Bug#269042: 269042 Addendum: how to preserve Tru64 prepartitioning from the installer?

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Wed, Sep 01, 2004 at 09:16:05AM -0400, Toni L. Harbaugh-Blackford [Contr] wrote:
> Sven-
> 
> Thanks for the quick response.
> 
> On Wed, 1 Sep 2004, Sven Luther wrote:
> 
>   > On Wed, Sep 01, 2004 at 08:22:36AM -0400, Toni L. Harbaugh-Blackford [Contr] wrote:
>   > > Hi-
>   > >
>   > > 'partman' corrupts a Tru64 disklabel for disks that are prepartitioned.
>   >
>   > Adding tru64 partition table support (or fixing existing support ?) would
>   > solve this issue. I have no idea want kind of partition tables are used on
>   > Tru64 though.
> 
> Tru64 uses BSD disklabels, so that the Alpha can be booted from SRM.
> According to an incomplete discussion on the debian-alpha list, partman
> should be able to handle the Tru64 labels.
> 
> But partman corrupts those labels in such a way that Tru64 can no longer read
> them; however, the labels are 'good enough' for SRM, so that debian still boots.

This is a bug of at least important severity. Could you (or someone else)
please fill a bug report (or follow up on another bug report already filled
about this problem), and provide appropriate information on how to fix this.

Notice that the only reason i am not pushing this to RC severity is the
relative nearness of the release, but since it can cause unrelated data loss,
it should really be of this kind.

> Really, partman would not need to be fixed if section
> 
>    'A.5. Debian Partitioning Programs'

This is bullshit, since when do we believe in doing some lamentable workaround
instead of doing the right thing and fixing the issue ? Or are the alpha guys
also suffering from the debian-powerpc symptom of people liking to document
their workaround in random web pages, instead of fixing it ? 

Friendly,

Sven Luther