Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 09:26:22 -0700 From: Fred Clift <fclift@verio.net> To: slick <plan_b@videotron.ca> Cc: Hackers <hackers@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: My new fdisk(8) program. Message-ID: <20040203091203.S91207@irfcn.qzm.berz.irevb.arg> In-Reply-To: <HCELJGGAFOJADLJLFKLJIEDGCAAA.plan_b@videotron.ca> References: <HCELJGGAFOJADLJLFKLJIEDGCAAA.plan_b@videotron.ca>
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On Sun, 1 Feb 2004, slick wrote: > Hi, > I decided to write a new fdisk(8) program for unix. The main goal was to be > able to do all the MBR manipulation from the command line, to be portable > across all unix platform using libc, to work alone, to be as small and > simple as possible and to be easy to maintain and extend. > > I did it. One thing I noticed is that -P prints only numeric values for partition types -- I'd prefer to see it print both that and the string-version of the type - ie the same stuff you see with -l. Also missing is the ability edit partition lengths from the commandline non-interactively (ie the -f option for the existing FreeBSD fdisk). For my uses this is the real show-stopper - I maintain an automated installation system that relies on being able to script the creation of partitions - I'd have to 'speak interativly' with your program over a pipe to do so, making things more difficult. It seems that you require that the maximu Cylinder value NEVER be greater than 1024. This is generally a requirement for bootable partitions but for non-bootable ones, at least from FreeBSD's perspective, no such limitation exists. One last thing - how about adding some comments in your code? :) Good job on this - it seems to work as advertised, and is quite small. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't recommend this as a replacement for the FreeBSD fdisk until it picks up a lot more functionality. (ie like -I and -t) Oh, just curious, why are you opposed to the use of structs? Does it make the code less portable due to alignment restrictions or something? Fred -- Fred Clift - fclift@verio.net -- Remember: If brute force doesn't work, you're just not using enough.
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