From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Aug 22 00:04:47 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2DA89106566B; Mon, 22 Aug 2011 00:04:47 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from yanegomi@gmail.com) Received: from mail-qy0-f182.google.com (mail-qy0-f182.google.com [209.85.216.182]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C640E8FC13; Mon, 22 Aug 2011 00:04:46 +0000 (UTC) Received: by qyk9 with SMTP id 9so2310773qyk.13 for ; Sun, 21 Aug 2011 17:04:46 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=+x4tu9h4+QCGrzzV4OOV0mbek3kG3yCaCgnvIuDP5Og=; b=A/yXmRsS/rxNKx+kMeVGA5J1aZSWuoRbtN1+0WtX0fkrvWPXC5p+Kd6wPYGLHDclIC u+ZQjLg2DFWEptxg70HQubj2Du2PF4tnTPr2rueAPXFckeK9v2Za4eOSj8vBdM53qnBQ CQCzr7RBtbpF3etEoN+gQ+c85unty6YfLkyP8= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.224.200.3 with SMTP id eu3mr941919qab.279.1313971485684; Sun, 21 Aug 2011 17:04:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.224.178.65 with HTTP; Sun, 21 Aug 2011 17:04:45 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <4E519C13.4060700@freebsd.org> References: <4E4DB9A7.4040404@freebsd.org> <4E517978.2020705@freebsd.org> <64622705-80AB-4FEF-91E9-8F3041818B4E@xcllnt.net> <4E519C13.4060700@freebsd.org> Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2011 17:04:45 -0700 Message-ID: From: Garrett Cooper To: Nathan Whitehorn Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, Marcel Moolenaar Subject: Re: Well, there goes Windows! X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 00:04:47 -0000 On Sun, Aug 21, 2011 at 5:00 PM, Nathan Whitehorn wrote: > On 08/21/11 18:11, Marcel Moolenaar wrote: >> >> On Aug 21, 2011, at 2:32 PM, Nathan Whitehorn wrote: >>> >>> gpart does not support (well, anyway) changing the underlying partition >>> table format without committing changes. Replacing the partition scheme= , >>> which this does, is such an operation. >> >> Weird. I could always destroy tables, create new ones using a >> different scheme and populate it with partitions without there >> being a single write to disk. The commit/undo logic worked >> just as well for those operations as the simpler ones. Did that >> get broken or are you just mistaken? >> > > No, it's stupider than that. When you destroy a gpart without committing, > the GEOM itself lingers as a (none)-type partitioning. This of course mak= es > sense, since that ghost geom is what is maintaining all the state, but > sometimes causes problems. For instance, it breaks some of =A0my lazy cod= e > that identifies non-partitioned disks by seeing if there is a GEOM there. > But, while slightly more complicated to detect, this would not be too > difficult to fix. > > The larger problem is that this behavior means that destroying gparts > sometimes doesn't work at all. For instance, if you have nested partition= ing > like MBR+BSD (or EBR) it is not possible to destroy the underlying MBR ge= om > without committing the destruction of the BSD geom. This is because the M= BR > geom cannot be destroyed, even without committing, while it continues to > have children, which it does due to the ghost geom for the BSD slice. > > The regular partitioning editor only commits early in this particular cas= e, > and asks about each subpartition tree separately with a big scary dialog > box. In the spirit of the autopartitioner, it makes one large scary dialo= g, > and always runs in early commit mode instead of potentially showing many > scary dialogs about partitions the user doesn't necessarily even know abo= ut. > This behavior could be changed, but I think is the most friendly for the > case in question: namely, "I want to blow away everything and let the > installer handle all partitioning details by itself". I think that adding more bold text would better underline the fact that you _are_ in fact going to blow away your partition tables.. Thanks, -Garrett