[CALUG] Fedora upgrade

[Walt Smith]

I've always been NOT happy with the little stars that show
in fdisk displaying partition sizes. (I'm not complaining about fdisk per se..
I think it was a good idea to display the info ).  

Windows seems to want more precise
boundaries, or used to..   Haven't tried anything lately though.

But Bryans suggestion is a good one: and I would add/amplify:

There should be a way to make ( create ) nice partition boundaries
to make the "star" go away ( rather than some user calculation on
a note pad ):  either an option in fdisk or 

a separate tool.  (you'll notice I'm not detailing the meaning
of "star").  I never got it down quite perfect why other OS's
needed some boundary and others didn't.  ...  I believe there
was some discussion ( on another list ??)
regarding some defect in fdisk.   I'm not sure there was a defect so much as
it's design was to simply make the part size exactly as the user told 

it to.  Although perhaps round-down was a problem if the size entered
was "mega-something byte" rather than 123 sectors... sector boundary ???


Also, fdisk allowed more than one partition to be marked "bootable".
I don't have an explanation for that.  I'd like to see that fixed if
theres not a reason.  Perhaps a marker for each partition part of the boot chain ??


An fdisk display also does not show the boot chain.
There have been times when I'd simply forget what the boot sequence
was and have to trace it again..   I mean the path thru the partitions,
not the kernel boot vmlinuz.

If the boot is straight from MBR, there could be a simple text display
showing:
MBR =>  /dev/hda2

if the boot is chained, 

MBR => /dev/hda1 =>  /dev/hda5   ( primary partition )

MBR= > /dev/hda4(LBA) => /dev/hda6 

( chain is on partition of LBA, where LBA is encapsulation for logical hda6,7,8 )



comment:
Back before VM's became the fad of the day, when I was trialing things,
I'd make a Windows partition, or 2, and then anywhere from 2-4 linux partitions.
Recall that you can have only 4 primary partitions, OR
3 primary, and 1 "extended" consisting of up to 16 logical where linux, being a decent OS,
did not object to residing.

Windows wanted a primary partition only, not logical.
So, to give myself flexibilty, I always used the primary(s) for  some Windows, and
plopped Linux onto the logicals.



Walt..........

==========================================

 Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2011 06:07:26 -0700 (PDT)
From: Bryan J Smith <b.j.smith at ieee.org>
Subject: Re: [CALUG] Fedora upgrade .... CALUG Digest, Vol 54, Issue
    14
To: Walt Smith <waltechmail at yahoo.com>,    "calug at unknownlamer.org"
    <calug at unknownlamer.org>
Message-ID: <342092.51292.qm at web110814.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Depends on what is in the kernel, /boot support, etc...  Lately I've just been 
making /boot a full 1GiB exactly (down to the sector).  I've started making all 
partitions perfect 1GiB boundaries, and am considering writing a tool.  I'd 
consider 512MiB today to be the absolute minimum for more than a few kernels.

Of course, uEFI-GPT is coming.  Then you'll also have a FAT file system slice 
where you drop the GRUB loader into, instead of loading it into a MBR.  That's 
going to confuse even more people, but it's what we had in the ARC firmware days 
(for those of us who ran NT on non-x86, along with some targets of Linux, which 
also supported ARC for compatibility).

If you like FC6, then migrate to RHEL5 (or a rebuild of it).  Your software 
should all work, and it will be supported until 2014 (2017 with an ELS 
subscription).

As far a F15, the GNOME 3 Shell continues to impress myself.  I was shocked how 
well it runs on both AIGLX (accelerated) as well as non-AIGLX (seems to use 
IceWM, at least in F15).  Both are peppy and fast.  I liked Unity, but I'm 
finding I'm preferring GNOME 3.  I'm considering writing a tool to offer to set 
the GCONF profile to more of a NeXTstep default than Windows-like, as I'm tired 
of the GNOME 2 and, now, GNOME 3 defaults.  E.g., focus follows mouse.


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