Re: debinst: non-msdos partition table creation support
On Wed 01 Nov, Glenn McGrath wrote:
> I understand how msdos partition tables work now, its just a bunch of
> ugly hacks to make use of legacy structures that are long obsolete.
>
> msdos partitions need to be supported for machines that need microsoft
> compatability (and other OS's ?), but i think that we should provided
> users the ability to create a non-crap partition table.
>
> There are heaps of other partition tables formats around, i dont know
> much about any of them though, i will look into it.
RiscOS machines (ARM) use a whole host of partition formats (all third
parties invented their own as the original OS assumed one partition per
disk). There are at least 4 in quite common use, probably more like 7 in
total. We have a libfdisk for boot-floppies which supports 2 of these so far
and more will be added (I just got info on a new one promised yesterday).
I don't know if any of these provide useful extra functionality over the DOS
scheme, but most are simpler, not having sub-partitions. This also means they
have more entries, typically 8.
Not all ARM machies use this. Eg netwinders have PC-BIOS type partitions on
their drives. Most other ARM machines don't have drives at all, just CF cards
- I don't know if they allow partitioning :-)
So, not sure if that's actually much use to you, but feel free to ask me
about ARM partitioning if you need to know, or need things testing or spec
sanity-checking to make sure all the above rubbish can be supported.
Wookey
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