Re: Windows drive letters (was Re: Is there an alternative filesystem hierarchy that could be adapted to Debian.)
On Fri 12 Mar 2021 at 04:33:00 (-0500), The Wanderer wrote:
> On 2021-03-11 at 23:05, David Wright wrote:
> > On Thu 11 Mar 2021 at 16:02:55 (-0400), Cmdte Alpha Tigre Z wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> > I'm not familiar with how Windows assigns drive letters,
>
[ … ]
> For removable disks (e.g. USB drives), whenever a new one is connected
> the next currently-not-known-used letter is assigned, for a definition
> of "used" that doesn't count letters taken up by being mapped to network
> drives. *Usually* it seems to recognize a previously-connected drive and
> assign it the same letter as it got before, but not always; I've yet to
> identify any recognizable pattern to how it handles things when two
> drives previously got the same letter and you connect them both.
>
> > particularly ones that are meant to be Stable.
>
> I'm not entirely sure how you're defining this.
I'm probably conflating …
> Fixed disks basically always get the same letter. Removable ones only
> sometimes do.
… those two things. I've used Disk Manager to stop assigning *any*
letter to my fixed disk linux partitions so that it doesn't nag my
wife about reformatting them.
Reading the OP's use of E: and F:, and storing device names in the
filesystem, I assumed that Stable/Remembered names was some ability of
Windows that the OP missed in linux. (Like much of the thread seems
to be.) Hence the exposition on my own scheme for stable mount points.
[ … ]
> > But AIUI you're fighting hard to go backwards. Under the right
> > circumstances, I am led to believe that you can mount devices onto
> > directories in Window's NTFS filesystems, thereby avoiding letters.
>
> You still have to have the letters, or at least "letter" singular, so
> that you have a place to create directories onto which to do the
> mounting. Other than that, yes, this is possible.
Yes, I wasn't discounting the system drive being a letter (C:),
but just pointing out the recent ability to make a hierarchy out of
Windows's C: D: E: F: disjointed filesystem.
(IOW "letters" stood for having all these separate "roots".)
> To be clear: I think this entire proposal (except for the part about how
> Windows should automatically proceed to AA: after hitting Z:) is
> wrongheaded, not worth the effort, virtually certain to never be
> implemented in practice, and would cause far more problems than it would
> solve. As a thought exercise it is interesting, but primarily for how it
> helps us dig up and see the problems which would result from trying to
> implement it.
Agreed. (No opinion on the parenthesised bit.)
Cheers,
David.
Reply to: