Re: address@hidden: Bug#172662: libparted1.6-0: please don't call sgi disklabels mips disklabels]

[Guido Guenther]

Hi Ralf,
thanks a lot for the explanation - I was not aware that Risc/OS uses dvh
too.
On Sat, Dec 14, 2002 at 01:22:58AM +0100, Ralf Baechle wrote:
> Definately not.  The operating systems I know of using DVH are IRIX, Risc/OS,
> Tandem's UNIX, whatev it's name was again, Sinix, DEC Ultrix (They seem to
> support to styles of partition, DVH and the actual BSD 4.2 label.  No idea
> why the DVH stuff is there, some modern BSD flavours, including the current
> ones.  Oh yes, the Linux XFS tools know about the dvh also.
IMHO the question here is not which operating systems/tools support it
but which of them uses it natively and as default (I doubt the 'modern
BSD's do it nor does Ultrix). 

[..snip..]
> > Basically, I think a name that seems "obvious" to users (as opposed to
> > "correct") is more user-friendly.  Would "sgi" create any confusion?
> 
> For anybody not using an SGI system I bet.
Linux fdisk calls it SGI/Irix partition layout - it didn't seem to
confuse anyone (at least I didn't see anything on the linux-mips lists).

> 
> Frankly, the whole discussion looks to me like the attempt to declare a
> mistake the real thing.  Somebody named the thing more than a decade ago,
> somebody clueless else missnamed it and now your try to declare the mess
> the real thing.
Actually parted currently calls it 'mips' which is definitely wrong. So
would a better name be 'dvh'? The number of OSes that use this kind of
dvh could be listed in the documentation then(in case the all use
exactly the same dvh). I'd still prefer something that releates somehow
to sgi/irix though.
 -- Guido