[parted-devel] Few comments regarding Parted

[KESHAV P.R.]

First of all, thank you Jim, for correcting the "msftres" bug in Parted.

I have a few comments regarding the flags option in Parted (and
GParted etc.). I will restrict myself to MBR and GPT partitions. In
any partition table, each partition has a Partition type code and
Partition attributes. But there is no way in Parted to find out which
one is set under flags option.

For example in an MBR disk, the lba flag changes the partition type
code but boot flag sets the "Bootable" attribute to a partition. In
Parted there is no way to differentiate between partition type codes
and partition attributes. Both are under the flags option but each
option modifies different regions in the table, and it is possible to
have both flags set.

Similarly in a GPT disk, the boot flag changes the partition type to
"EFI System Partition" (there is no mention about this in Parted
Documentation). But the hidden flag sets the partition attribute to
Hidden type. If you compare the MBR and GPT, the boot flag in MBR
changes the attribute but in GPT it changes the Partition type. There
should be some way to differentiate the options for changing the
partition types from those for changing the partition attributes.

I suggest that you create a separate "type" or similar option (similar
to flags) to change the partition type of a Partition (whatever be the
partition table) and keep flags option for changing the partition
attributes. This means in a GPT disk "msftres" and "boot" options
should be in "type" option while in a MBR disk "lba" should be in
"type" option while "boot" should remain under flags (for example)

Also rename the "boot" flag in GPT disk to something like "efisys" to
better reflect what it actually does (like the name "bios_grub" for
BIOS Boot Partition). This is just one case which I found, there might
be other options where the name might be misleading (surely the fact
that setting the boot flag on a GPT partition changes it to EFI_SYSTEM
is not known directly - I came to know about it in some forum while I
was wondering where is the option of creating a EFI System Partition
in GParted). Here the name "boot" for the flag is misleading. Hope you
got what I mean to say.

I also came across a New GPT partition type in the UEFI specification
called MBR Partition Scheme. The purpose of this partition type is to
nest an MBR inside a GPT partition whose GUID is -

024DEE41-33E7-11D3-9D69-0008C781F39F

I have not heard of any system as such having this kind of
configuration, but since it is in the GPT specification, it might be
useful to include support for such partitions for Parted/GParted.
Thank you.