Re: UUID vs /dev
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
John L Fjellstad wrote:
> Joe Hart <j.hart@orange.nl> writes:
>
>> I can understand the usage of UUID on removable drives, but it seems the
>> new way of dealing with *all* disks is UUID. Why this needs to be so
>> for normal hard drives remains a mystery to me.
>
> Name of the disks are influx in the kernel right now. For instance, if
> you have SATA disks, then depending on the kernel version, it could
> either be hdX or sdX (older kernels would have them as hdX and newer
> sdX). From what I can see, even IDE disks are moving to the sdX label.
>
> In the transition period, if you have hdX in your /etc/fstab, your
> system might become unbootable with a new kernel install. If you have
> label or UUID, then you continue as if nothing has happened.
>
Now that is a good reason. AFAIK, as of the newer kernels (forget which
release) all drives are now sdX, so this issue becomes moot. I can see
why UUID is a good idea, but a LABEL is much easier to read.
Another example are MD5sums. Machines are good at comparing them, but
people are not. If the first few characters and the last few characters
match, then most people will think that the sums match, even though a
few characters in the middle may be off. A machine would of course
catch that, and meticulous humans would too, but most people are not so
careful.
One of the big things that turned me off of Windows was the GUIDs all
over the place, now I find the same sort of random looking characters
appearing in GNU/Linux. Oh well. Once the device is set, I don't
really have to pay much attention to it. At least I don't have to go
hunting through a registry hunting for GUID keys anymore.
There is no fighting the trend, so I might as well get used to the idea
of being stupider than my computer. In the future it will be even more so.
Joe
- --
Registerd Linux user #443289 at http://counter.li.org/
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
iD8DBQFGLluQiXBCVWpc5J4RAgMXAJ4rQgRBMgQLsuSm5asCCETsi6+tGwCghbuc
mACbACLv7dkBybYg1I9OPeI=
=wxxt
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Reply to: