Quoting Cy Schubert <cy.schub...@cschubert.com>:
In message <CANCZdfq+F1iFpUkDEYdcxPJfp96Ymz8KjBGaK_JNN1i09s7P=A@mail.gmail.c
om>
, Warner Losh writes:
--000000000000b0adc9060fbe7411
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
On Wed, Jan 24, 2024, 10:07=E2=80=AFPM Cy Schubert <Cy.Schubert@cschubert.c=
om>
wrote:
> In message <202401242347.40onlwkz099...@gndrsh.dnsmgr.net>, "Rodney W.
> Grimes"
> writes:
> > > I would agree personally, to moving to ports (eg ports/sysutils) with
> > > a DEPRECATED in the DESCR or something, or better yet a Make
> > > invokation event to say "superceded, here is how to proceed against
> > > advice") or something.
> >
> > They are totally useless as ports when your booted from install
> > media and working from a standalone shell. These are the exact
> > times you want things like fdisk and bsdlabel so you can figure
> > out wtf is going on, and bsdinstall is NOT gona help you.
>
> This is certainly a good point.
>
What can they do that gpart can't do?
This was quite a while ago, booted off my recovery USB attempting to repair
some self caused damage. The ability to edit (vi) a file with starting
addresses and lengths, visually using bsdlabel, was suited to my panicked
state as I worked to recover the machine.
A visual view of columns of a bsdlabel, editing a label using vi, checking
and double checking numbers before committing them is handy.The visual
format and the ability to adjust the numbers in an editor before committing
them is handy. You can't do this with gpart, as it's transactional. And
bsdinstall doesn't give one the opportunity to check the numbers in detail
on a console before committing them.
Maybe a good GSoC project may be to replace bsdlabel's driect writes to
disk with geom calls. Though, t doesn't need to be bsdlabel, but some kind
of utility that displays the existing label in an editor session where
changes can be made, using the editor, and committed. This could even be an
enhancement to bsdinstall: call it expert mode or whatever.
well, I'v been there many times.
There is another regular usecase, this time for fdisk for me, that ist
repairing a windows boot disk. I have no idea of waht to use if not fdisk
to do that, rather than booting linux to run fdisk for windows repairs.
That in fact would be the only linux box, only to support windows...
/rmd
