[parted-devel] Logical sector size warning still accurate?

[Colin Watson]

On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 04:06:16PM +0100, Jim Meyering wrote:
> Colin Watson wrote:
> > libparted still includes this warning:
> >
> >         if (dev->sector_size != PED_SECTOR_SIZE_DEFAULT) {
> >                 ped_exception_throw (
> >                         PED_EXCEPTION_WARNING,
> >                         PED_EXCEPTION_OK,
> >                         _("Device %s has a logical sector size of %lld.  Not "
> >                           "all parts of GNU Parted support this at the moment, "
> >                           "and the working code is HIGHLY EXPERIMENTAL.\n"),
> >                         dev->path, dev->sector_size);
> >         }
> >
> > Is this still accurate?  Given that we've now had a stable release
> > advertising support in its NEWS file for >512-byte sectors, it seems odd
> > that libparted still throws an exception when it encounters such disks.
> 
> That warning is still apt for some use cases.
> Is it causing trouble?
> 
> If you limit your usage to GPT and MSDOS partition tables and
> don't use any of parted's file system-related operations,
> you may be safe.  But until such disks come into regular use,
> it's probably still warranted.

I guess I'm mostly worried about shipping an OS that will issue a scary
warning on disks that are likely to come into regular use well within
its support lifetime, and I wanted to know whether folks had simply
forgotten to remove the warning (since this does happen sometimes).

> For example, I don't have such a disk (though could probably arrange
> for intermittent, inconvenient remote access, if I tried).  Find a
> donor and that code will surely get a lot more testing than it does now.

I have such a disk now, although am having some tangential hardware
trouble getting it set up (the problem with working from home is that
you have to do all your own hardware maintenance ...); I will be testing
parted 2.2 with it in the context of Ubuntu.  I don't know if I have any
relevant good offices, but I can certainly ask the same donor if they
have any more to spare.

In the meantime, do you have a hit-list of things you'd like me to test
and fix as necessary?

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson at ubuntu.com]