--1ccMZA6j1vT5UqiK
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

On Mon, Sep 04, 2006 at 01:58:31PM +0200, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> So, what are you saying?
>=20
> Are wedges just partitions with another name, or is there really a=20
> difference?
> The actual width of the size and offset is hardly a reason to say it's=20
> different. Is the information about wedges not stored on the disk? How=20
> do you find them in that case?
>=20
> I'm probably dense, but this answer made it look no different from a=20
> partition, except the fact that they were 64-bit values. Which is nice,=
=20
> but it don't really make them any different.

Most of the differences are conceptual.

The thing about our partitions is that they really really are entries in a=
=20
struct disklabel. And struct disklabel is an on-disk format. So there's no=
=20
way to change "partition"s without changing the on-disk format.

Thus a conceptual change to get us out of the difficulty.

wedges are partitions separated from the partitioning scheme that defined=
=20
them. So you don't need a struct disklabel, or struct part_map_entry, or=20
any other struct.

Since there's a disconnect between the on-disk representation and the=20
in-kernel one, you can map anything into a wedge.

Another part of the conceptual plan is that we move partition reading out=
=20
of the kernel into userland. The kernel only NEEDS to be able to find the=
=20
root partition, then userland can find all the rest. As a convenience, you=
=20
can (according to the plan) add support for different partitioning schemes=
=20
in the kernel.

We aren't there yet, and things don't work according to the plan. But=20
we're getting there. :-)

Take care,

Bill

--1ccMZA6j1vT5UqiK
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature
Content-Disposition: inline

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (NetBSD)

iD8DBQFE/b6oWz+3JHUci9cRAiJqAJ45MPC6Cr86mTRDXNKmJriO532btwCgkgC6
PnoimWkO3GvX0bhS5fuoF7o=
=iXYo
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--1ccMZA6j1vT5UqiK--