From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Feb 17 00:08:34 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 276AD106566B for ; Fri, 17 Feb 2012 00:08:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from 000.fbsd@quip.cz) Received: from elsa.codelab.cz (elsa.codelab.cz [94.124.105.4]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D20638FC08 for ; Fri, 17 Feb 2012 00:08:33 +0000 (UTC) Received: from elsa.codelab.cz (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by elsa.codelab.cz (Postfix) with ESMTP id AEC8C28424; Fri, 17 Feb 2012 01:08:30 +0100 (CET) Received: from [192.168.1.2] (ip-86-49-61-235.net.upcbroadband.cz [86.49.61.235]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by elsa.codelab.cz (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id CEFF728423; Fri, 17 Feb 2012 01:08:29 +0100 (CET) Message-ID: <4F3D9A7C.7080900@quip.cz> Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 01:08:28 +0100 From: Miroslav Lachman <000.fbsd@quip.cz> User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.9.1.19) Gecko/20110420 Lightning/1.0b1 SeaMonkey/2.0.14 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Mike Andrews 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> <4F3ACDE7.8060003@bit0.com> In-Reply-To: <4F3ACDE7.8060003@bit0.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org 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: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 00:08:34 -0000 Mike Andrews wrote: > 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. Please don't mix two things together. gpart can replace fdisk and bsdlabel, but GPT vs. MBR is a different thing. GPT doesn't play nice with GEOM classes which store their metadata on last sector. For example, you can't use gmirror of a whole drives and use GPT on top of this mirror. (and gmirror is not the only one) Miroslav Lachman