On Wed, 8 Dec 1999, Jon Lindgren wrote:

> I create a filesystem on, say, an i386 platform, will I be able to
> [theoretically] mount and use the filesystem on another system of
> different endian-ness (say, a sparc)?  

The filesystem, yes.  The disklabel, no.  You must come up with a way to
transfer the disklabel to your SPARC in text format, and rewrite the
actual label on the disk (risky, perhaps, esp. with ``extended''
partition mess).

I have a couple lines of code that make disklabel read other-endiness
labels and then load them into core, without modifying the disk.  Thus,
your disk is not partitioned at boot.  you say, 'disklabel -l' and the
partitions show up, _provided_ they are in the standard BSDish form, and
not MBR or Mac or Weird format.

It's of limited use.  the main value is, ``recognize native at boot,
recognize all others with a userland tool.'' it's the xsane 2n vs. n^2
idea.  i'd be happy to send you what i have, but it's very rough.

-- 
Miles Nordin / v:1-888-857-2723 fax:+1 530 579-8680
555 Bryant Street PMB 182 / Palo Alto, CA 94301-1700 / US