Re: [gentoo-user] new installation (ssd, new udev, grub2)

[Michael Mol]

On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 11:47 AM, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com>wrote:

> On Mon, 13 Aug 2012 08:17:23 -0400
> Michael Mol <mikemol@×××××.com> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 4:06 AM, Neil Bothwick <neil@××××××××××.uk>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > On Sun, 12 Aug 2012 14:11:37 -0400, Allan Gottlieb wrote:
> > >
> > > > > I have one of those. But I decided to stick with traditional DOS
> > > > > partitioning style and grub instead of GPT and grub2.
> > > >
> > > > I am leaning toward traditional partitioning, but with grub2.  Do
> > > > those two not mix well?
> > >
> > > GRUB2 works fine with MBR partition tables. But if you're starting
> > > from scratch, you may as well use GPT and get rid of the legacy MBR
> > > limitations and fragility.
> > >
> >
> > I'm not dissing GPT...but what's fragile about MBR?
>
> it's 30 years old,
> only 4 primary partitions,
> only 16 extended partitions,
> it's got that weird DOS boot flag thing,
> it all has to fit in one sector.
>
> I had to fix a mispartitioned disk over the weekend, this really should
> have been a simple mv-type operation, but because all 4 primary
> partitions were in use I had to disable swap and use it as a leap-frog
> area. It felt like I was playing 15 pieces with the disk. That's
> fragile - not that the disk breaks, but that it breaks my ability to
> set the thing up easily.
>
> Basically, mbr was built to cater for the needs of DOS-3. In the
> meantime, 1982 called and they want their last 30 years back.
>
> Just because we can hack workarounds into it to get it to function
> doesn't mean we should continue to use it.
>

You misunderstand me. I wasn't arguing that GPT wasn't perhaps more elegant
than MBR and dos partitions. I wanted to know what was _fragile_ about MBR.
Completely different things.

-- 
:wq