From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with archive (Exim 4.43) id 1NYMl0-00058l-8j for mharc-grub-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:53:14 -0500 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1NYMkz-00058c-1z for grub-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:53:13 -0500 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1NYMku-00057L-RX for grub-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:53:12 -0500 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=58575 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NYMku-00057C-Mr for grub-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:53:08 -0500 Received: from xvm-190-8.ghst.net ([217.70.190.8]:49397 helo=aybabtu.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1NYMku-0004NC-2t for grub-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:53:08 -0500 Received: from [192.168.10.10] (helo=thorin) by aybabtu.com with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NYMkn-0003T0-KY for grub-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:53:01 +0100 Received: from rmh by thorin with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NYMkm-0003n8-Sj for grub-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:53:00 +0100 Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:53:00 +0100 From: Robert Millan To: The development of GRUB 2 Message-ID: <20100122165300.GA14428@thorin> References: <20090802222505.GI15139@thorin> <20090804201512.GA15811@thorin> <20090817140657.GP32551@thorin> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: Organization: free as in freedom X-Message-Flag: Worried about Outlook viruses? Switch to Thunderbird! www.mozilla.com/thunderbird X-Debbugs-No-Ack: true User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) Subject: Re: [PATCH] nested partitions X-BeenThere: grub-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: The development of GNU GRUB List-Id: The development of GNU GRUB List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:53:13 -0000 I haven't checked the specific details, but I think this approach is fine IF we only recurse for partition types where this makes sense. This includes: - BSD partition types inside MSDOS labels - Solaris partition type inside MSDOS labels This can be done by extending "has_partitions" to be set to "yes" in those specific partition types. The implementation should be the least intrusive possible, taking into account that this kind of situations are an oddity rather than the norm. As for the other situations, the more I think about this, the more convinced I am that this whole "partition nesting" concept is a broken mess. I think I already explained why in this list, but I can rehash the reasons if anyone's interested. I don't want to compromise on such part of GRUB core for the sake of supporting this kind of layouts. The only reason I'm open to implementing these two cases [1] is that they seem to be inmensely popular among *BSD systems and Solaris derivatives. As for *BSD and Solaris who read this, my advice is to step away, ditch the whole MSDOS label burden and just settle on a clean label without the limits DOS ones have. If you strive for compatibility, GPT is a good choice IMO (and the rest of the free world seems to be moving in this direction thanks to 2 TiB limit). [1] I know the first one is already implemented, but your approach makes it less ad-hoc and splits code off part_msdos.mod, which is an improvement. -- Robert Millan "Be the change you want to see in the world" -- Gandhi