gpart is junk

[Desmond da Peoples]

Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 08:54:41 -0400
From: deischen at freebsd.org
To: tevans.uk at googlemail.com
CC: anton at hesiod.org; freebsd-hackers at freebsd.org
Subject: Re: gpart is junk

On Mon, 17 Sep 2012, Tom Evans wrote:
 
> 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.
 
It is not simple.  All I want is Solaris format utility (partition
and label).
 
-- 
DE


For someone such as myself- and others- who use PowerPC(64)/POWER  systems, gpart is far from being junk.
Fdisk is basically useless on an APM table or to even create such. You also have the choice of creating a partition scheme with
a Linux live CD and then adjusting the partition types with gpart.
You can use gparted. Maybe you haven't noticed that gpart givess you the option of different partition tables from the start.


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