<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div><br><span></span></div><div><br></div><div>I've always been NOT happy with the little stars that show</div><div>in fdisk displaying partition sizes. (I'm not complaining about fdisk per se..</div><div>I think it was a good idea to display the info ). <br></div><div>Windows seems to want more precise</div><div>boundaries, or used to.. Haven't tried anything lately though.</div><div><br></div><div>But Bryans suggestion is a good one: and I would add/amplify:</div><div><br></div><div>There should be a way to make ( create ) nice partition boundaries</div><div>to make the "star" go away ( rather than some user calculation on</div><div>a note pad ): either an option in fdisk or <br></div><div>a separate tool. (you'll notice I'm not detailing the meaning</div><div>of "star"). I never got it down
quite perfect why other OS's</div><div>needed some boundary and others didn't. ... I believe there</div><div>was some discussion ( on another list ??)</div><div>regarding some defect in fdisk. I'm not sure there was a defect so much as</div><div>it's design was to simply make the part size exactly as the user told <br></div><div>it to. Although perhaps round-down was a problem if the size entered</div><div>was "mega-something byte" rather than 123 sectors... sector boundary ???<br></div><div><br> </div><div>Also, fdisk allowed more than one partition to be marked "bootable".</div><div>I don't have an explanation for that. I'd like to see that fixed if</div><div>theres not a reason. Perhaps a marker for each partition part of the boot chain ??<br></div><div><br></div><div>An fdisk display also does not show the boot chain.</div><div>There have been times when I'd simply forget what the boot sequence</div><div>was
and have to trace it again.. I mean the path thru the partitions,</div><div>not the kernel boot vmlinuz.</div><div><br></div><div>If the boot is straight from MBR, there could be a simple text display</div><div>showing:</div><div>MBR => /dev/hda2</div><div><br></div><div>if the boot is chained, <br></div><div>MBR => /dev/hda1 => /dev/hda5 ( primary partition )</div><div><br></div><div>MBR= > /dev/hda4(LBA) => /dev/hda6 <br></div><div>( chain is on partition of LBA, where LBA is encapsulation for logical hda6,7,8 )<br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>comment:</div><div>Back before VM's became the fad of the day, when I was trialing things,</div><div>I'd make a Windows partition, or 2, and then anywhere from 2-4 linux partitions.</div><div>Recall that you can have only 4 primary partitions, OR</div><div>3 primary, and 1 "extended" consisting of up to 16 logical where linux, being a decent
OS,</div><div>did not object to residing.</div><div><br></div><div>Windows wanted a primary partition only, not logical.</div><div>So, to give myself flexibilty, I always used the primary(s) for some Windows, and</div><div>plopped Linux onto the logicals.<br></div><br><div><br></div><div>Walt..........</div><div><br></div><div>==========================================<br></div><div> Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2011 06:07:26 -0700 (PDT)<br>From: Bryan J Smith <<a href="mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org">b.j.smith@ieee.org</a>><br>Subject: Re: [CALUG] Fedora upgrade .... CALUG Digest, Vol 54, Issue<br> 14<br>To: Walt Smith <<a href="mailto:waltechmail@yahoo.com">waltechmail@yahoo.com</a>>, "<a href="mailto:calug@unknownlamer.org">calug@unknownlamer.org</a>"<br> <<a href="mailto:calug@unknownlamer.org">calug@unknownlamer.org</a>><br>Message-ID: <<a
href="mailto:342092.51292.qm@web110814.mail.gq1.yahoo.com"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1308577928_18">342092.51292.qm@web110814.mail.gq1.yahoo.com</span></a>><br>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii<br><br>Depends on what is in the kernel, /boot support, etc... Lately I've just been <br>making /boot a full 1GiB exactly (down to the sector). I've started making all <br>partitions perfect 1GiB boundaries, and am considering writing a tool. I'd <br>consider 512MiB today to be the absolute minimum for more than a few kernels.<br><br>Of course, uEFI-GPT is coming. Then you'll also have a FAT file system slice <br>where you drop the GRUB loader into, instead of loading it into a MBR. That's <br>going to confuse even more people, but it's what we had in the ARC firmware days <br>(for those of us who ran NT on non-x86, along with some targets of Linux, which <br>also supported ARC for compatibility).<br><br>If you like
FC6, then migrate to RHEL5 (or a rebuild of it). Your software <br>should all work, and it will be supported until 2014 (2017 with an ELS <br>subscription).<br><br>As far a F15, the GNOME 3 Shell continues to impress myself. I was shocked how <br>well it runs on both AIGLX (accelerated) as well as non-AIGLX (seems to use <br>IceWM, at least in F15). Both are peppy and fast. I liked Unity, but I'm <br>finding I'm preferring GNOME 3. I'm considering writing a tool to offer to set <br>the GCONF profile to more of a NeXTstep default than Windows-like, as I'm tired <br>of the GNOME 2 and, now, GNOME 3 defaults. E.g., focus follows mouse.<br></div><div><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size:
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