A question about memory, and custom kernel boot parms

There's a memory issue I have found with the Gentouch. It seems to be common, I noticed similar results in a couple pictures on this site. The Gentouch is shipped with 256MB of RAM. The problem is that the system only reports 154MB.

Code:


# cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal:        157808 kB
MemFree:            1724 kB
Buffers:              0 kB
Cached:            39920 kB
SwapCached:            0 kB
Active:            50172 kB
Inactive:          52380 kB
Active(anon):      49356 kB
Inactive(anon):    49496 kB
Active(file):        816 kB
Inactive(file):    2884 kB
Unevictable:      26712 kB
Mlocked:              0 kB
SwapTotal:            0 kB
SwapFree:              0 kB
Dirty:                0 kB
Writeback:            0 kB
AnonPages:        89356 kB
Mapped:            11196 kB
Slab:              5192 kB
SReclaimable:      1032 kB
SUnreclaim:        4160 kB
PageTables:        8424 kB
NFS_Unstable:          0 kB
Bounce:                0 kB
WritebackTmp:          0 kB
CommitLimit:      78904 kB
Committed_AS:    2565628 kB
VmallocTotal:    352256 kB
VmallocUsed:      49468 kB
VmallocChunk:    285700 kB


At first I thought that perhaps the memory was in use by a ramdisk, and I know Android uses ramfs, but the profile did not quite fit. I opened a ticket with Augen for this (something I would not recommend, I had a horrible time with them trying to get an RMA). I did receive a lip service response in the ticket, but when I asked live support about it they told me this is a 'software issue with Android', and tried to tell me it's a bug that limits how much memory Android can see.

I am a linux admin, and I find this hard to believe since Android is a very close cousin to linux.

What I want to do is change the boot parms in the kernel image, which are currently set to this.

Code:


dev/mtd/mtd7ro:console=ttySAC0 androidboot.hardware=tcc92xx


In linux I can specify the amount of memory by hand in the kernel parameters like this.

Code:


dev/mtd/mtd7ro:console=ttySAC0 androidboot.hardware=tcc92xx mem=256M


I have extraced the boot.img and the bit I want to change is inside the boot.img-kernel, but so far I have not found any method by which to extract, modify and re-pack this file. It would be much easier if this was in the ramdisk image, but alas it is not. Am I looking in the wrong direction? I would expect there to be some other boot config that controls the parms.

I am not through picking at it, but I am going to take a break and thought someone here might save me some time and give me a nudge in the right direction. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Oh and since this is my first time posting, thanks tipstir. Your site has been a great resource as I dig into how this thing works.

Wow you solved the issue. Let me see? I wonder if this could be use on the KYROS, but wait did you try SmartSufer ROM and compare, but you still need to get into the boot.img. WinRAR Corp can let you peek inside. Do you have XP or 7 Box?

tipstir wrote:Wow you solved the issue.

I am not so cocky as to say I solved the issue.

What I have done is defined the problem and, on the fact that Android is linux based, hypothesized and proposed a workaround solution.

tipstir wrote:Let me see? I wonder if this could be use on the KYROS, but wait did you try SmartSufer ROM and compare,

I have not tried the SmartSurfer ROM. I googled it after I read that, and saw your review. Is there evidence that this ROM will work on the Gentouch? It stands to reason with hardware based on the same reference board all should work.

If it does, what are the board layout differences? Is there a chance there is a rough in for GPS on the board? I am not above hacking the hardware.

tipstir wrote:but you still need to get into the boot.img. WinRAR Corp can let you peek inside.

I can get into the boot.img. I grabbed a copy of the one with the pirate droid boot logo and extracted the boot.img.

Code:


-rw-r--r-- 1 domito domito 4137184 2010-11-04 23:29 boot.img-kernel
-rw-r--r-- 1 domito domito  824428 2010-11-04 23:22 boot.img-ramdisk.gz


I can extract the ramdisk just fine using split_bootimg.pl, here's what I have.

Code:


$ ls -al
total 180
drwxr-xr-x 9 domito domito  4096 2010-11-04 23:22 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 domito domito  4096 2010-11-05 18:52 ..
drwxrwx--x 2 domito domito  4096 2010-11-04 23:22 data
-rw-r--r-- 1 domito domito    118 2010-11-04 23:22 default.prop
drwxr-xr-x 2 domito domito  4096 2010-11-04 23:22 dev
-rwxr-x--- 1 domito domito 107328 2010-11-04 23:22 init
-rwxr-x--- 1 domito domito  1677 2010-11-04 23:22 init.goldfish.rc
-rwxr-x--- 1 domito domito  14380 2010-11-04 23:22 init.rc
-rwxr-x--- 1 domito domito  5940 2010-11-04 23:22 init.tcc92xx.rc
drwxr-xr-x 3 domito domito  4096 2010-11-04 23:22 lib
drwxr-xr-x 2 domito domito  4096 2010-11-04 23:22 proc
drwxr-x--- 2 domito domito  4096 2010-11-04 23:22 sbin
drwxr-xr-x 2 domito domito  4096 2010-11-04 23:22 sys
drwxr-xr-x 2 domito domito  4096 2010-11-04 23:22 system


The problem is that the boot loader itself, at least the only reference I see to the kernel boot arguments, is actually in the kernel image file. The file's 'magic number' does not seem to match anything except 'data'.

Code:


$ grep androidboot.hardware boot.img-kernel
Binary file boot.img-kernel matches
$ strings boot.img-kernel|grep androidboot.hardware
console=ttySAC0 androidboot.hardware=tcc92xx
$ file boot.img-kernel
boot.img-kernel: data


Unless there is another place to find the actual boot parameters, but I was reading up on ramfs and it seems likely that this is it.

So the currently problem is that I cannot unpack the boot.img-kernel, let alone repackage it once I am through messing with it.

Is it maybe possible to send custom boot options using fastboot? I am really just looking for the shortest path to test the theory.

tipstir wrote:Do you have XP or 7 Box?

Neither. My desktop is Ubuntu linux. I have the Android dev tools installed and use adb with no issues. I can do anything Windows can do, if you give me the Windows version I'll use the linux equivalent. If something is Windows only then I can run it in a VM.

Any help you could provide would be appreciated. If this is a dead end, it would be nice to hit it with as little effort as possible.

Most support of this device is almost dead. There was a few members who had ventured into SmartSufer ROM v3 had worked. Since you're more of Linux guy you have some access to stuff I don't have. I am on the Windows API 32/64 side. I am working on the Rooted ROM for ePAD trying to make the work as best I can do.

If I was you I would install the SmartSurfer ROM and see if they even fixed the issues. The only deal is that it has HDMI features where the GT78 doesn't even have the hardware on the MOBO. So it might be a risk for you to take on.

The original ROM coder guy who make the PROM is took his GT78 back to the store and gave up on it. So by doing that caused what you see today. BOOT.img is the one issue I have on ePad also. is to get in there update the info and create a new image. There suppose to be Windows tools to do it. You might have to check on the XDA site and see if there is any info on what they use or the OPGT78 guy if that info is there.