"gpart add" falsely claiming "No space left on device"

[Brandon J. Wandersee]

Perry Hutchison writes:

> Warren Block <wblock at wonkity.com> wrote:
>
>> What does the man page need?
>
> For starters, default values for -b, -s, -t, and -i in "gpart add".
> (I guess -i defaults to "lowest not currently in use", but what about
> the others?)

The defaults are exactly what you'd expect them to be. '-b' defaults to
the start of the disk. '-i' defaults to the lowest available
integer. '-s' defaults to everything available. '-t' default to nothing,
because it would be senseless to assume the type of a partition;
gpart(8) will exit with an error if you don't provide it.

> List of what-all "attributes" can be set and what they
> do.

See "ATTRIBUTES."

> Explanation of when one would use -b vs. -p in "gpart bootcode"
> since they are apparently different ways of specifying where the
> bootcode comes from (but then your example uses both?)

'-b' and '-p' specify different values. '-b' specifies what is written;
'-p' specifies how and where. How they're used depends on your partition
scheme and motherboard. See "BOOTSTRAPPING."

> Description of how to show the current state of the provider vs what
> it would look like if pending changes were committed.

I don't know if this is possible. I believe it's assumed that the
user/administrator has---or at least *should* have---a good idea of what
state the disk is in before they start messing with the existing
(presumably good) partition table.

> I suppose there must be some reason for leaving those
> 3.0k and 492k free spaces around gpboot, but it isn't obvious.

Partition alignment.

-- 
::  Brandon J. Wandersee
::  brandon.wandersee at gmail.com
::  --------------------------------------------------
::  'The best design is as little design as possible.'
::  --- Dieter Rams ----------------------------------