On Thu, 18 Mar 2004, polzer02@stud.uni-passau.de wrote:
> > The fdisk is on i386 and *some* ports because it's the language
> > Microsoft operating systems understand and needs to be there to
> > interoperate with Microsoft.
> So the partitioning scheme I come from is not a common standard but a
> relict from MS-DOS days?

Not so much a relic as a proprietary invention (by Compaq IIRC).  The
Master Boot Record you're familiar with is used by all Microsoft operating
systems, but is not an open standard.  

NetBSD shoehorns itself into the partition assigned to it in the MBR, but
uses its very own disklabel to describe the disk (the whole disk, and
nothing but the disk).  

From NetBSD's point of view, a normal disk first gets a disklabel with
partitions, then filesystems are created in the partitions.  The i386 port
supports the otherwise weird case of labelling a disk that contains
pre-existing (and alien) filesystems.  By carefully adjusting the label to
describe those filesystems, voila! they become mountable.  

--jkl