Re: partition numbering

[Marco Gerards <metgerards@student.han.nl>]

Hollis Blanchard <hollis@penguinppc.org> writes:

> On Apr 17, 2005, at 12:44 PM, Marco Gerards wrote:
>
>> Hollis Blanchard <hollis@penguinppc.org> writes:
>>>
>>> If GRUB counts partition numbers different than Open Firmware, I
>>> consider this a bug that must be fixed. 0-based partition numbers are
>>> quite confusing enough.
>>
>> And I do not consider that a bug.  We can not confirm to the way every
>> OS/firmware implementation numbers its partitions.  This is *not*
>> about 0-basic partition numbers, but about how the same things can be
>> handled differently.  We can adapt to the most popular
>> implementations.  But I am sure things will fail someday.
>
> I agree we cannot match OS device names and numbering, though it would
> make users' lives much happier if we did. Actually, to brainstorm for
> a minute, what if we could install GRUB with a different device naming
> scheme per OS? Booting different OSs would then be a problem, but what
> about making each scheme easily distinguishable? For example, use
> "(linux:hda3)" or "(bsd:disk1s2)"?

That is not possible.  You can not say hda is the same as hd0.  In
GRUB on the PC hd0 means the first harddisk as the BIOS sees it AFAIK.
On linux hda means the primary master disk on an IDE controller.

I think it is too much work to do this and not worth the effort.  And
it will cause more problems than convenience.  Of course you can write
a module that makes it possible what you propose...

> Anyways, GRUB, as a bootloader that uses firmware services, surely
> must match firmware names and numbering. For example, on x86 you
> identify disks as "hd0" and "hd1" because this is how the firmware
> enumerates them.

Not for partitions, as I see it.

--
Marco