Subject: Re: GPT support still needed? (was: RE: Recursive partitioning)
To: der Mouse <mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
From: Eric Haszlakiewicz <erh@nimenees.com>
List: tech-kern
Date: 06/07/2007 09:18:35
On Thu, Jun 07, 2007 at 03:47:54AM -0400, der Mouse wrote:
> >> That's the flag day I was talking about: the time when there's no
> >> BSD disklabel on the disk, the backward-incompatible change.
> > But your old disks will still work if you have the BSD disklabel
> > wedge parser configured (which we will),
> 
> But not the other way around.

	Well, duh.  You don't expect binaries from NetBSD 4 to run
on NetBSD 3 do you?  This is about the same.

> > and you will even be able to edit / create BSD disklabels using the
> > new partition editing tool.
> 
> Perhaps I misunderstood "A BSD disklabel won't be present on the disk
> in any way, shape, or form", but it sure sounds inconsistent with this.
> Which is the truth?  Or is there some reading that I'm missing that
> allows them both to be true at once?
> 
> Or is this "we'll junk compatability by default but if you work hard
> enough you can get it back again"?  How long will the latter part be
> true?  Maybe as much as one major release?

I read it as: you can use a BSD disklabel if you want to, but it's not
required.  It doesn't sound to be like we're going to "junk compatibility",
just change the default.

eric