Messages in this thread | | | Date | Fri, 2 Jul 2004 19:04:10 +0200 | From | Andries Brouwer <> | Subject | Re: [RFC] Restoring HDIO_GETGEO semantics (was: Re: workaround for BIOS / CHS stuff) |
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On Fri, Jul 02, 2004 at 06:17:53PM +0200, Szakacsits Szabolcs wrote:
> Does anybody find the new HDIO_GETGEO semantic useful? Did it help > _anything_?
Yes. I do.
There was a steady stream of people reporting on geometry problems. All these problems were caused by kernel guessing stuff. If the kernel no longer volunteers a guess, then we no longer have the situation that the guess can be wrong.
We lived in a world where things got more and more complicated with programs guessing what values other programs might want to satisfy a third program.
The new world is getting much simpler. Only the programs that need a value have to invent it. Many of these can in fact do without. LILO survives well without geometry information.
The only case I see where absolutely something is needed is the case of partitioning an empty disk. Telling the user at that point: "if you have no idea I'll use H=255 S=63, that is very often correct, but note that if you also want to use Windows on this disk it might be better to let Windows partition first; also, enabling CONFIG_EDD might allow me to guess what the BIOS uses" may be enough.
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