Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?

[George Brooke]

On Friday 25 September 2009 20:27:33 Torfinn Ingolfsen wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 6:59 AM, Paul Fertser <fercerpav at gmail.com> wrote:
> > And in fact if anybody of those talking about bootmenu, multiboot and
> > such really needed it he would have done it himself long time ago. I
> > bet trying and tweaking all distros including Qtopia, Qtmoko, Android,
> > H:1 etc etc took them 10x time required to build a minimal
> > bootmenu.
>
> Well, this (statements like those above) is why the shoemaker's children is
> still running around barefoot. :-)
> (For those not catching the reference - the shoemaker can make shoes for
> his children at any time, he just never makes it a priority.)
>
> Developers and users have different views of what is required to make a
> device usable.
> Unless the developers recognize that, and produce something that the users
> find acceptable, the device in question will remain a gadget for
> developers.
>
> I had hopes that I would be able to use my FreeRunner as a user one day,
> heck I still have that hope. If that doesn't happen I (and probably a few
> others) will be a bit dissappointed.
>
> Hm, i have my "normal" one on uSD and in case i screw something up i
>
> > just boot pre-installed 2007 from NAND by pressing AUX button at the
> > right time (and yes, i can't manage it with 100% success rate but
> > taking out the battery and trying again is not a big deal).
>
> Lucky you. I have tried the "press AUX button" trick a lot of times, I can
> _never_ make Qi boot anything other that the default (first) partition on
> my SD card. Like this:
> - I don't press anything, the default partition gets booted
> - I press AUX (hopefully at the right time), and Qi never finshes booting
> anything (not in 5 - 10 minutes anyway).
>
> Someone said that Qi is unusable by "normal" users. I wanted to prove
>
> > it wrong.
Speaking with my end-user hat on, Qi does exactly what i want i.e. i needn't even know its there it 
just starts my phone.
> IMHO, you failed to prove anything.
> I still say that Qi is unusable for normal users - it doesn't have a
> reliable way for users to select which partition to boot.
I wonder how many end users really want to switch between distros, i think most probably just want 
one which works (i mean real end-users some would call them joe public).

> If no developer wants to scratch that particular itch, the FreeRunner will
> remain a gadget for developers only.
Multi-booting (i except win/linux for games here as its not really applicable for the FR) is 
generally a toy of developers and "technical" end-users anyway (in my experience).

solar.george
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