Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2001 23:03:33 -0800 From: Peter Wemm <peter@wemm.org> To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch) Cc: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/sys/kern subr_diskmbr.c Message-ID: <20011210070333.D88F33810@overcee.netplex.com.au> In-Reply-To: <200112092200.fB9M0J660085@uriah.heep.sax.de>
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Joerg Wunsch wrote: > Mike Smith <msmith@FreeBSD.ORG> wrote: > > > - The MBR partition table is not "obsolete", it's a part of the PC > > architecture specification. > > Its design is antique. Or rather: it's missing a design. See other > mail for the reasons. For FreeBSD, it's obsolete since we don't need > to rely on fdisk slices. (Or rather: it's optional. We can make good > use of it when it's there, but we don't need to insist on it being > there.) Can you please clarify for me what specifically you do not like.. Is it: - the cost of 32K of disk space on an average disk these days? (and if so, is reducing that to one sector instead of 62 sufficient?) - you don't like typing "s1" in the device name? Dont forget, there is quite a bit of confusion about what "DD" means. "disklabel -rw ad2 auto" is one form. That should not use fdisk at all. This is quite fine, and nobody wants that to go away. But the abomination is the form that is pseudo-bootable. We fill up boot1.s with a fake fdisk table and crap to try and work around cases where we are called either as the partition boot sector, or as a global MBR. This one should be taken out and shot. If you are going to make a bootable disk, you had better play by the rules of the environment that is booting it. At the very least, the fdisk table should be valid! I advocate that the bootable form (where boot1.s is expected to do the job of both the mbr *and* the partition boot) is evil and should at the very least be fixed. It should be something that is explicitly activated, and not something that you get whether you want it or not. This would have solved the Thinkpad and does solve the EFI problem. There are lots of ways that it can be fixed without forcing an "s1" into your device names if that's what is really upsetting you. > As long as you keep the feature of DD mode intact, i won't argue. If > people feel like creating disks that aren't portable to another > controller, they should do. I don't like this idea. Which "DD" mode? Cheers, -Peter -- Peter Wemm - peter@FreeBSD.org; peter@yahoo-inc.com; peter@netplex.com.au "All of this is for nothing if we don't go to the stars" - JMS/B5 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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