Date: Sun, 08 Mar 1998 17:57:20 -0800 From: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au> To: Thomas Dean <tomdean@ix.netcom.com> Cc: current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/sys/sys reboot.h src/sys/i386/i386 autoconf.c Message-ID: <199803090157.RAA12307@dingo.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 08 Mar 1998 10:45:47 PST." <199803081845.KAA02194@ix.netcom.com>
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> Does this mean that /dev will be cleaned in the future to remove the > offending device names? Everything that I have tried, like disklabel > accept /dev/sd1 and /dev/sd1s1c. disklabel gives (proper?) different > information for different arguments. No, as the device names aren't "offending" xdN[a-h] refers to partitions on a dedicated disk. xdNsM[a-h] refers to partitions within a slice. This is the way it was always meant to be. There was a problem initially that made it difficult to determine at the appropriate level *which* slice was the right one, so the assumption was made that it should be the first one. Because of the way this misfeature was implemented, the convention was established that xdNa would always be the first partition (in the first slice) on the disk. This is bogus, and makes life very difficult for software which has to attempt to establish the equality between xdNa and xdNsMa. In the short term (2.2, 3.0 prior to the DEVFS/SLICE changeover), the compatability slice cruft will probably remain, in order to avoid violating POLA. All that has been changed here is that the kernel will now explicitly mount the partition in the booted slice. With a little extra work, this would allow you to boot correctly from *any* slice, not just the first, BIOS restrictions notwithstanding. > I have: > > /dev/sd1 /dev/sd1e /dev/sd1s1a /dev/sd1s1f /dev/sd1s4 > /dev/sd1a /dev/sd1f /dev/sd1s1b /dev/sd1s1g > /dev/sd1b /dev/sd1g /dev/sd1s1c /dev/sd1s1h > /dev/sd1c /dev/sd1h /dev/sd1s1d /dev/sd1s2 > /dev/sd1d /dev/sd1s1 /dev/sd1s1e /dev/sd1s3 > > If I only had sd1s[a-h] then it would be less confusing. DEVFS is your friend. Device entries for partitions come and go as they are created/deleted. Have a little patience, and all will make sense. -- \\ Sometimes you're ahead, \\ Mike Smith \\ sometimes you're behind. \\ mike@smith.net.au \\ The race is long, and in the \\ msmith@freebsd.org \\ end it's only with yourself. \\ msmith@cdrom.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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