Subject: Re: Another changer, another changer problem
To: NetBSD-current Discussion List <current-users@netbsd.org>
From: Curt Sampson <cjs@portal.ca>
List: current-users
Date: 10/02/1998 20:12:28
On Fri, 2 Oct 1998, Greg A. Woods wrote:

> Looking at the boot output is *not* the way to do these things.

Well, as I said then, wire your kernel appropriately.

> I'd really love to see some /dev node that represents the *raw* disk,
> ignoring any and all translations and partitioning.

Well look in /dev, then. It's been there all the time: /dev/rxdNc
(or d on the i386 port).

> Of course in the stupid world of the averate x86 PC BIOS you might also
> want a device node that represents the "unix" fdisk partition so that
> you can treat it as a logical volume and drop a normal disklabel into
> it.  This would imply that one could have four (isn't that the fdisk
> table size?) "unix" partitions and at least 8 filesystems per logical
> volume, thus a median of 32 filesystems per spindle.

There's no reason I can see to put support for DOS partition tables
in the kernel. You can simply have a userland program set up the
BSD partition table entry to point to the appropriate place on the
disk, which is just as effective, and avoids kernel bloat.

cjs
--
Curt Sampson  <cjs@portal.ca>  604-257-9400    De gustibus, aut bene aut nihil.
Any opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.
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