we already have Zaxxon ^^.
 
For the purpose of extending the space for stuff you can have on your path, wouldn't it be simpler to add the mounted folder to your path?

If you wanted to make it such that stuff got installed there automatically when you opkg installed it, you could have a empty formatted partition.  Move /usr/bin aside, and add it to your path, then mount the partition as /usr/bin.  You'd need to mount it early in the boot process though, and anything that hardcodes a /usr/bin path in e.g. a hashbang string would need have that location furnished with a softlink (in your SD partition) to keep it working.
 
I thought about making a minimal distro...
No, you must keep working on SL4P :) it's good to have a full OS alternative that can transform this device into a professional full featured machine


@Levi: actually I don't know what should be the more simple solution for me, I still have to learn how unionfs works... mounting alternatives system folders at boot sounds a little too hacky, and not so practical...


I didn't even thought about adding the folders to the PATH, I'll try this to see how well it will work :)
 
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I meant aside the full experience ^^.

BTW i can include a purge script in the next release, what would you remove ?
 
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I meant aside the full experience ^^.

BTW i can include a purge script in the next release, what would you remove ?
I don't know :D It's a difficult question, I mean, there are too many programs I don't know about, and because I never used them I just see them taking away useful space... maybe you should have a look to the distros that offers a 'minimal' installation to see what them are including in the list.

For example I installed Cygwin on my PC with the default installation and it was full of things but I used it just for bash scripting, then I installed openssh, mc, perl, python, just because of the pandora I'm starting to use them, but before I never used them even when I was using Mandriva on my PC... for the rest I don't even know all the other things I have in the Cygwin directory... but in my PC the space is not a problem, so I don't mind so much like if it was on a SD

Maybe you should open a thread to ask what people use mostly
 
Yeah, I installed Ubuntu on my PC originally, but I switched to Debian for a couple of reasons. For one was the Unity and GTK3 interface, which I thought just wasn't ready yet, and the other was Ubuntu's apparent policy of using usr/lib for libraries, not usr/lib for 32-bit x86 libs and usr/lib64 for x86 64-bit libs as Debian and other Linux OSes do. Although considering now my need to cross-compile to ARM as well, either policy seems a bit short-sighted to me.


I'm now going to install ArchLinux because I feel I have a good enough feeling for the various shells, uis, sound interfaces and general programs that I might want to use on Linux, because there are newer versons of many apps I have to compile myself to use on Debian, and because I think I can handle the instability resulting from a rolling release schedule. But I can only think this based on ten or so years or managing my own Linux installation, and forming such opinions on much less is a big ask.
 
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