Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2002 21:56:54 -0500 From: Sean Kelly <smkelly@zombie.org> To: Mark Valentine <mark@thuvia.demon.co.uk> Cc: Julian Elischer <julian@elischer.org>, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@critter.freebsd.dk>, "M. Warner Losh" <imp@bsdimp.com>, freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/lib/libdisk Makefile chunk.c write_alpha_disk.c write_i386_disk.c write_pc98_disk.c Message-ID: <20021026025654.GA23034@edgemaster.zombie.org> In-Reply-To: <200210252215.g9PMFlBO083244@dotar.thuvia.org> References: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0210251415390.7147-100000@InterJet.elischer.org> <200210252215.g9PMFlBO083244@dotar.thuvia.org>
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I'm going to put my two cents in even though I'm not a committer, but just a lowly user. On Fri, Oct 25, 2002 at 11:15:47PM +0100, Mark Valentine wrote: ... > I guess I didn't expect the "compatibility slice" to ever go away... I've used FreeBSD since 4.0. I did not know that your "compatibility slice" method even existed. I've managed to get along without for a long time. > > Ok, so, better late than never.. exactly WHY do you need to use > > ad0a (or whatever)? I can't think of any reasons for keeping that > > old compat stuff other than giving people more time to fix their > > fstabs. Enlighten me.. > > > > There is currently a mechanism for making FreeBSD play ball better with > > > the systems it shares a disk with. > > > > > > GEOM in its current state removes this mechanism, with no replacement. > > > > I fail to see how using ad0a makes it play better with other systems. > > Because DOS doesn't refer to its partition by its index in the MBR partition > table, and apparently some tools therefore feel free to reorder the table on > a whim. I've never come across any tool that did this. If it does, I would propose that it is seriously broken. Further, I believe DOS assigns disk letters by making C: equal the active drive that was booted from, while then labelling the rest of the drives based on partition table indexes. DOS supports 4 "primary" partitions. If this isn't enough, you can use the special "extended partition" and encapsulate more "logical partitions" inside of it. From my DOS days, i recall the ordering of these drives being the order they are lettered. I also propose that it is less important to talk about what "DOS" does/did, but more important to look at Windows NT/2000/XP, since it is the future fo the Microsoft PC world. We're trying to move ahead, not stay back in the 80s. > I can choose betwen hardwiring partition table indexes or using a single > disklabel (is it still possible to refer to the area outside the partition > containing the BSD disklabel in disklabel entries?). With DOS, you had to deal with AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS, Windows 3.1/95, ... This was especially true if you put things on drive D: and not C:, since C: was assigned based on what you booted from. > ad0s3a is effectively a random place. It is almost frightening to me to think that your partition table changes that much and you aren't aware of what is being moved and to where it is moved. > > If you can't remember where you put it, well, that's not something we > > are going to break a good abstraction for. > > I have to figure out where some tool left it, because FreeBSD with GEOM > doesn't provide a way to specify it which matches how DOS sees it. Or, you could find a tool that isn't totally broken. > > This is a case that will happen 4 times a year in the entire world > > in my opinion. Once with you and 3 times with bruce because he will want > > to prove it's a problem. > > Sure, it's only an occasional nuisance. However, it reflects a flaw in > the system, and is not its only manifestation (see my point about scripts > and backups). What scripts do you need to modify? Once you mount a filesystem, the scripts refer to the files on it by path. Do you have scripts that play with the disk devices themselves? Once you modify /etc/fstab, there is little left that needs done. -- Sean Kelly | PGP KeyID: 77042C7B smkelly@zombie.org | http://www.zombie.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message
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