Re: [gentoo-user] OT: Question re: UUID

[Mark Knecht]

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 12:40 AM, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com> wrote:
>
> On Tuesday 22 April 2008, Mick wrote:
>  > On Monday 21 April 2008, Mark Knecht wrote:
>  > > On Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 2:22 PM, Neil Bothwick <neil@××××××××××.uk>
>  wrote:
>  > > > On Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:41:58 +0200, Dirk Heinrichs wrote:
>  > > >  > The other possible way would be to give your devices unique
>  > > >  > names, either via udev or by using LVM. Advantage over UUIDs:
>  > > >  > much easier to read.
>  > > >
>  > > >  Or you could use filesystem labels.
>  > >
>  > > I've used filesystem labels for a long time and generally it works
>  > > really well. Only problem I've had is my Dad's machine has a Maxtor
>  > > 1-touch 1394 drive. It seems that often it doesn't get recognized
>  > > by the 1394 subsystem fast enough to satisfy whatever requirements
>  > > the Gentoo scripts have for the label being readable so it doesn't
>  > > reliably get recognized every time.
>  >
>  > I have thought about using labels, but never really ventured into it
>  > (I think I tried it once on a server).  Can I do it retrospectively
>  > on ext2, reiserfs and xfs, or is it going to erase the contents of
>  > the partition?
>
>  No, it's safe. The various file system tools have a *label* or *tune*
>  tool to add a label to the fs metadata. Then simply update fstab.
>
>  The fun starts in finding the tool for your filesystems. ext2/3 is
>  easy - it's e2label. ReiserFS is a little more obscure :-) Finding this
>  amazing Reiser tool is left as an exercise for the reader (i.e. I can
>  never remember what it is myself and am too damn lazy to go and look
>  right now)
>
>  Personally, I prefer labels over other disk id methods. I get to choose
>  the label myself and can ensure they are unique in my world (but maybe
>  not in the universe like UUIDs are). If I have to mkfs a volume from
>  scratch for some reason, it's easier for me to to re-use the same label
>  than to re-use or copy-paste those long UUID strings
>
>  --
>  Alan McKinnon
>  alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
>

I like labels also. I've had a couple of cases where I've taken a
drive out of an old system but kept the drive around. Later I put the
drive in a 1394 drive case.I checked the drive label and immediately
knew it was a drive with ripped music, sessions I've recorded in
Ardour, etc. Labels are human readable and I tend to make them quite
descriptive.
-- 
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