From owner-freebsd-hackers  Thu Sep 19 23:53:34 1996
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To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>
Cc: rhh@ct.picker.com, hackers@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: fdisk changes, anyone? 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 18 Sep 1996 10:41:26 PDT."
             <27331.843068486@time.cdrom.com> 
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 23:53:23 -0700
From: Darryl Okahata <darrylo@hpnmhjw.sr.hp.com>
Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org
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> >      To Jordan's point about specifying the partition info using
> > command-line options (to avoid having to use a temp file with this method),
> > a compromise solution might be to be able to specify a "-" on the command
> > line for the config file path to allow the config file to be read from
> > stdin.
> 
> Hey, that'd work too! :-)

     Done.

     I thought about having an fdisk config database (analogous to
/etc/disktab), but I don't think it'll work.  I think people tend to use
disks in one of two ways:

1. Dedicate the entire disk to FreeBSD.  We don't need an fdisk config
   database for this.

2. Partition the disk up in "unusual" ways.  Either an existing DOS
   partition is present, or the user wants to partition the disk "his
   way".  The former can be handled without an fdisk config database
   (just use the remainder as a FreeBSD partition), and there are too
   many different possibilities in the latter.

People with Zip or Jaz drives will probably dedicate the entire disk to
FreeBSD, and so a special fdisk config database probably isn't
necessary for these.

     -- Darryl Okahata
	Internet: darrylo@sr.hp.com

DISCLAIMER: this message is the author's personal opinion and does not
constitute the support, opinion, or policy of Hewlett-Packard, or of the
little green men that have been following him all day.