Re: SURVEY: precision in GNU Parted's user interface

[Sven Luther]

On Sat, Apr 02, 2005 at 04:55:14AM +1000, Andrew Clausen wrote:
> Hi all,

Hi Andrew, ...

Friest my replies : 

Q1: B
Q2: B
Q3: B
Q4: C

Then a more generic analysis. I highly dislike this survey, and the
supposition based solely on MBR that go with it. In particular cylinder
boundaries are a thing of the past, not having any valid reality in current
disks, so all your question about exact position and cylinder boundaries need
to be taken modulo the constraint of the underlying partition table. If a
partition table has to have cylinder aligned partitions, then any partitions
created by the user have to be cylinder aligned (in the case of the amiga/rdb,
it is imposible to do otherwise anyway, i guess it is so for some others too).

Also, i think it is meaningful to have the partition boundaries adapt to the
surrounding stuff, and the = prefix to sizes is something that could be
extended. One could imagine the following scheme : 

  1) value      -> handled in the best possible way as we currently do.
  2) =value     -> the exact value, possibly fails if the underlying partition
                   table is not able to use it, with a verbose message
                   proposing the (two?) closest possibility.
  3) <value     -> the same as 2), but adjusted to the lower possible boundary.
  4) >value     -> same, but adjusted to the upper boundary.
  5) ~value     -> adjusted to the next upper or lower partition boundary
                   (depending if start or end)

And even some more advanced stuff : 

  6) ~value-|+hole      -> the next lower/upper partition boundary, + or - a
                           given hole.

BTW, among the units, do we have a cylinder unit ? 

Hope this is understandable and not too confused.

BTW, does the unit stuff change the soname of libparted ? 

Friendly,

Sven Luther