[Parted-maintainers] Bug#673042: parted: loose 'legacy BIOS bootable' flag on GPT disks

[Jérémy Bobbio]

Package: parted
Version: 2.3-5
Severity: important
Tags: patch

Hi!

Parted currently does not handle GPT partition flags properly when
modifying a GPT. The most crucial flag that is lost is the 'legacy BIOS
bootable'. It is used by SYSLINUX to detect which partition the system
should be booted from, for example. Currently, any changes using parted
(or one of the tools that rely on parted e.g. gnome-disk-utility) will
make a system using SYSLINUX on GPT unbootable if the flag is not
manually re-added. Pretty annoying, to say the least.

Attached is a patch against the version of parted currently in squeeze.
It is made of three patches cherry-picked from upstream. Other GPT flags
are still not preserved, but at least the 'legacy BIOS bootable' is.

This patch fails on the version currently in sid due to some issues with
autoconf/automake stuff. I'd rather let you handle that, but the
backported patches apply cleanly and manually building the code showed
that they work as intended.

I think this issue is worth an update in the next stable point release.

Cheers,
-- 
Jérémy Bobbio                        .''`. 
lunar at debian.org                    : :Ⓐ  :  # apt-get install anarchism
                                    `. `'` 
                                      `-   
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