From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Apr 4 17:32:13 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2DC1D16A4CE for ; Mon, 4 Apr 2005 17:32:13 +0000 (GMT) Received: from critter.freebsd.dk (f170.freebsd.dk [212.242.86.170]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7015B43D45 for ; Mon, 4 Apr 2005 17:32:12 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from phk@critter.freebsd.dk) Received: from critter.freebsd.dk (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by critter.freebsd.dk (8.13.3/8.13.1) with ESMTP id j34HW5Cv003211; Mon, 4 Apr 2005 19:32:06 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from phk@critter.freebsd.dk) To: Eric Anderson From: "Poul-Henning Kamp" In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 04 Apr 2005 12:24:11 CDT." <4251783B.400@centtech.com> Date: Mon, 04 Apr 2005 19:32:05 +0200 Message-ID: <3210.1112635925@critter.freebsd.dk> Sender: phk@critter.freebsd.dk cc: Andrey Chernov cc: current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Can't change partition table anymore X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 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, 04 Apr 2005 17:32:13 -0000 In message <4251783B.400@centtech.com>, Eric Anderson writes: > >So, I went in to sysinstall, and attempted to blast my old Windows >partition from my drive. Whoever tried to make sysinstall a system management tool didn't complete the work. The "correct" tool for the task is fdisk(8) which I am quite certain will do the right thing. Now, I put "correct" in quotes because I am fully aware that despite all its deficiencies sysinstalls UI is much better than fdisks. Somebody who reads the above part of this email carefully, they can find at least three things to work on in the above message, but to avoid any transmission loss on this message, I will spell it out very clearly: 1. Improve on sysinstall to do more of the right thing when used on a running system. 2. Improve the userinterface of fdisk. 3. Improve the userinterface of sysinstall. Please notice that these are all pretty easy tasks to perform, it is merely a matter of userland programming there is no kernel magic. (You probably will need a test-machine though, but a soekris can be had for roughly USD200 and is perfect for this kind of task so I don't accept that as an excuse). Poul-Henning PS: And yes, I think improving sysinstall is worthwhile because there is no credible replacement in sight anywhere that I can see. -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 phk@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.