Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:18:29 -0800 From: Jeremy Chadwick <freebsd@jdc.parodius.com> To: Miroslav Lachman <000.fbsd@quip.cz> Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org, Mike Andrews <mandrews@bit0.com> Subject: Re: New BSD Installer Message-ID: <20120217001829.GA59869@icarus.home.lan> In-Reply-To: <4F3D9A7C.7080900@quip.cz> 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> <CAN6yY1uVhXMntWaK=P4dPrKY3aLR2fsKMWfS7Ncvpwy-XKM31Q@mail.gmail.com> <095a01cceb54$04a38fb0$0deaaf10$@fisglobal.com> <4F3ACDE7.8060003@bit0.com> <4F3D9A7C.7080900@quip.cz>
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On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 01:08:28AM +0100, Miroslav Lachman wrote: > 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) This is quite possibly the most concise, clearest definition of a major (borderline catastrophic) situation pertaining to GPT + GEOM combinations. I'm going to be more bold than usual: who is fixing this, and when is it going to be MFC'd to 9, 8, and probably 7 would be a good idea? If nobody is fixing this, someone had better light a fire under someone's ass to fix it. I'm absolutely amazed this is still a problem. -- | Jeremy Chadwick jdc at parodius.com | | Parodius Networking http://www.parodius.com/ | | UNIX Systems Administrator Mountain View, CA, US | | Making life hard for others since 1977. PGP 4BD6C0CB |
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