[parted-devel] [PATCH] cylinder boundries in msdos

[Joel Granados Moreno]

Hello parted ppl.

I have been playing with an idea and will like to share what could be a
potential benefit to parted.  Everything starts with a question:
Why the hell do we align to cylinder boundaries in msdos partitions?  I
mean, how old is this, 30 years old.  IMO we should push toward rooting
this alignment issue out of the msdos partitions and either nuke it
completely or make it an option.
This very simple patch illustrates my point.  I have run all test and it
fails on a constraint test for msdos partitions (of course), but it
fails because when the test creates a partition from 1 to 40 (sectors),
parted allows this, so the test fails.  So this fail is expected and the
test would have to be changed.
Note that this change does not mean that we would stop checking for gpt
labels and other stuff that might interfere with the msdos label.

Would like some comments on this.

FYI: this is just the tip of the iceberg.  The patch just takes away the
alignment for cylinders.  More work has to be done though.

regards



Joel Andres Granados
Brno, Czech Republic, Red Hat.