> In future, I think it would be better to let me / the maintainer
> know when you intend to write a non-trivial patch. I would
> have preferred that this be done in lots of small patches, but
> don't worry now...
You are right. However, as I do not have a lot of access to the net
(once a week), this makes this very hard.
> BTW, everything ok with assigning the copyright to the FSF?
Yes, I have already assigned my work on the Hurd to the FSF; I assume
that that should cover it. Let me know if I need to do more.
> > * libparted/include/parted/device.h (_PedDevice): fd field removed.
> > void *po added -- operating system dependent peropen hook.
>
> Not sure about the name... os_specific would be better, IMHO.
Sure.
> > * libparted/device/device-add.c: New file. Function formerly from
> > libparted/device.c.
>
> In the rest of libparted, it has been device_add.c. I think
> we should be consistent... do you think we should change everything
> to device-add.c?
Of course, better to be consistent. I was using the Hurd naming
conventions and did not look at what you had already done.
> Also, this seems to be a very low-level to split source files
> up at. I'll think about this some more, later...
I modeled my changes against the libc model.
> > * doc/USER: Improve language. Remove contractions.
>
> Why is removing contractions a good thing? I prefer to be
> fairly informal, because it is easier to read (for native
> English speakers). It's hard to know for non-native speakers...
> I have learned a bit of Portuguese, and I would certainly
> find informal PT easier to understand, because it's what I
> use when talking to friends. But, this might be unusual.
> Difficult issue. What's your motivation?
Having taken a bunch of English literature and writing courses, I can
assure you that in formal writing, contractions are a Bad Thing. Having
said that Stevens uses them. Either way, there are a bunch of places
that they were misused (i.e. ``it's'' is ``it is'' not possessive).
> > Compiling
> > ---------
> >
> > To compile (on GNU/Linux or GNU/Hurd), you need to do several things.
> > Patch parted-1.5.1-pre1. Run:
> >
> > $ autconf && automake && automake libparted/device/gnu && automake
> > libparted/device/linux
>
> Why do we need the extra automake stuff? I think the method
> you used to select the directory to use is broken... but
> perhaps automake is broken. For example: we want to be able
> to use "make dist", even if we configured to use Hurd.
I do not know much about automake, if you have a better idea, let me
know.
> > * On the Hurd, off_t is 32 bits, however, 64 bit offsets are supported
> > through the store_offset_t type which is aliased to off64_t. At the
> > moment, I have been going the following hack in config.h:
> >
> > #include <sys/types.h>
> > #define off_t off64_t
> >
> > This needs to be fixed.
>
> Yep.
I have been informed that the correct thing is to just define
_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE.
> > * The Hurd implementation of device_{read,write} happily support files of
> > record sizes other than 512 bytes. So far, 512 and 1 byte records
> > have been tested; greater than 512 bytes needs to be tested (use
> > tmpfs).
>
> Why do we need other than 512 byte sectors?
Not sectors, records. On the Hurd, there is no guarantee about the
record size of a store.
> > * When rebuilding the automake files, it is necessary to run automake
> > manually on the libparted/device/{gnu,linux} directories:
> >
> > # automake && automake libparted/device/gnu && automake \
> > > libparted/device/linux
> >
> > as the directories are mentioned via a variable in configure.in.
>
> Yes, this is bad.
Again, I do not know what the Right Thing is; we need an automake guru.
> > * Because there are library dependencies of libparted on libstore and
> > libshouldbeinlibc, libtool refuses to build shared libraries. We really
> > need them on the Hurd, how do we work around this?
>
> I don't understand the problem. libparted needs to link against
> libstore and libshouldbeinlibc, right? Why is this a problem?
> What does libtool say?
It will not generate shared libraries due to external dependencies
on other shared libraries.
> > * On that note, I am happy that Parted is very conservative when writing
> > partition table, however, it is far to strict when reading them. For
> > instance, I had to use Cfdisk to ``fix'' my partition table (Parted failed
> > to read my Open BSD partition table correctly). Since we want to use
> > libparted to help boot strap the Hurd, this needs to be relaxed a lot.
>
> What did libparted complain about? The BSD code doesn't complain
> about much...
It overlaps other tables; the Open BSD partition table overlays the
entire disk.
> Hmmm. Automatically rounding is bad because people might want
> to reconstruct partition tables (eg: if they delete a partition,
> but don't damage the file system). Displaying this message is
> going to be annoying. It is likely to popup every time!
>
> I think the default start/end thing will handle most cases.
Maybe you can provide suffixes, i.e. M for megabytes, G for giga.
Then if the use uses suffixes, it will round, otherwise, it will not.
> > * When using the mkpart command, it is not obvious that the filesystem type
> > is optional: I have hit enter several times thinking that ext2 was the
> > default. Maybe provide none as an option?
>
> The fs type isn't optional... and ext2 is the default!
Ok, what is the difference between mkpartfs?
> > * When Parted reads an argument that it prompted for, it adds an entry to
> > the history buffer rather then appending to the command line (like bash
> > does).
>
> I don't understand what you're saying. Perhaps you should give
> an example?
In bash:
$ for i in *; do
> echo $i
> done
...
$ <UP>for i in *; do echo $i; done
In mkparted:
(parted) mkpart
Partition type? primary/logical? log
File system type? ext2?
Start? 4.001
End? 5
(parted) <UP>5
I expect parted to print:
(parted) <UP>mkpart logical 4.001 5
> It checks for bad sectors, and writes out the new list. Also,
> it always creates the new version of the linux swap format,
> because the old version causes lots of problems (particularly
> for Sun disk labels).
>
> What version of Linux are you using? Perhaps it doesn't recognise
> the new version. Likewise with Hurd.
2.2.17 under Linux. As with the Hurd, the CVS code from two weeks ago.
> > * ped_device_write takes a const buffer. Logically, this is fine, however,
> > this generates warnings when passing the buffer to functions such as those
> > (store_write) used to write the buffer to disk.
>
> Well, hack around it I guess. i.e. typecast
This is a Hurd bug.
> FWICT, most of priv.h shouldn't exist. I don't like having
> lots of 20 line source files. For helper functions like
> _do_close(), we should probably come up with a better
> abstraction.
What ever you think is best. I prefer the glibc style.
Cheers.
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