From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S265082AbUGCMdL (ORCPT ); Sat, 3 Jul 2004 08:33:11 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S265084AbUGCMdL (ORCPT ); Sat, 3 Jul 2004 08:33:11 -0400 Received: from hera.cwi.nl ([192.16.191.8]:60102 "EHLO hera.cwi.nl") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S265082AbUGCMdI (ORCPT ); Sat, 3 Jul 2004 08:33:08 -0400 Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2004 14:33:01 +0200 From: Andries Brouwer To: Andrew Clausen Cc: Szakacsits Szabolcs , "Patrick J. LoPresti" , Andries Brouwer , Steffen Winterfeldt , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Thomas Fehr , bug-parted@gnu.org Subject: Re: [RFC] Restoring HDIO_GETGEO semantics (was: Re: workaround for BIOS / CHS stuff) Message-ID: <20040703123301.GB20808@apps.cwi.nl> References: <20040703013552.GA630@gnu.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20040703013552.GA630@gnu.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Sat, Jul 03, 2004 at 11:35:53AM +1000, Andrew Clausen wrote: > I would welcome a co-maintainer though :) Maybe dwm@austin.ibm.com wants to help. > > > Parted needs a mechanism to let me FORCE the geometry it uses. Every > > > other partitioning tool has this, usually via command-line switch. > > Would this solve any problems? I think that is the wrong question. This stuff is tricky. Especially when one has several operating systems on a single disk some degree of control is required. Maybe you say "in tricky cases use some other partition editor", but it seems reasonable to offer users the opportunity to specify the desired geometry. Of course poor users will listen to the ignorant advice of their neighbours and do all kinds of things to the geometry in attempts to solve entirely unrelated problems. The number of support problems will increase. So, try to supply accurate docs describing the cases where changing the geometry may be useful, and warning that changing the geometry may cause the loss of all data on the disk. Andries [yes - the discussion forks into many entirely different topics; other answers in other letters]