Question about feature of Recovery 0.15.0

[Bear in NM]

The following is taken from the description of Sirpsyco's latest Revovery image, 0.15.0 on the Sholes website:

Version 0.15.0 is ready now, with the option to select a tar archive from the SD card to install as a ROM. As a note to developers, it now only lists the files that end in “.rom.tar”, “.rom.tgz”, or “.rom.tar.gz”, so name your file accordingly if you want it to show up in the install menu. Also, the text for the advanced backup menu has been fixed now. As of this release, I’d say it is possible to do every part of the ROM installation from the GUI, as long as the developer packages the ROM into an archive for ease of installation.
http://www.sholes.info/downloads/sp/recovery-0.15.0.img
md5sum be4a765dd316b6de93939812132467ed
sha1sum 82f643f4bd8221c14b5050f6b9ba8a85f048cc73

I am trying to understand exactly what this means, and perhaps the specific syntax and methodology of the above. I am also assuming that this allows for a little space saving on the sd card?

So, has anyone played with this feature? When you create the archive file, would you use compression as opposed to just storing the archive files? And lastly, could you help me understand the exact syntax of the archive file. Would it "bdmrs-xxxxxx.tar" or some other variation? His example of ".rom.tar" has me a little confused.

Thanks,

Craig

[Berzerker]

He's talking about the "install" feature in the main menu. It allows you to install roms that are packaged in either .tar, .tgz, or .tar.gz, depending on how they're compressed. Before 0.15.0, some commands for the complete "backup and don't worry about your phone being bricked" process couldn't be accessed through the GUI and you needed to use adb (such as mounting partitions, or actually backing up, etc.). 0.15.0 adds every aspect of this to the GUI, so ADB is no longer necessary to backup, restore, or install a custom ROM.

And yes, I have played with it, as I test recovery images before he releases them. Again, the backup folder that's created (each letter stands for a partition backed up, B = boot, C = cache, D = data, etc.) has nothing to do with the feature he added. The rom.tar, .tgz, etc. business is for the install option. But it also works with restoring from a backup. If you decide to compress your backups, it will recognize them in either .tar format, .tgz, or .tar.gz. You can do this to save space, and it automatically decompresses it when you try to restore.

[Bear in NM]

Berzerker,

Thanks for the reply and verification. I pretty much understood that it was mainly for installation, but the .tar thing had me slightly stumped. As I historically just used zipping and windows, and it is my understanding that .tar may be a linux compression file, I was a little hesitant to try this out just for the sake of trying.

So, syntacically (is that a word) speaking, I would take the individual partition files under the bdms-xxx subdirectory and the bdms-xxx subdirectory and create a .tar file named bdms-xxx.tar, using compression, and then copy this to my nandroid subdirectory? And this would theoretically work on a windows machine using 7 Zip to create the .tar file, as opposed to running Linux?

I have not ventured forth past 2.0.1 rooted and 0.15.0, but I am making lots of backup files as these recoveries come out, to make sure I have more than a few options in the event something goes wrong when I am ready to ROM. Sirpsyco's recovery routines have had no problem seeing my various advanced backups so far, but I have just been a little too worried about the overall process to pull the trigger. Sirpsyco sure has kicked some serious you know what making sure that those of us smart enough to understand backing up have the best shot at an uneventful ROM flash.

Thanks again, and I am pleased that you are using the added feature, and can confirm.

Craig

[Berzerker]

Yes, I believe WinRAR and 7Zip can compress to .tar. All you need to do is compress the folder to a .tar and place it in /sdcard/nandroid and the "Advcanced nandroid Backup" utility will detect all folders, .tar, .tgz, and .tar.gz in the nandroid folder and will automatically decompress and restore if you choose to do so.

[Bear in NM]

Thanks again, sounds like I have guessed about right.

Craig

[leif927]

WinRAR provides complete support for RAR and ZIP archives and is able to unpack CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, ACE, UUE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, 7Z, Z archives.

Taken from WinRAR's website. WinRAR only supports unpacking TAR and not archiving... -_-

Supported formats:

• Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
• Unpacking only: ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, DEB, DMG, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MSI, NSIS, RAR, RPM, UDF, WIM, XAR and Z.

7zip, on the other hand, does! ^_^

[Bear in NM]

Leif,

Just for clarification as all of this non-zip stuff is kinda new to me, packing and unpacking would be akin to the "store" option on 7Z, while archiving would correspond to some level of compression? Although I guess unpacking could/would incude compressed files?

7Z has been pretty straightforward to use, although I do miss the days (before Virus/Trojan) when I could just create an .exe to send to folks. Then there was no question about what they had to do. And I do understand that a .exe does not apply to this thread. And I do have my filename.zip.zip's straight.........

Thanks for the clarifications,

Craig

[Berzerker]

Leif,

Just for clarification as all of this non-zip stuff is kinda new to me, packing and unpacking would be akin to the "store" option on 7Z, while archiving would correspond to some level of compression? Although I guess unpacking could/would incude compressed files?

7Z has been pretty straightforward to use, although I do miss the days (before Virus/Trojan) when I could just create an .exe to send to folks. Then there was no question about what they had to do. And I do understand that a .exe does not apply to this thread. And I do have my filename.zip.zip's straight.........

Thanks for the clarifications,

Craig

Packing == Store == Compression
Unpacking == Decompression.

[Bear in NM]

Berzerker,

Thanks again. My confusion was that with 7Z you can use 7Z format or zip formats which offer "store" or different compression levels. With 7Z and tar, you only have the option to "store" without compression levels, but per your post the tar is compressed. methinks I have it now.

Craig