Re: small newfs_msdos addition

On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 10:46:35AM +0100, Rink Springer wrote:
> Hi Luigi,
> 
> On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 10:41:25AM +0100, Luigi Rizzo wrote:
> > If there are no objections I'd like to commit the small patch below
> > to newfs_msdos.c -- all it does is create a fake geometry if
> > it cannot get the media size, which is handy when you want to
> > create a filesystem image on a regular file.
> 
> Hmm, what about adding this as a seperate option, or perhaps printing a
> message that it made a wild guess?

Right now it does this:

    > newfs_msdos /tmp/aaa
    newfs_msdos: warning: /tmp/aaa is not a character device
    /tmp/aaa: 20424 sectors in 2553 FAT12 clusters (4096 bytes/cluster)
    bps=512 spc=8 res=1 nft=2 rde=512 sec=20480 mid=0xf0 spf=8 spt=64 hds=32 hid=0

so the warning is there already.
I am a bit reluctant to add one more option -- the whole goal was to
make it easy to use, otherwise one could just exploit the existing flags.

> When I create a md(4), I may have accidently forgotten to specify the
> geometry and I would like to be reminded that it made something up,

well, the whole geometry thing (and disktab) is a relic of the past.
These days it is completley meaningless -- hard disks always have a fake
geometry (63sec/255heads), same for flash memories...

cheers
luigi