In a prior post I wrote about how I got MOSLO running on Nexus 7. In this post I just want to briefly introduce that the current version of the Nexus 7 MOSLO now also supports dynamically loading kernels via kexec as well as the 3G Nexus 7.

The problem with the 3G model of the Nexus 7 is that it has a slightly different partition layout due to an additional partition that seems to be used for the 3G firmware. Basically, the userdata partition on the 3G model is on mmcblk0p10 instead of mmcblk0p9. However, userdata seems to always be the last partition. At least for those Nexus 7 models I could test this was true. The current version of Nexus 7 MOSLO (0.0.15.3) automatically handles the different Nexus 7 models by assuming that the last partition on mmcblk0 is the userdata partition.

Having support for kexec is particularly useful to enable multi-boot functionality. I had to learn that “normal” kexec seems to be broken for Nexus 7 right now. Fortunately, there is a method called “kexec hardboot” that allows to circumvent this issue.

I found some posts by Tassadar who ported kexec hardboot to Nexus 7. He also provides a direct link to a patch against the Nexus 7 kernel. Tassadar is also the author of “multirom” for Nexus 7 and LG Optimus Prime. So, if you are looking for ways how to multiboot you should also have a look there.

The current Nexus 7 MOSLO includes the kexec hardboot patches (both for the kernel and kexec-tools). So far, I could successfully load another kernel from Nexus 7 MOSLO on a Nexus 7 8GB. However, even though version 0.0.15.3 includes first support for the 3G Nexus 7 it seems that kexec is not working on this model yet.