On Tue, Nov 11, 2025 at 8:43 AM Markus Armbruster <[email protected]> wrote: > > Kevin Wolf <[email protected]> writes: > > > Am 10.11.2025 um 14:20 hat Markus Armbruster geschrieben: > >> BALATON Zoltan <[email protected]> writes: > >> > >> > On Mon, 10 Nov 2025, Clément Chigot wrote: > >> >> On Mon, Nov 10, 2025 at 11:07 AM Markus Armbruster <[email protected]> > >> >> wrote: > >> >>> > >> >>> Clément Chigot <[email protected]> writes: > >> >>> > >> >>>> This option tells whether a hard disk should be partitioned or not. It > >> >>>> defaults to true and have the prime effect of preventing a master boot > >> >>>> record (MBR) to be initialized. > >> >>>> > >> >>>> This is useful as some operating system (QNX, Rtems) don't > >> >>>> recognized FAT mounted disks (especially SD cards) if a MBR is > >> >>>> present. > >> >>>> > >> >>>> Signed-off-by: Clément Chigot <[email protected]> > > [...] > > >> >>> Not sure I like "partitioned". Is a disk with an MBR and a partition > >> >>> table contraining a single partition partitioned? Call it "mbr"? > >> >> > >> >> It used to be called "mbr/no-mbr" but Kevin suggested renaming it in > >> >> V1. Honestly I'm fine with both options: > >> >> - Technically, the option prevents MBR which has a side effect for > >> >> preventing partition tables > >> > >> Yes, because the partition table is part of the MBR. I'd rather name > >> the option after the entire thing it controls, not one of its parts. > >> > >> >> - Even it has a single partition, I think it makes sense to call a > >> >> disk "partitioned" as long as it has a partition table > >> >> > >> >> But I'm not that familiar with disk formats, etc. I'll let you decide > >> >> with Kevin, which one you prefer. > >> > >> Kevin is the maintainer, I just serve as advisor here. > > > > I figured that the meaning of "partitioned" is easier to understand for > > a casual user than having or not having an MBR ("I don't want to boot > > from this disk, why would I care about a boot record?"). > > Fair point. > > Possible counter-points: > > * The default is almost always right for the casual user. The > exception, as far as I understand, is certain guest OSes refuse to > play ball with certain devices when they have an MBR. > > * The configuration interface isn't exactly casual-user-friendly to > begin with. @fat-type, what's that, and why do I care? @floppy, > what's that, and why do I care? > > Anyway, you decide.
AFAICT, there are two open questions for that patch: 1. "mbr" vs "partitioned". I do think "partitioned" is clearer, a bit more casual friendly. "mbr" requires knowledge about FAT format, while what's a partition should be known by a wider audience. Side note, in V3, I'll remove the "unpartitioned" keyword to simply replace it by "partitoned=false" (I wasn't aware such an obvious possibility was working...). So we might even call it "partition/partitions=true|false". 2. The default value. Should it be "false" for @floppy ? IMO, having a default value independent of other arguments is always better. Hence, I'll push for keeping "partitioned=true" as the default, and having users forcing "partitioned=false" for floppy (an error being raised otherwise). As we'll probably change the default behavior with floppy anyway (cf patch 2), I don't think it will hurt a lot to make users passing a new flag. > > But if people think that "mbr" is better, that's fine with me. > > > > The only thing I really didn't want is the negative "no-mbr" and the > > double negation in "no-mbr=off" that comes with it. > > Yes, negative names should definitely be avoided for boolean options. > > [...] >
