Migrating to larger SD cards

[David Goadby]

Since installing XFCE4 (thanks to all responsible for this) my SD card free space is dwindling. I need to upgrade to a larger SD card. I am sure a few of us will be needing to do this as the standard Olimex card is only 2GB at the moment.

I have some 4GB SD cards and a card reader on a Linux box. Can I dd from one card to another and then adjust the partitions on the target SD card with partitionmanager afterwards? I have done this on hard drives but the SD card format uses mixed partition formats so it doesn't look quite as straightforward.

[friendlyfinn]

I haven't done it myself, but I've seen similar thing been done on Pandaboard.
In that case you would simply dd the whole card as is to the new card and recreate the partition table (preferably on PC).

If I recall right, the instructions where something like this:
If you have e.g. p1 as VFAT and p2 as ext3 partitions, you would delete all partitions and create new partitions at exactly the same starting blocks as before, but only adjust the ending block of the p2/ext3 partition.
After that you would resize the filesystem.

Unfortunately I don't remember all the details. I can check if I can find the relevant instructions at a later time, but maybe at least this will give you some idea what to look for next.

[dangerous1]

Hi, I have done this.
what I did was to use Win32DiskImager (available on the Raspberry pi .org >downloads) to backup original card

Use the same to copy backup image to new card

Then use Gparted to expand the partition.

Thanks for the info on installing the Xfce desktop, it was so simple.

Any ideas how to increase the resolution in Xfce??

[David Goadby]

Thanks for the info. In fact I have Win32DiskImager for tinkering with Rpi - I didn't make the connection. Thanks again.

As for changing the xfce resolution I don't think we can as it stands because we are only using the framebuffer and not a Mali driver. The resolution is changed for LCD or VGA mode and that is it.

As I understand it, until more information is made available by Sunxi, an open source Mali driver is not an option. Even then, although Mali offers 3D acceleration, it only renders images and has no concept of screen resolution; that is handled by the display controller/driver.

That said, this group http://limadriver.org/ are working on open source drivers for Mali. The A13 has Mali-400 so we might be in luck any time soon ;-)

[dangerous1]

Hi David
   Thanks for the reply, I don't really depend on a high-res display for what I am doing. However, if it comes it could make the desktop a little less 'chunky' but no big shakes, I am over the moon with things so far.
Brian

[friendlyfinn]

Uhh, Win32Diskimager and gparted.

My "hacker's approach" of dd'ing+emptying the whole partition table and rewriting it would have been way cooler

[David Goadby]

I'm sure your "lean and mean" dd solution works and thanks for offering it. But, even though I use Linux a lot, I am more comfortable using tools that keep me away from areas where much harm can be done with a slip of a keystroke  

As you might guess I use Joe instead of vi too ;-) 

[dangerous1]

The Linux command-line is a dark and scary place to play and not for the faint-hearted.

For that reason 'I'm out'

not so dangerous after all!