powerpc/93203: FreeBSD PPC Can't Write to Partitions.

[Jochen Fahrner]

The following reply was made to PR powerpc/93203; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Jochen Fahrner <freebsd at fahrners.de>
To: bug-followup at FreeBSD.org,
 aibotca at yahoo.ca
Cc:  
Subject: Re: powerpc/93203: FreeBSD PPC Can't Write to Partitions.
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:08:24 +0200

 I think this is a bug in disklabel.
 With disklabel a slice can be divided into partitions.
 Slices in BSD are, what other operating systems call "partition".
 Device files for slices are number with a preceding "s".
 Example: /dev/ad0s3 is referring to slice 3 on disk 0.
 
 Partitions, created by disklabel, are numbered with a preceding "p".
 Example: /dev/ad0s3p1 is referring to partition 1 in slice 3 on disk 0.
 
 The bug in disklabel seems to be, that it does not append the  
 partition number do devices on the ppc platform.
 All partitions in on slice have the same device name.
 Example: if you create partition 1, 2 and 3 in slice 3 of disk 0,  
 then they should have the names:
 ad0s3p1
 ad0s3p2
 ad0s3p3
 
 Due to the bug they all have ad0s3 as name.
 Assume these 3 partitions should be mounted as /, /var and /usr.
 When the installer tries to mount them, it first mounts /dev/ad0s3 -> /
 Next it want mount /dev/ad0s3 -> /var.
 This is not possible (operation not permitted) because /dev/ad0s3 is  
 already mounted.