> Date: Thu, 9 Jan 1997 10:37:12 -0800 (PST)
> From: Bill Studenmund <skippy@macro.stanford.edu>
> 
> As an aside, I though of a solution to the latter problem (partition
> count). If we pick a special device type, and a special name (say SCSI
> hard disks), we can glean the partition #'s at boot. The special name is
> the name of the first partition on the second unit. For SCSI, it's sd1a.
> We boot up, and the kernel goes along quite happily. At one point in boot,
> it goes out and looks at /dev/special_name (/dev/sd1a here). If it doesn't
> find it, the kernel can print an error about a missing device (did we
> build devices this install?), and go with a default value. If it finds the
> device, it can learn the # of partitions, and change things accordingly.
> The thought is that at this point, there's only one dev_t pointing to mass
> storage (assuming hard disk boot), root_device. If it's an hd, just
> re-compute it. Then change a global setting the # of partitions in use.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're suggesting, I'd sure hope that
it doesn't restrict me from repartitioning and adding new partitions
on a disk while the system is running.

--
Dan.