[Parted-maintainers] Bug#590956: parted: please implement mechanisms to have partitions end on a cylinder boundary

[Marc Haber]

Package: parted
Version: 2.3-1
Severity: wishlist

Hi,

when a partition doesn't end on a cylinder boundary, the "normal"
fdisk will complain:

root at grml ~ # parted /dev/sda mkpart ext2 40 60
Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab.

root at grml ~ # parted /dev/sda print
Model: ATA WDC WD1002FBYS-0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name  Flags
 1      39.8MB  59.8MB  19.9MB               ext2

root at grml ~ # fdisk -l /dev/sda
GNU Fdisk 1.2.4
Copyright (C) 1998 - 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This program is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.


Disk /dev/sda: 1000 GB, 1000202273280 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               5           8       64102   83  Linux
Warning: Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
root at grml ~ #

I know this is irrelevant nowadays since today's disks are organized
differently from what fdisk sees, but the warning still is a nuisance
(and causes clueless customers to complain about broken partitioning).

Please consider adding an option to round partition boundaries to a
cylinder boundary optionally to parted.

Greetings
Marc