gpart is junk

[Daniel Eischen]

On Wed, 26 Sep 2012, Desmond da Peoples wrote:
>
> On Mon, 17 Sep 2012, Daniel Eischen wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 17 Sep 2012, Tom Evans wrote:
> >
> >> On Sun, Sep 16, 2012 at 8:12 PM, Jeff Anton <anton at hesiod.org> wrote:
> >>> ^E 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^E)
> >>
> >> The current GEOM configuration is available from a sysctl in machine
> >> readable format - check out kern.geom.confxml. If you are concerned

kern.geom.confxml is far from readable.  kern.geom.conftxt is closer,
but still not anywhere as readable as bsdlabel.

> >> 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).
>
> 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.

gpart is a low-level tool to be used by someone who knows
exactly what they are doing.  It is not useful for someone
who just wants to partition and label a disk and doesn't
have hours of free time to read and understand gpart.

I want the capability of the old installer.  Where is that?
Ahh, I found it - I guess it is /usr/sbin/bsdinstall :-)

-- 
DE