On Mon, 20 Sep 1999, Bill Studenmund wrote:
#
# ...I'd vote for something like /dev/disk, myself...

Gawd, I know I suggested it, and I know that if we use more than
16 partitions per drive, we'll need it, but I really shudder to
think of /dev/dsk and /dev/rdsk...

I suppose it wouldn't be too bad were we not to use the c0t0d0s0
nosense supported by sysv, but I'm still shuddering;  I think I'd
rather see /dev/{r,}{sd,hd,wd,xy,xd}, than just generic "disk",
though.

# ... [not all the devices would live in the same disklabel] ...

...So how do you propose to have partitions 0-63 be consistent
in meaning across disks?  We gotta standardise on something, here.
[but see below]

I mean, /dev/rsd/aa needs to have the same rough meaning on one
disk as it does on the other.  Unless....hmmm...

If having many different disklabel types on the disk is essential,
why not /dev/rsd/0a for the usual filesystem, but /dev/rsd/0msa
for the first encountered msdos partition, /dev/rsd/3ntc for the
third encountered NT partition, and the like; i.e., why not explicitly
name the partition type?

Of course, this brings us back to the fact that since different
partitions have different minor numbers, and the humanoid-readable
device names only correspond to different minor numbers, these
numbers will need to translate into something meaningful across
the disks.

Maybe it's just my mind being unable to wrap itself around abstractions,
but having labels scattered about randomly between devices -- and trying
to intuit them in a non-uniform fashion -- seems to me to be borrowing
trouble.  Don't ask me why.  I'll think on it for a while.

				--*greywolf;
--
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