Linux-kernel mailing list archive 1999-23,: Partition nightmare Was: Migrating to larger numbers

# Partition nightmare Was: Migrating to larger numbers

DAVID BALAZIC (david.balazic@uni-mb.si)
Thu, 10 Jun 1999 16:42:36 +0100 (MET)

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Many people discussed the problems with partition names,
like finding the correct partition , shifting partition IDs
when changing HW configuration , etc.

I have s simple solution for that:
Use partition names.
That is in the partition table/block/area/whatever , don't just mark
the position of a partition , but also put a name there. Like :

disk xxx - size 1000 MB
span(cyls) size(MB) type name
-------------------------------------------------
1-300 300 Linux-native ROOT1
300-600 600 Linux-native USR1
600-900 300 Linux-native ROOT-BAK
900-1000 100 Linux-native ROOT-EXPERIMENTAL
1000-1200 200 Linux-native MISC
1200-1300 100 Linux-Swap SWAP1

Then you can do things like "mount partition USR1 on /usr",
and it would work no matter what controllers you added/removed
from/to the system, what drives you added/removed from/to the system,
no matter how you echanged drives between controllers,
changed their SCSI-target ID , and no matter what other
partitions you created/deleted on the same disk.

The kernel would read this data when it reads the partitions
and create some entries in /dev/partitions for example.

Some might notice that I "borrowed" the idea from the Amiga line of computers.

I think that at least partially the problems stem from the fact that people
use the ancient DOS partitioning scheme as a starting point.

AFAIK it was "invented" because DOS couldn't handle drives larger
of certain limit. And then it was tweaked to do this and that ...

    --
    David Balazic , student
    E-mail   : 1stein@writeme.com     |     living in  sLOVEnija
    home page: http://surf.to/stein
    Computer: Amiga 1200 + Quantum LPS-340AT

    --

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