From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Nov 1 09:18:29 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8412B16A4CE for ; Sat, 1 Nov 2003 09:18:29 -0800 (PST) Received: from segfault.kiev.ua (segfault.kiev.ua [193.193.193.4]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0B2D043FBF for ; Sat, 1 Nov 2003 09:18:28 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from netch@iv.nn.kiev.ua) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by segfault.kiev.ua (8) with UUCP id hB1HIQW6040575 for current@freebsd.org; Sat, 1 Nov 2003 19:18:26 +0200 (EET) (envelope-from netch@iv.nn.kiev.ua) Received: (from netch@localhost) by iv.nn.kiev.ua (8.12.9p2/8.12.9) id hA1HHgus003789 for current@freebsd.org; Sat, 1 Nov 2003 19:17:42 +0200 (EET) (envelope-from netch) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 19:17:42 +0200 From: Valentin Nechayev To: current@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20031101171742.GC1626@iv.nn.kiev.ua> References: <20031026175852.GA770@galgenberg.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20031026175852.GA770@galgenberg.net> X-42: On Organization: Dark side of coredump Subject: Re: Sysinstall's fdisk/disklabel should be improved X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 17:18:29 -0000 Sun, Oct 26, 2003 at 18:58:52, q (Ulrich Spoerlein) wrote about "Sysinstall's fdisk/disklabel should be improved": US> First of all, the Partition Editor has the 'A' option to use all of the US> available HDD space. It creates a DOS-compatible slice (starting at US> sector 63 and ending on cylinder boundary). This is completely useless US> on servers No, even on servers one may use only 6 data partitions or less, as to fit in one bsdlabel. US> and the help menu says that sysinstall will ask if it should US> create a DOS-compatible slice or not. However no such question is ever US> asked. I think help page should be fixed, but not fdisk code. US> Creating the slice manually, specifying the complete disk as 'size' will US> also leave the start and end of the disk unpartitioned (again, no US> question is ever asked). First track is leaved for compatibility with DOS-styled scheme. It is required for many BIOSes which want to determine provided geometry by reading PT. Some last part which can't fit in cylinder in declared geometry, rest unused. It is feature of DOS compatibility mode and there is no need to warn it. US> Ok, then the solution would be to drop to a shell and run fdisk by hand. US> However there is no fdisk/disklabel/newfs in that shell. Even 'ls' is US> not found. Running the LiveCD will give you a working fdisk/disklabel US> but the man-pages are not useable (manpath.config can't be found). US> Succeding in sliceing/partitioning without man-pages will still require US> to reboot sysinstall, because it doesn't re-read the partition/slice US> table but uses the in-memory table instead (I didn't find an option to US> re-read this information from disk) Does you say for 4.x or 5.x? Behavior you said is for 4.x. US> Please consider this, right now sysinstall is a tool which can only be US> used if you know all of it's bugs. IMHO even the OpenBSD installer is US> sometimes more elegant than sysinstall. US> Really brave souls should take a look at this list: US> http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr-summary.cgi?text=sysinstall sysinstall is ugly, but all you said for it doesn't matter, IMHO. -netch-