Re: Current issues

[Harley D. Eades III]

K.G. wrote:

> On Wed, 2 Nov 2005 16:28:04 +0100 Patrick Leslie Polzer <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>  
>
> > * code analysis tools: what do you think about setting up LXR and 
> > nightly-updated Doxygen docs on our Berlios space? Too much overhead?
> > Good idea?
> >    
>
> For me it's a good idea. I would also like a wiki or something to discuss
> about long term changes, a 1.7 branch, ...
>  
I like the idea of a wiki.

> > * patches: I see we are having patches for Apples iPod, some ATARI stuff
> > and scientific units (how's the notation in detail, by the way?) in your
> > personal repository, Guillaume. What's their status?
> >    
>
> * ATARI adds support for... Atari partition tables :) It's quite complete
> despite some lacks in parted infrastructure that implies some stuff are
> invisible and not configurable (an area on the drive described in the
> table is reserved for a bad block list and implemented as a metadata
> partition). I've tested it against Linux parser and atari-fdisk, it
> seems to work well, but the people i've contacted to make "real" tests
> on Atari virtual machines seem to have problems with the VM that imply
> non deterministic GCC errors, and i don't recommend inclusion before those
> tests could be done.
>
>  
Great Job! :)

> * Apples iPod: Apple messed the whole msdos partition format on their iPods;
> they did an awfull mix between DBR and MBR, used a system partition with
> ID 0 (which means Free), ... Never seen anything so stupid before :)
> So I did a quick hack to let Parted work with this strange format, but
> i'm not really happy with it. I'm not sure this is really important to let
> people use Parted on their msdos formated iPod anyway, especially if it
> means supporting broken things. Maybe a detection and a message saying
> that Apple uses a broken partition table format on their dos formated iPod
> would be better. I really don't want to do any kind of voluntary after
> sale support for Apple because of their own mess.
>
>  
I like Otavio's idea of creating a seperate parition format. Like he 
said it will show that the ipod paritioning scheme is very different 
from a msdos parition table.

> * scientific units: this is work in progress. The display changes are
> done, the input ones aren't.
>
> Display without:
>
> (parted) p                                                                
> Disk geometry for /dev/hda: 0kB - 123GB
> Disk label type: msdos
> Number  Start   End     Size    Type      File system  Flags
> 1       32kB    1078MB  1077MB  primary   reiserfs     boot
> 2       1078MB  2155MB  1078MB  primary   linux-swap   
> 3       2155MB  123GB   121GB   extended               
> 6       2155MB  7452MB  5297MB  logical   reiserfs     
> 7       7452MB  13GB    5445MB  logical   reiserfs     
> 5       13GB    123GB   110GB   logical   reiserfs     
>
> Display with:
>
> Disk geometry for /dev/hda: 0.00kB - 123GB
> Disk label type: msdos
> Number    Start     End    Size Type      File system  Flags
> 1        32.3kB  1078MB  1077MB primary   reiserfs     boot
> 2        1078MB  2155MB  1078MB primary   linux-swap   
> 3        2155MB   123GB   121GB extended               
> 6        2155MB  7452MB  5297MB logical   reiserfs     
> 7        7452MB  12.9GB  5445MB logical   reiserfs     
> 5        12.9GB   123GB   110GB logical   reiserfs     
>
> If people like it this could be merged when it is finished.
>
>  
Looks great!

As for my work, I have managed to get the fdisk code to compile with 
parted. I added a new dir in trunk called ui and moved the parted ui and 
the fdisk ui into it. Then I changed autoconf && automake to compile 
both the interfaces. The fdisk interface as of right now is just 
starting so it is going to be a bit before it is ready.

I have a the new function write complete, I am going to do some further 
testing later this weekend. Here is the patch if anyone wants to look at it:
http://12.203.202.40/parted-do_commit_10-19-05.patch

I will be posting a new patch because I have made some corrections. But, 
the above patch is the bulk of it.

If anyone has questions please ask, feedback is what is best, if you 
don't like something please tell me and we can get it right.

Cheers and thanks
Harley