From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Feb 14 21:11:38 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 183CB106566B for ; Tue, 14 Feb 2012 21:11:38 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mandrews@bit0.com) Received: from magnum.bit0.com (magnum.bit0.com [IPv6:2604:e700:b0:1::200]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BE1788FC0A for ; Tue, 14 Feb 2012 21:11:37 +0000 (UTC) Received: from magnum.bit0.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by magnum.bit0.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 07E49EBAF for ; Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:11:37 -0500 (EST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed; d=bit0.com; h=message-id :date:from:mime-version:to:subject:references:in-reply-to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; s=boogity; bh=AZHd+fXiv NRdaxMSCvtuz4Gz7XZ1dmfRpfQXMiLuJ5M=; b=YQX050HTmwULALnzc30aGlX6C tmhxasKJITGw42FrM92lBZPLuhNDv7/zighT1LRMa1/q3Xo+yrqPLlbg00gpO4Fp tHNrfZPjfFPCdzQbCf/94djqzbZycvNlIsX73C3imiXhyVbuuCv7m7CoRQogNSfr 2xVrXtNkOBmwy93whY= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=bit0.com; h=message-id:date :from:mime-version:to:subject:references:in-reply-to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; q=dns; s=boogity; b=qii FiwgGR0NQEnBzL/SN5oBcZ5UdERk7gbUBUw5ox3f5vofbIXAGm2d4YPukmOE8D+n esAfjri2jwGQpXnlTVZqjZByaY9tMad5Qv0xdMO4NeTWSlARQDddNOZ2rztHG2lg c06bJAKAnn/R6pv+V8wI6Lph/Tbtd6N/yBr4Z1Ig= Received: from [IPv6:2001:470:1f11:c3c:230:1bff:febc:8604] (unknown [IPv6:2001:470:1f11:c3c:230:1bff:febc:8604]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by magnum.bit0.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id C9985EBAE for ; Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:11:36 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <4F3ACDE7.8060003@bit0.com> Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:11:03 -0500 From: Mike Andrews User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:6.0) Gecko/20110812 Thunderbird/6.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org References: <4F355A5B.9080007@rewt.org.uk> <4F35743B.4020302@os2.kiev.ua> <4F37DBA3.7030304@cran.org.uk> <20120213195554.O46120@sola.nimnet.asn.au> <092c01cceb40$2dc8f240$895ad6c0$@fisglobal.com> <095a01cceb54$04a38fb0$0deaaf10$@fisglobal.com> In-Reply-To: <095a01cceb54$04a38fb0$0deaaf10$@fisglobal.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: New BSD Installer X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2012 21:11:38 -0000 On 2/14/2012 3:05 PM, Devin Teske wrote: > Please don't get rid of fdisk or bsdlabel as they are (and forever will be) > required to do things like: > > 1. scripted formatting of a thumb drive > > 2. automated probing of disk information (fdisk -p) > > 3. Other tasks that are not suitably handled by curses-based utilities > > For example, the following command will create a second Windows partition on a > thumb drive without user interaction: > > echo "p 2 0x0c * *" | fdisk -f - /dev/da0 > > If you take away fdisk, how am I supposed to achieve the above? /sbin/gpart add -t 12 -i 2 da0 (Untested, but that should work...) gpart is very scriptable, and still handles MBR and bsdlabel partitions if you need to work with removable media or volumes that will never be larger than 2 TB. "gpart list" and "gpart show" would get you all the machine-parsable stuff you'd ever need. The 2 TB limit is *the* reason to move from MBR+bsdlabel to GPT though. Even without RAID, 3 TB disks exist already. :) With FreeBSD's boot code, you don't even need an EFI-capable machine to boot from a GPT-partitioned device. For non-removable media, it's time to move on. Really. :) Even on smaller 250 GB disks, I'm using GPT just because there's no reason not to... it's just cleaner and it was easier to write gpart scripts than it was to script fdisk/bsdlabel scripts anyway.