Homebrew Discussion Switchroot: HOS partiton on exfat?

[jacobsson]

Hi guys and gals.
First: Let's skip the "no you can't" or "exfat is super dangerous" -replies for now (been using exfat for years), I'd appreciate if we kept the discussion on subject

Goal: My goal is to have a neat little dongle-less setup focused on emulation w/ triple boot: HOS, Android and Linux from one SD-card which is now setup on a 512GB card.

Problem: Since I'm planning to emulate GC/Wii and many games are 4GB+ which is the limit of fat32, (as soon as I format HOS to exfat it can no longer boot into Android or Linux).

Question: Is there anyway I can have my HOS partition formatted to exfat and still keep the Switchroot boot intact?
If not, how come?

Thank you!
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TLDR: Possible solution for exFat support for those interested:
For anyone interested in pursuing this further, I'll quote my post further down:

found out that the limitation of exfat support lies in the implementation of switch-uboot. Apparently this u-boot fork by shinyquagsire23 has exFat support

Merging or implementing his changes into the official repo and rebuilding switch-root might be your best bet.

 

[mathew77]

Do not use exFAT on a Switch HOS, it's broken here, use FAT32 instead.

 

[jacobsson]

Do not use exFAT on a Switch HOS, it's broken here, use FAT32 instead.

You did not read the first second line in my post. Any chance you would remove the post it to keep the thread clean? Thank you

 

[jacobsson]

@mathew77 Wow, the disrespect, sad to see to be honest. Please be constructive or refrain yourself from posting. I want to keep the thread on topic.
Any moderator that could help me?

 

[jacobsson]

@mathew77 I don't know what your problem is, browsing through your post history you seems like a reasonable person and I don't believe we ever spoke before? Your behavior seems very unprovoked. I believe people are under more stress than usual due to the pandemic so maybe you could rethink what you are doing and remove these posts, just to help another member out?

 

[CompSciOrBust]

If you can't figure out how to do that on exfat you can split a file in to 4 gb chunks and place them in to a folder with the archive bit set, HOS will see it as a single file. I'm not 100% sure what tools you need to do it though.

 

[duckbill007]

Do not use exFat. Use FAT32

 

[jacobsson]

If you can't figure out how to do that on exfat you can split a file in to 4 gb chunks and place them in to a folder with the archive bit set, HOS will see it as a single file. I'm not 100% sure what tools you need to do it though.

That's very interesting, I'll look into this, thank you man!

 

[CompSciOrBust]

That's very interesting, I'll look into this, thank you man!

To split the files you could try this. It is designed for NSP files but it might work for anything.
https://github.com/Aionmagan/NSPsplitty
As for setting the archive bit, NX-Shell can do that.
https://github.com/joel16/NX-Shell

 

[mathew77]

split a file in to 4 gb chunks and place them in to a folder with the archive bit set, HOS will see it as a single file.

He wants to use 4GB+ ROM files with GC/Wii emulator under L4T Ubuntu / Switchroot, not under the HOS, and they don't use this splitting method with archive bit at all, so it's useless for non-HOS OSes, unfortunately.

 

[CompSciOrBust]

He wants 4GB+ ROM files using with GC/Wii emulator under L4T Ubuntu / Switchroot, not under HOS, and they don't use this splitting method with archive bit at all, so it's useless for non-HOS OSes, unfortunately.

Ah right. Sorry I misunderstood.

 

[jacobsson]

@mathew77 Good clarification
@CompSciOrBust No problem. All bits and pieces are useful, appreciate your contribution.

 

[Foxi4]

@mathew77 I think they understood your recommendation the first time you made it. Next time's a warn - stop spamming the thread with the same message over and over again.

 

[hippy dave]

Put the GC/Wii games on a different partition, eg. the Android user partition? It's not like you can play them from HOS anyway.

 

[jacobsson]

Put the GC/Wii games on a different partition, eg. the Android user partition? It's not like you can play them from HOS anyway.

Retroarch works pretty well currently under Atmosphere, another upside with using HOS partition that this is the one that shows when mounting the SD-card in windows and TWRP.

I found out that the limitation of exfat support lies in the implementation of switch-uboot. Apparently this u-boot fork by shinyquagsire23 has exFat support. I guess I need to learn the build process switch-root to achieve my goal.

 

[kidkat210]

I haven't messed with android a whole lot, I also haven't messed with Linux. But couldn't you plug in an external hdd/thumb drive and play it from that?

 

[hippy dave]

Retroarch works pretty well currently under Atmosphere, another upside with using HOS partition that this is the one that shows when mounting the SD-card in windows and TWRP.

I found out that the limitation of exfat support lies in the implementation of switch-uboot. Apparently this u-boot fork by shinyquagsire23 has exFat support. I guess I need to learn the build process switch-root to achieve my goal.

That's one thing you could do, but I bet it would take you less time to get a driver working on Windows to access the android/linux partitions than it would to build switchroot.

Either way, honestly I'm glad you're doing the research and seeing how you can achieve it yourself rather than just asking the devs to do more work.

 

[jacobsson]

I haven't messed with android a whole lot, I also haven't messed with Linux. But couldn't you plug in an external hdd/thumb drive and play it from that?

Absolutely, but that would unfortunately not achieve the all-in-1 goal of one SD-card.
Thank you for the suggestion though!

 

[grabman]

I feel that sometimes you spin your wheels and you keep spinning. This is a general life thing. But the key is to adapt. There is an obvious solution to your dilemma.

It's called usb.

I really don't know what to tell you if you want to insist on stuffing it all into one sd. That's like your deal ya know?

I hope this makes sense...

Trots off to continue enjoying his Android TV switch install with 256gb removable usb storage...

 

[jacobsson]

I feel that sometimes you spin your wheels and you keep spinning. This is a general life thing. But the key is to adapt. There is an obvious solution to your dilemma.

Love your channel bro, good stuff! My USB-c port is already occupied by a USB-c BT transceiver and I love it.
If weren't spinning our wheels, new adaptions and iterations of stuff we use wouldn't surface.
In your case, If you really accepted the old way of thinking, how could you ever find a way to decrypt those emu files, bet those wheels where spinning pretty hard. Just a thought.

Anyway, since I now know what needs to be done I have contemplate if it's worth the time I need to invest.