Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2007 15:42:41 +1000 (EST) From: Bruce Evans <brde@optusnet.com.au> To: Ben Kaduk <minimarmot@gmail.com> Cc: cvs-src@freebsd.org, src-committers@freebsd.org, Bruce Evans <bde@freebsd.org>, cvs-all@freebsd.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/sys/fs/msdosfs msdosfs_vfsops.c Message-ID: <20070714143935.W6715@besplex.bde.org> In-Reply-To: <47d0403c0707131800h571bfb97ydf12f313b7fd68a1@mail.gmail.com> References: <200707121717.l6CHHl2w076935@repoman.freebsd.org> <47d0403c0707131800h571bfb97ydf12f313b7fd68a1@mail.gmail.com>
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On Fri, 13 Jul 2007, Ben Kaduk wrote: > I recently got a patch committed to the installation chapter of the > handbook, which included two occasions of clarifying ``MS-DOS > filesystem'' as ``FAT16 or FAT32'' [1,2 for present incarnation]. I > am too young to remember the existence of FAT12, so I'll have to defer > to others as to whether the handbook should mention FAT12 in the same > breath as FAT16 and FAT32. What do you think? I think FAT* is newspeak :-). The file system is named msdosfs, not FAT. Anyway, the number of bits per FAT entry is of no interest in most cases, so it shouldn't be emphasized. newfs_msdos will choose the best number, or if you tell it, any number that can work. newfs_msdos(8) says "construct a new MS-DOS (FAT) file system ... creates a FAT12, FAT16 or FAT32 file system". It doesn't say anything about how newfs_msdos chooses the best FAT size or other important parameters. newfs_msdos still hasn't caught up with the renaming of file systems from foo to foofs. > [1] > http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/install-pre.html > [2] > http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/install-trouble.html A quick reading showed some bugs in [2]: - just after "FAT16 and FAT32", it says "The utility most common usage is # mount_msdosfs /dev/ad0s1 /mnt". It should say something like "This utility's most common usage is indirectly via a line in /etc/fstab or mount -t msdosfs. [Example line in fstab, and the above command line with direct use of mount_msdosfs fixed.] This [section of?] the handbook is too small to describe utilities in not most common usage like newfs_msdos." - a little later, it says It says "Extended MS-DOS file systems are usually mapped after FreeBSD partitions ... with the extended MS-DOS partition located on /dev/ad0s3", but there is no such thing as an extended MS-DOS file system. It should say something like "MS-DOS logical drives are usually mapped after primary partitions ... with the first logical drive being /dev/ad0s3" and possibly add some details ("partition" here means an MS-DOS primary partition; MS-DOS extended partitions aren't mapped; MS-DOS logical drives correspond to FreeBSD slices, except for primary partitions the partitions correspond to slices; check that in MS-DOS speak, primary partitions aren't described as logical drives; logical drives may or may not contain a file system, but in this example /dev/ad0s3 has an MS-DOS file system, and I didn't reword things enough to describe this). Bruce
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