> In the future I would really like to see compat code that lets us
 > mount disks across all ports, and that means grokking i386
 > "doslabels" and Apple's own partition format (another c/d
 > situation?) in an MI manner.

Disklabels and partition tables should be an abstract kernel service.
The way this stuff is munged into all the disk drivers right now is
really pretty disgusting.

Cleaning this up has been on my list of things to do for a while, but
it's a big project and I don't have enough spare time. (And now, I
don't even have suitable hardware.)

With an abstract partition table service, there would be no problem
compiling fdisk table support into only kernels where it's wanted.
Likewise, there would be no trouble supporting Amiga Rigid Disk Blocks
and other platform-specific phenomena that don't work very well right
now.

It would also cut way down on code duplication in the disk drivers.

The only problem I see would be retaining full backward compatibility
with existing /dev naming, which might be a bit difficult -- but I
don't hear a lot of people protesting that they really like it the way
it is. :-)
-- 
   - David A. Holland             | (please continue to send non-list mail to
     dholland@cs.utoronto.ca      | dholland@hcs.harvard.edu. yes, I moved.)