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From: kargl@troutmask.apl.washington.edu
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: God Damn partition crap!
Date: 26 Mar 1996 16:17:20 GMT
Organization: Applied Phyics Lab
Lines: 92
Message-ID: <4j95ag$jot@nntp5.u.washington.edu>
References: <4hqav8$kmo@nntp.interaccess.com> <3140F2B6.41C67EA6@freebsd.org> <4i1qp4$bmj@nntp5.u.washington.edu> <4i50q6$64i@uriah.heep.sax.de> <4i727m$1hl@nntp5.u.washington.edu> <4j0mhb$r6i@calypso.bns.com.au> <31559EE7.59E2B600@FreeBSD.org> <4j8mrb$p4s@calypso.bns.com.au>
NNTP-Posting-Host: troutmask.apl.washington.edu
Michael Talbot-Wilson wrote in article <4j8mrb$p4s@calypso.bns.com.au> :
>
>"Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@FreeBSD.org> writes:
>
>>Sigh.
>
>>I should know better than to even answer this since the discussion has
>>clearly degenerated into the emotional rather than the intellectual, and
>>I have very little time to argue with people who have already formed
>>their opinions and are now simply interested in arguing.
>
>The emotion, whether mine or that of the original poster, signifies
>that some real distress has been experienced. He (I think) and I
>are trying to point out that, at a certain point, there is something
>seriously wrong with FreeBSD. You brush this aside, dismiss it as
>emotional, as though emotion is by definition unimportant.
Recap time:
(1) Original poster wanted to install 2nd hard drive, and had problems.
(2) Jordan suggested using sysinstall to disklabel and newfs the 2nd drive.
(3) I asked Jordan (although I didn't see a reply...Jordan must have
needed some sleep ;) if he planned to strip out the disk preparation
parts of sysinstall to make a new utility, e.g., "newdisk"
(4) Joerg, who usually gives good advise, got on a soapbox about a
volunteer effort and everyone is welcome to contribute. Joerg may
have had a bad day.
(5) I responded to Joerg that he and I answer too many pleas for
disk preparation help. A person who is very familiar with partition,
slices, slice partitions, system programmings needs to write the
utility. This eliminates me.
>
>>What Joerg was trying to say, if you're willing to read the entire text
>>of the message and look past a couple of points which could probably be
>>easily taken as inflammatory if not tempered by the message contained in
>>the rest of the text, is that people are simply busy. Very busy. It's
>>not a question of what's important or what's not, it's a question of
>>what's _achievable_ and what's not. We could be idealists here and say
>>"yes, documentation is utterly important" and "proper hand-holding is
>>utterly important" and "technical correctness is utterly important" but
>>after you've covered about 10 things that are "utterly important" (each
>>and every one of which IS utterly important!) you're left with a whole
>>pile of work and no clear picture of how to order it.
>
>Let me put it this way. Of course, these are my opinions.
>
>1. Disk setup is fundamental. It is the first and most basic thing,
> it involves the possibility of trashing the disk, and is the
> first thing that should have been documented, and carefully and
> well. It is a pity that, several versions later, it has not
> been done, and you answer that I or someone else who is distressed
> by its absence should write it.
I've looked at the sysinstall code with the intention of stripping the
unneeded features to make the "newdisk" utility. But, frankly sysinstall
scared the hell out of me, and the resulting utility would not be optimal
(or even functional).
If you read the cvs-all mailing list or freebsd-current, you will find
that libdisk has been separated from the sysinstall code as a standalone
library. I believe Joerg has the intention of looking into a "newdisk"
utility with libdisk as its foundation. Note: I do not speeak for Joerg.
>2. You have possibly overlooked the fact that everyone else is busy,
> too. It is not a matter of being busy or idle, but of priorities.
> See 1.
See Jordan's post. This is not Jordan's #1 priority. Jordan can not
make someone else write the utility. This is a volunteer effort.
>
>3. To each his own. I have made contributions to free software, and
> perhaps will make more, and they have been and will be well
> documented. And I have contributed where there was an appalling
> gap in someone else's documentation. But I am not about to
> write a disklabel manpage and otherwise comprehensively document
> what one can and can't do with the disk, and how; and if those who
> can will not, that is a pity.
(1) FreeBSD already has a disklabel manpage. You may need to read the
page more than once, but all the info is there.
(2) The online docs for sysinstall does (did) a fairly good job at
explaining partitions, slices, MBR, boot manager, etc...
Steven G. Kargl | Phone: 206-685-4677 |
Applied Physics Lab | Fax: 206-543-6785 |
Univ. of Washington |---------------------|
1013 NE 40th St | FreeBSD 2.x-STABLE |
Seattle, WA 98105 |---------------------|