Re: [Feature Request] UUID in fstab.

[Utkarsh Anand <utkarsh009%yandex.com@localhost>]

>There is no reason whatsoever not to automatically create
>useful NAME labels that are also human readable.
>a) You are aware that uuid collisions may be rare but not impossible?
Putting the above statements together, do you now see a fallacy in your 
argument? Useful name labels are more likely to collide, if you're 
picking words out of a dictionary and using those chunks instead of 
alphabets. Even if you just go on numbering them from 1...whatever the 
last disk number is, you are more likely to end up with a collision 
later on, while adding more disks manually.
BTW, you'd be generating labels only when they don't already exist. But,
in case of UUID, you'll always be regenerating it to ensure that there 
are no collisions.
>b) In NetBSD, the names of disks are not in fstab, the relevant
   item is the name of the partition.
So, what? Readable names are more likely to collide (as mentioned 
earlier).

>Why is getting a "you have a name conflict for partition a to be 
>mounted on /foo and partition b to be mounted on /bar, please rename 
>either" a problem in the partitioning stage?
Not a problem, just more cumbersome for an average user. You wouldn't 
assume the target audience to be sysadmins, or professional users, would
you? Think from an average user's perspective.

>Automatically generating a name from diskname and mount path is trivial
>, and likely to be unique enough for one system. (IOW: how many /usr
>do you expect to have?)
So, you want to rename the labels every installation? I believe labels 
are for the users to decide and not system.

>If that is not random enough for you: picking 4 words out of dict is
>still more human friendly than a long hex number.
Like I said already, much much more chance of collision for the same 
total length of the string.

>"We must make everybody suffer under a user-hostile default because
>someone MIGHT be an idiot" is a very bad argument for a Unix system.
>Unix traditionally has "we don't stop you doing something stupid
>because that might stop you doing something smart".
Most users wouldn't even care about /etc/fstab or UUID. Sysadmins and 
professional users are smart enough to handle that.

>(Also: not trying to be Linux. Linux already exists, there is no need
>to create a copy)
I think the you should focus more on device drivers and kernel for 
setting yourself apart from linux.
I could also say that you're just trying to be anti-linux and do just 
condemn every decision they take.

>What is difficult about?
>(ext) 'tune2fs /dev/sda1 -U random'
>(xfs) 'xfs_admin -U $(uuidgen) /dev/sda1'
>etc? You need to know what filesystem type it is?
I also said 'slightly'.