Re: Hacking linux-utils for swap label

[Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>]

On Thu, Apr 13, 2006 at 09:37:24AM -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> vol_id in the udev package is much better than blkid, as it handles more
> file system types, and is easier to intregrate into other programs and
> scripts (it's also availble as a library.)  I would recommend it
> instead.

For the record, blkid is also available as a library, and it is what
is used by mount and fsck to support.  Blkid also has the advantage
that it doesn't require a modern 2.6 kernel to function (since it
isn't dependent on udev) in order to find the device where a
particular filesystem with a particular label or UUID.  Blkid is
available on pretty much all distributions since it's been part of
e2fsprogs since 2002 or so; udev is used available on all reasonably
modern distro's using a 2.6 kernel.

Finally, the number of filesystem types handled by the two really
aren't all that different; certainly all of the major filesystem types
are covered by both libraries/programs.  

Regards,

						- Ted