[Server-devel] Best XSCE strategy for us in Pacific with XO-1.5 2GB Testing XSCE 3 on XO 1.5 2GB os855

[James Cameron]

On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 09:20:20PM -0400, George Hunt wrote:
> I ordered a 64GB SD, and have it in hand. It is formatted with exfat
> disk format, apparently a Microsoft proprietary standard.  There is
> a driver for exfat, but it is not shipped with the XO, so there was
> some truth to the hearsay that 64GB SD cards do not work on the
> XO. BUT . . .
> 
> I was able to read exfat formatted "out of the box" transcend 64GB
> drive on a XO1.5, with a downloaded driver, so I expect that
> electrical compatibility is already established.

It is the protocol compatibility that causes us problems.  There's
this tiny computer inside the card which has to interoperate with our
computer.  And from what you describe above, you haven't yet tested
the protocol compatibility with Open Firmware.  You have to boot from
it to test that.

> I think you will want it to be formatted with ext4, because the OS
> doesn't run on a FAT formated drive. I should caution that I have
> read that SD cards have an erase block size that makes it important
> to preserve the partition location and sizing, as the disk format is
> being erased and reformatted.

If you use the drive for the operating system, there's no need to
partition or format, because the fs-update of 13.1.0 .zd file will
create all that is required.  Just make sure you use the devalias
fsdisk ext:0 trick to persuade fs-update to use the external slot.

During boot, the operating system may expand the filesystem to cover
the rest of the device.

> I do not expect that the "prep-storage.sh" script which is part of
> XSCE-0.3, will correctly format a 64GB SD card. I do not know
> whether the XSCE install process will properly function when it is
> loaded into a 64GB SD. (I expect probably so, since I don't think
> the OS would know whether it was running on the mother board or on
> an external SD card).

It must know, and does know.

> I'll experiment with my new SD card, and try to document the results
> with a script that you can use to format big SD cards.

I suggest gparted for partitioning and formatting.

-- 
James Cameron
http://quozl.linux.org.au/