On 25/01/2024 06:50, Cy Schubert wrote:
In message <CANCZdfq+F1iFpUkDEYdcxPJfp96Ymz8KjBGaK_JNN1i09s7P=A@mail.gmail.c
What can they do that gpart can't do?
This was quite a while ago, booted off my recovery USB attempting to repair
some self caused damage. The ability to edit (vi) a file with starting
addresses and lengths, visually using bsdlabel, was suited to my panicked
state as I worked to recover the machine.
A visual view of columns of a bsdlabel, editing a label using vi, checking
and double checking numbers before committing them is handy.The visual
format and the ability to adjust the numbers in an editor before committing
them is handy. You can't do this with gpart, as it's transactional. And
bsdinstall doesn't give one the opportunity to check the numbers in detail
on a console before committing them.
If you really like your editor of choice to edit partition table, you
can use gpart backup and gpart restore like this:
gpart backup ada0 > ada0.part
vi ada0.part
gpart restore -F -l < ada0.part
Maybe a good GSoC project may be to replace bsdlabel's driect writes to
disk with geom calls. Though, t doesn't need to be bsdlabel, but some kind
of utility that displays the existing label in an editor session where
changes can be made, using the editor, and committed. This could even be an
enhancement to bsdinstall: call it expert mode or whatever.
Manipulating partition table in editor session can be achieved by few
lines of shell script as a wrapper around gpart backup & gpart restore.
Kind regards
Miroslav Lachman
