The "rules" are different for different architectures, different disks (usb and whatever) and so on, so you can't really map every possible device on all machines into one neat rule. But telling people to use fdisk and disklabel to get it right will be the least painful way to get it as common as it can be. So, some apple-ipad-while-on-usb will be a "disk" with no partitions and a filesystem on top of the sdXc, or someone sets up their CF disk like that, or someone manages to get two A6 partitions on the same disk and not confuse himself, but this may not mean its a good idea.
2012/2/7 Alan Cheng <bsdp...@gmail.com>: > 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 > > -- To our sweethearts and wives. May they never meet. -- 19th century toast
