> I don't have a particular issue with most of the disk hackery that OpenBSD > currently performs, but the key detail is that at least under x86, powermac > and sgi platforms [1] it seems to work within the boundaries of the native > disk partitioning by using a custom disk format, performing custom > partition labelling or using a native partition as a container for a custom > format (disklabel inside MBR partition). > > That strategy tends to co-exist quite nicely with other tools/BIOSes/OSes > that might inadvertently read the disk (with the exception of the pure BSD > disklabel as you say). > > That's not the case with storing data outside the 2TB limit enforced by the > MBR design. It seems to me it would be more sensible to stick a disklabel > inside a new OpenBSD GPT partition type. All the data are successfully > protected by a known standard and both the users and disk tools are happy.
The openbsd disklabel can reach up that high easily. The GPT changes nothing. That is just a stub pointing at where openbsd is. You are not talking about "partitions we handle here", but about something the bootloader sets up and then we forget about it forever. > I'll grant that multiboot is a rare and usually inadvisable configuration > (although I'd suggest it's useful on laptops sometimes), but protecting all > the data on a uniboot system sounds advisable. There is nothing preventing someone with a GPT + covering MBR from setting up the GPT (which in their case has been mangled by many operating systems) to cover all the OpenBSD space nicely. But the tools our install scripts use do not do that. And you are going to start work on a replacement for fdisk tomorrow, that can do all the MBR stuff still, but also handle GPT? The people who want multiboot to work in a GPT-only-world that they -- and only they -- see coming should really write the code themselves. At this moment, the GPT-only systems that exist come from a vendor that does not envision multiboot, either. Why hold people who you don't pay to a higher standard than the people who you do pay?
