How to set up a Dual Boot on the n770.

thehomeofDob · 02-08-2007 05:24PM #1

How to dual boot your Nokia 770. 2007HE on memory card, 2006 on flash. Done on a windows machine.

First download and install Nokia’s software upgrader. Here.
Second download 2007HE .bin. Here.
Third download the latest version of 2006. Here.
Fourth download and install Putty. Here.

Now you have all the files you’ll need on your windows machine. Others are downloaded and run as needed from your tablet.

Important! Back up any files you have on your tablet. Everything on the internal memory and external card will be erased

Lets start by flashing 2007HE with Nokia’s software, it’s quite straightforward.
Once that’s done, follow this quick Wiki to enable root access. Here. To add repositories to your Application Catalogue. Open up App. Manager. Tap the middle button on the left side of the screen (middle of the three). Tools > Application Catalogue. Note: use the repo. for the n800 not the 770.
Then install dropbear for Maemo. Here. Third from the top.

There’s a lot of typing from here on in, well, a lot if it’s being tapped out on your tablet. For this reason. Use Putty to log in to your tablet as root. Though there’s one section it won’t work as it requires you to turn wireless off. In Putty log in using root@192.168.2.2 replacing that I.P. address with the one your device has on your own network.

Next we need to partition the MMC card. Follow this Wiki. Here. Take note of this paragraph.

This will create two partitions in a 1GB RS-MMC card: the first one is VFAT (that's what number 6 means); the second one is LINUX_83. The size of the first one is almost 480MB (that's the meaning of the 15000); the second one is sized till the end of the card (that's what ,, means). Partitions third and fourth are empty. You may calculate your partitions based in my description, or read more about SFDISK. (Actually 15000 means cylinders, being each one of 32KB. So that 15000 cylinder x 32 Kbytes/cylinder = 480Mbytes. This means that 30000 cylinder x 32 Kbytes/cylinder = 960Mbytes). I suggest you to copy my example and just modify it slightly.

For my 2GB card. 1.89 usable. I used 1.35GB for the storage (seen as memory card) and the rest for the OS. This allows you to install as many applications as you desire without running out of space in Documents/Pictures etc.
This worked out as.. 1350x32=43200
/dev/mmcblk0p1:1,43200,6
/dev/mmcblk0p1:43201,,
Whatever number value you go for, the second line has to have a 1 added to it. The second partition is made bootable, so only worry about setting up the size of your storage partition.

Next we’re going to get working on installing the dual boot menu. Following this wiki here. We’ve done steps one and two already. The third step should prove no trouble.

The fourth and final step is where I ran into difficulty. It asks you to make a directory called /opt/. Every time I tried, it threw up an error message. No amount of searching gave me an answer. If you get a “file exists” error when trying to create the directory, change the name. Just take into consideration your new directory name each time /opt/ comes up. I used /opt1/ which worked fine.

Second problem I encountered. I couldn’t install tar. This was a quick fix, just an additional repository, with slightly different parameters. Add this repo.

Catalogue name: Maemo Repository
Web address: http://repository.maemo.org
Distribution: gregale
Components: free non-free

Copying the files takes quite a long time, and seems to stall every now and then. Just leave it do it’s thing though and it’ll be fine.

The final step is to flash 2006 back to the internal memory. Just use the nokia updating software to flash the .bin you downloaded earlier. Now each time you boot, you'll be asked where you want to boot from. It does default to mmc after a few seconds though.

Hope this helps. I’m sure I’ve not run into every difficulty, and I’m not expert, but ask away if you have problems.

DeepBlue · 03-08-2007 01:33PM

A couple of questions:

Is there much advantage to dual booting?
The impression I get (from a quick scan of forums and whatnot) is that the hacked 2007 OS is quicker but buggier than 2006OS. Would that be accurate?

dal · 03-08-2007 01:50PM

Thanks very much thehomeofDob for the how-to, I will definitely be using it.

Can I ask you why you dual boot at all and don't just keep 2007 HE on flash memory? What does OS2006 give you that 2007 HE doesn't?

I will be using my tablet mainly for browsing, streaming radio, streaming music (from home server). Is 2007 HE stable for these uses?

And lastly, why do you prefer 2007 HE over OS2006? Is it just a bit faster?

thehomeofDob · 03-08-2007 07:03PM

DeepBlue wrote:

A couple of questions:
Is there much advantage to dual booting?

The impression I get (from a quick scan of forums and whatnot) is that the hacked 2007 OS is quicker but buggier than 2006OS. Would that be accurate?

I wouldn't say there's a huge advantage to dual booting, there is an advantage to booting from the MMC though. Depending on the size of your card, you can have lots more space for applications. Of course, if you don't need room for apps then that point is moot. It also prolongs the life of your internal memory, an external card is much easier to replace than the internal memory if it starts to degrade.

As far as 2007HE goes, I've found it to be quite stable, even more so than 2006. It's crashed far less, in fact only about twice in the last week. Where as 2006 would crash a number of times daily if I was using it a lot.

dal wrote:

Thanks very much thehomeofDob for the how-to, I will definitely be using it.

Can I ask you why you dual boot at all and don't just keep 2007 HE on flash memory? What does OS2006 give you that 2007 HE doesn't?

I will be using my tablet mainly for browsing, streaming radio, streaming music (from home server). Is 2007 HE stable for these uses?

And lastly, why do you prefer 2007 HE over OS2006? Is it just a bit faster?

If those are your main uses, I wouldn't recommend flashing 2007HE, mp3's don't play. I know there's a fix, I've just not found it yet, though I've not looked to terribly hard for it. If I want to listen to the radio, I boot into 2006, doesn't take more than a minute. I've noticed that the battery seems to be better when running 2007, though I've set the wireless to disconnect after 5 minutes and the screen to lock after the same amount of time. The wireless can be a bit of a pain, having to reconnect if I've been reading a long page, but sure, it's only a couple of seconds.
Apart from mp3's I believe video doesn't work natively in 2007, nor, from what I've read does the cover set the device to sleep mode. But with the screen lock/wireless off timers, I haven't noticed any more battery drain when not using it.

I think they're working on a new version of 2007HE, I'd say wait around for it and see what people say then.

dal · 07-08-2007 10:09PM

I just installed OS2007 HE to see what it was like, I didn't set up dual booting tho (Is there a performance increase if you run the OS from the MMC card?)

All in all I didn't really see much difference. I would say a little bit quicker but not noticably for me. I did notice that it autoconnected to the most recent wifi connection on startup, which is nice, tho I think that the startup might have taken a little bit longer.

I have just switched back to 2006 as I want to be able to have the tablet in a "just works" kind of state instead of messing around with settings as I would have to do in order to get streaming working (the fix is here btw). I don't know what else is missing from the 2007HE version but I will wait until the next release before upgrading

How to set up a Dual Boot on the n770.

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