gpart is junk

[Tom Evans]

On Sun, Sep 16, 2012 at 8:12 PM, Jeff Anton <anton at hesiod.org> wrote:
>… my point is that all this information needs to be
> together in one human and machine readable form.  We need to be able to look
> at the whole picture of a device and say "that makes sense" then do it.  And
> this shouldn't be from some GUI junk either.
> In a file, this information can be kept as a reference, as a confirmation
> that partitioning hasn't changed unexpectedly, and
> modified if needed in a clear manner.
>

(Sorry to pick at just parts of your email…)

The current GEOM configuration is available from a sysctl in machine
readable format - check out kern.geom.confxml. If you are concerned
about your partitions changing underneath you, storing and then
comparing output from this sysctl gives you a simple way to determine
what.

A human readable version can be obtained from the gpart tool.

IMHO, gpart and GEOM are fantastic. gpart is a much simpler tool to
use than fdisk, and fully understands every kind of disk partitioning
you can throw at it, whilst fdisk is only a tool for playing with MBR.
The gpart man page explains clearly and concisely how to use it.

GEOM provides a clear framework that anything can plug in to, from
labels to whole disk encryption.

Cheers

Tom