From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Mon, 22 Jan 2001 17:31:14 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Mon, 22 Jan 2001 17:31:04 -0500 Received: from postfix.conectiva.com.br ([200.250.58.155]:47890 "HELO postfix.conectiva.com.br") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id ; Mon, 22 Jan 2001 17:30:56 -0500 Message-ID: <3A6CB49E.75B8937D@conectiva.com.br> Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 20:30:54 -0200 From: Andrew Clausen Organization: Conectiva X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [pt_BR] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.17-14cl i586) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Russell King Cc: linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, bug-parted@gnu.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Partition IDs in the New World TM In-Reply-To: <200101222139.f0MLd8r01730@flint.arm.linux.org.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Russell King wrote: > > Andrew Clausen writes: > > But, for "well behaved operating systems", can't we do it this way? > > (For the dos partition table scheme, 0x83 could be our "file system > > type", 0x82 our "swap type", or whatever) > > I think you're complaining about the partition IDs in this thread, and not > the partition "schemes" that Linux supports. Am I right? Well, I don't like either, hehe. But, partition IDs are the only thing I'm talking about here (the other was merely drive-by flaming) > Well, the Linux kernel doesn't really care about partition IDs at all, > except in one circumstance - to detect auto RAID partitions. Why is this necessary? Can't the RAID drivers probe the device for signatures, the same way file systems do? (BTW: LVM does this too, and linux-ppc uses partition types as heuristics for finding the root device, IIRC, and lots of other boring stuff. But, I suspect it isn't needed) > Apart from > that, the kernel couldn't care. You could set all your Ext2 partitions > as ID 82, your swap as ID 83 and Linux would carry on as if nothing had > changed. Exactly. So, for new disk labels, or whatever, we should recommend to the relevant hackers that we have exactly one number for Linux. Or what? > About the only user programs that know about partition IDs are: > - fdisk (its part of the partition table format) > - installers (to stop users doing stupid things) Exactly. Andrew Clausen - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/