Subject: Re: Increasing maximum partition to 16
To: Matthias Scheler <tron@zhadum.de>
From: David Brownlee <abs@netbsd.org>
List: tech-kern
Date: 12/28/2000 18:33:20
	If we're going to make a change maybe we should allocate an extra
	bit for 32 partitions, though we will probably want to limit most
	devices to 22 partitions to avoid having to enlarge on-disk
	disklabels.

	Maybe even have reserve a minor number for the raw partition to
	be the device name without a letter)?

		David/absolute		-- www.netbsd.org: No hype required --


On 28 Dec 2000, Matthias Scheler wrote:

> 	Hello,
>
> I've attached changes for NetBSD-current which give the i386 port a maximum
> of 16 partitions per disk:
>
> tron@lyssa:~#df
> Filesystem            1K-blocks     Used     Avail Capacity  Mounted on
> [...]
> /dev/vnd0l                31727        1     30139       0%    /mnt/l
>
> The changes are:
>
> + completely backward compatible (new kernel works with old device nodes)
> + easily reusable for other ports like e.g. alpha or sparc
>
> The trick is to use some extra upper bits of the minor device number for
> the partition.
>
> 	Kind regards
>
>