Subject: bin/5277: disklabel -i lacking
To: None <gnats-bugs@gnats.netbsd.org>
From: Jason R Thorpe <thorpej@nas.nasa.gov>
List: netbsd-bugs
Date: 04/09/1998 18:14:27
>Number: 5277
>Category: bin
>Synopsis: disklabel -i lacking
>Confidential: no
>Severity: serious
>Priority: medium
>Responsible: bin-bug-people (Utility Bug People)
>State: open
>Class: change-request
>Submitter-Id: net
>Arrival-Date: Thu Apr 9 18:35:00 1998
>Last-Modified:
>Originator: Jason R Thorpe
>Organization:
Numerical Aerospace Simulation Facility - NASA Ames
>Release: NetBSD 1.3E, April 9, 1998
>Environment:
System: NetBSD lestat 1.3E NetBSD 1.3E (LESTAT) #133: Wed Apr 8 17:23:38 PDT 1998 thorpej@lestat:/tmp_mnt/dracul/u5/netbsd/src/sys/arch/sparc/compile/LESTAT sparc
>Description:
disklabel's -i (interactive) option is nice, but leaves a few
things to be desired in terms of user interface.
(1) There is no way to specify a "slop" partition. I.e. a partition
that gets "the space not used by the other partitions". Sun's
format(8) had a way to specify this, e.g. assign "slop" to
partition h, just make the other partitions, and then h would
magically have the rest of the space on the disk. (This obviously
will require a special hack on the i386 to deal w/ c/d lossage.)
(2) User has to know what the names of the file systems are. This
applies to -e, as well, but is more important for -i, I think.
There should be a way to find out the valid file system names.
(3) There should be a way to specify partition start/end (inclusive)
rather than just start/size.
I note this as "serious" because I think these are annoyances
that users will notice and complain about.
>How-To-Repeat:
Use disklabel -i, and long for some features you've used in other
partitioning programs.
>Fix:
None supplied. SMOP :-)
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: