[H-GEN] confusion re device namings

[W. Sierke]

[ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and
Unix-related topics. ]

> On Tue, 28 Sep 1999, Ben Carlyle wrote:
> > Clinton Roy wrote:
> >
> > > I know I'll get into trouble for this, but I've been getting rid of my
> > > (badly sized) partitions for /home /usr etc and just been shoving them
> > > all in the one partition, currently I've got:
> > >
> > > hda1  Boot  Primary  Linux ext2   2944.66
> > > hda5        Logical  Linux ext2   1266.70
> > > hda6        Logical  Linux swap  98.71
> >
>
> I could have this all bum up but does not a logical partition need an
extended
> partition to contain it? I am less than a complete expert in Linux fdisk
but
> (oh bloody hell gonna get some stick here) but in DOS you can not make a
> logical partition alone. You make an extended partition then a logical
> partition in the extended partition. You need (if I am correct):-
>
>  hda1  primary
> hda2 extended then some logical partitions.
>
> Why do this? In DOS it is difficult to have more than one primary
partition and
> then have to add extended partitions but in Linux you can have 4
primaries.
> Other than your swap partition you only want 2 partitions...why not make
them
> both primaries hda1 and hda2?
>
> Now beat the crap out of me if I am wrong here.
>
> --
> Frank Brand

Having recently been playing around with partitioning a drive, I can say
from my experience you are correct, the logical partitions are created
within an extended partition. Note that fdisk will happily create them and,
of course, Linux will use them. I found that there is a rather nasty caveat
for the (surprise, surprise) DOS/Windows user. When I subsequently added DOS
logical partitions using DOS/WIN FDISK, I found my Linux logical partitions
were simply removed, as though FDISK wasn't even aware of them (and I guess
for all intents and purposes, it wasn't).

My testing didn't go any further than that, but I hope an FDISK /MBR doesn't
do anything nasty (I wouldn't risk trying it with an important disk).

I think Frank's point is most valid, though. It shouldn't be necessary to
resort to using logical partitions for the scenario you've described.


Wayne



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