From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S265134AbUGCOpo (ORCPT ); Sat, 3 Jul 2004 10:45:44 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S265137AbUGCOpo (ORCPT ); Sat, 3 Jul 2004 10:45:44 -0400 Received: from mail007.syd.optusnet.com.au ([211.29.132.55]:63184 "EHLO mail007.syd.optusnet.com.au") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S265134AbUGCOpj (ORCPT ); Sat, 3 Jul 2004 10:45:39 -0400 Date: Sun, 4 Jul 2004 00:45:00 +1000 From: Andrew Clausen To: "Patrick J. LoPresti" Cc: Andries Brouwer , Steffen Winterfeldt , bug-parted@gnu.org, Thomas Fehr , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [RFC] Restoring HDIO_GETGEO semantics (was: Re: workaround for BIOS / CHS stuff) Message-ID: <20040703144500.GL630@gnu.org> References: <20040703013552.GA630@gnu.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: X-Accept-Language: en,pt User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.5.1+cvs20040105i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Sat, Jul 03, 2004 at 10:15:47AM -0400, Patrick J. LoPresti wrote: > Parted is primarily a component of larger systems; namely, the > RedHat/Suse/etc. installers. Those larger systems can figure out the > correct geometry (using whatever logic/heuristics/knowledge they have) > and pass it to the tools which need it, of which Parted is just one. Why should they bother? Shouldn't libparted just do it all for them? (Shouldn't parted use EDD?) > I am suggesting that you cater to the 99.9% case. This means > providing some way, any way, to override Parted's notion of the > geometry. In my opinion, you should simply gut the logic for guessing > the geometry, because it really does not belong in Parted. But I do > not really care as long as I have a way to bypass it. I was under the impression that 2.6 provides a mechanism for setting the HDIO_GETGEO thingy... so any program can tell Parted (and everything else, for that matter) what they want the geometry to be. Perhaps I misunderstood your email: http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0404.0/0270.html It contains this: echo "bios_cyl:C bios_head:H bios_sect:S" > /proc/ide/hda/settings Isn't the kernel the right place for this kind of communication to be happening, anyway? > (Note that this would also provide a way for end users to fix their > partition tables if/when they broke. Right now, the stock solution > for disks which Parted "broke" is "sfdisk -d | sfdisk -C# -H# -S#". > Wouldn't it be nice if people could use Parted instead?) They can, right? Just type the above, and then do some dummy thing in parted. (Parted doesn't have a "touch" command). > > > 1) and 2) need a way to get a "sane" geometry from the BIOS or kernel. > > > > Shouldn't we just use LBA? (i.e. x/255/63) > > IBM Thinkpads use x/240/63. In theory, other BIOSes could use > anything. Do they break on x/255/63? Cheers, Andrew