From owner-freebsd-hackers  Sun Apr 30 22:24:08 1995
Return-Path: hackers-owner
Received: (from majordom@localhost)
          by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) id WAA14313
          for hackers-outgoing; Sun, 30 Apr 1995 22:24:08 -0700
Received: from godzilla.zeta.org.au (godzilla.zeta.org.au [203.2.228.34])
          by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) with ESMTP id WAA14265
          ; Sun, 30 Apr 1995 22:22:55 -0700
Received: (from bde@localhost) by godzilla.zeta.org.au (8.6.9/8.6.9) id PAA17351; Mon, 1 May 1995 15:16:46 +1000
Date: Mon, 1 May 1995 15:16:46 +1000
From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
Message-Id: <199505010516.PAA17351@godzilla.zeta.org.au>
To: bde@freefall.cdrom.com, hackers@freefall.cdrom.com,
        julian@freefall.cdrom.com
Subject: Re: early warning of DEVFS/SLICE mayhem
Sender: hackers-owner@FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

>I'm going to (as soon as it settles down) perform major mayhem on the slice
>code.
>...
>the major change will be the breaking out of 'type handlers' for
>each slice type. I need to write a type handler fro MACH2.5 type slices,
>so I can cross mount my mach 2.5 partitions.. I believe this may 
>also work for ISC sysV and other type 99 users as well. (but am unsure)

This will become very complicated.  There also needs to be a layer to
support a type handler for each slicing type (dsinit() is only for DOS
partitions and shouldn't be called directly).  There also needs to be
a layer for unslicing (striping).

Note that slices are supposed to be machine-independent and support for
foreign labels as labels was not planned for.  I hoped to handle all
foreign labelling schemes by converting them to slices.  This would
require more slice bits, not more partition bits.

Bruce