thanks Janne for the explanation. I thought a fdisk partition on i386 is *required* after reading FAQ14/man pages and I was a bit surprised to be able to create a disklabel partition without doing "fdisk -i". so I wrote to the list for help on what I mis-understood ...
thanks. Alan On Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 3:41 PM, Janne Johansson <icepic...@gmail.com> wrote: > 2012/2/7 Alan Cheng <bsdp...@gmail.com>: > > Hello list, > > > > I'm playing around with fdisk on a vmware virtual machine with 5.0 i386. > > Despite what's in FAQ14.4, I found I can still create disklabel > partitions > > without a fdisk partition (no fdisk -i $disk) on a blank disk. > > > > I'm confused. So my question is: > > 1. Is fdisk partition a must for a NON-SYSTEM disk on i386? > > 2. what is the disadvantage of using a disklabel partition without fdisk > > partition in above mentioned scenario? > > fdisk and disklabel aren't really optional in that sense. > Every disk (at least on PC derivates) should have one A6 partition, > and a disklabel to match the area inside that fdisk partition. > > You can fake around it in various ways, but there is seldom a real > need to, so why bother doing it in odd ways? It will perhaps bite you > in the long run to do it in non-standard ways. > > -- > To our sweethearts and wives. May they never meet. -- 19th century toast
