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Full Discussion: BSD equivalent of GNU parted
Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers BSD equivalent of GNU parted Post 302298844 by uiop44 on Wednesday 18th of March 2009 06:15:26 PM
Old 03-18-2009
Thanks for the explanation. I have a question. You said:

When you install the bootloader (eg GRUB) into the partitions boot section, then yes, the MBR has to find the bootloader. If you install it into the MBR, however, it's this (simplified) scheme
  1. Load the bootloader (GRUB/LILO/...)
  2. Select the OS you want to boot & that the bootloader knows about
  3. The bootloader then loads the usual startup code from the partitions bootsector

How does GRUB "install itself into" the MBR?
Do you mean it replaces the existing MBR with it's own implementation? If I understand correctly MBR's are not all the same. Different OS may write it differently. And if I reinstall the OS on my first partition, and it's e.g. Windows, it's going to write its own version of an MBR, correct?

This is good IMO if GRUB gets into the boot prcess at the "MBR stage".

Because, as you say, and as I read in an old Microsoft technet article, at this stage the OS is unaware. It cannot cause problems.

Controlling the choice of OS at the "MBR stage" (i.e. not trying to use an OS's bootloader to boot other OS's) is I think a key to avoiding troubles with multi-booting. And that's why I do it by changing the boot flags.

I need more technical doc on GRUB. The manual over at GNU is being rewritten I guess and is "unifinished".

I have this feeling that what I'm doing with the boot flags is not much different than what GRUB does, except GRUB offers a "boot time menu": it can identify filesystems by their respective ID flags and it changes the boot flags DURING reboot; whereas I'm choosing my next OS choice BEFORE I reboot. In other words, GRUB is also a partition identifier and MBR editor just like the tools I'm using, it's just doing the editing at a different time.
 

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PARTED(8)							 GNU Parted Manual							 PARTED(8)

NAME
GNU Parted - a partition manipulation program SYNOPSIS
parted [options] [device [command [options...]...]] DESCRIPTION
parted is a disk partitioning and partition resizing program. It allows you to create, destroy, resize, move and copy ext2, linux-swap, FAT, FAT32, and reiserfs partitions. It can create, resize, and move Macintosh HFS partitions, as well as detect jfs, ntfs, ufs, and xfs partitions. It is useful for creating space for new operating systems, reorganising disk usage, and copying data to new hard disks. This manual page documents parted briefly. Complete documentation is distributed with the package in GNU Info format; see near the bottom. OPTIONS
-h, --help displays a help message -l, --list lists partition layout on all block devices -m, --machine displays machine parseable output -s, --script never prompts for user intervention -v, --version displays the version -a alignment-type, --align alignment-type Set alignment for newly created partitions, valid alignment types are: none Use the minimum alignment allowed by the disk type. cylinder Align partitions to cylinders. minimal Use minimum alignment as given by the disk topology information. This and the opt value will use layout information provided by the disk to align the logical partition table addresses to actual physical blocks on the disks. The min value is the min- imum aligment needed to align the partition properly to physical blocks, which avoids performance degradation. optimal Use optimum alignment as given by the disk topology information. This aligns to a multiple of the physical block size in a way that guarantees optimal performance. COMMANDS
[device] The block device to be used. When none is given, parted will use the first block device it finds. [command [options]] Specifies the command to be executed. If no command is given, parted will present a command prompt. Possible commands are: check partition Do a simple check on partition. cp [source-device] source dest Copy the source partition's filesystem on source-device (or the current device if no other device was specified) to the dest partition on the current device. help [command] Print general help, or help on command if specified. mkfs partition fs-type Make a filesystem fs-type on partition. fs-type can be one of "fat16", "fat32", "ext2", "linux-swap", or "reiserfs". mklabel label-type Create a new disklabel (partition table) of label-type. label-type should be one of "bsd", "dvh", "gpt", "loop", "mac", "msdos", "pc98", or "sun". mkpart part-type [fs-type] start end Make a part-type partition with filesystem fs-type (if specified), beginning at start and ending at end (by default in megabytes). fs-type can be one of "fat16", "fat32", "ext2", "HFS", "linux-swap", "NTFS", "reiserfs", or "ufs". part-type should be one of "primary", "logical", or "extended". mkpartfs part-type fs-type start end Make a part-type partition with filesystem fs-type beginning at start and ending at end (by default in megabytes). Using this command is discouraged. Instead use mkpart to create an empty partition, and then use external tools like mke2fs(8) to create the filesystem. move partition start end Move partition so that it begins at start and ends at end. Note: move never changes the minor number. name partition name Set the name of partition to name. This option works only on Mac, PC98, and GPT disklabels. The name can be placed in quotes, if necessary. print Display the partition table. quit Exit from parted. rescue start end Rescue a lost partition that was located somewhere between start and end. If a partition is found, parted will ask if you want to create an entry for it in the partition table. resize partition start end Resize the filesystem on partition so that it begins at start and ends at end (by default in megabytes). rm partition Delete partition. select device Choose device as the current device to edit. device should usually be a Linux hard disk device, but it can be a partition, software raid device, or an LVM logical volume if necessary. set partition flag state Change the state of the flag on partition to state. Supported flags are: "boot", "root", "swap", "hidden", "raid", "lvm", "lba", and "palo". state should be either "on" or "off". unit unit Set unit as the unit to use when displaying locations and sizes, and for interpreting those given by the user when not suf- fixed with an explicit unit. unit can be one of "s" (sectors), "B" (bytes), "kB", "MB", "GB", "TB", "%" (percentage of device size), "cyl" (cylinders), "chs" (cylinders, heads, sectors), or "compact" (megabytes for input, and a human-friendly form for output). version Display version information and a copyright message. KNOWN ISSUES
ext3 filesystem functionality does not currently work. To manage ext3 type filesystems use tools like resize2fs(8) or mke2fs(8). Note that the currently supported ext2 filesystem will be deprecated once ext3 support is finalized. Further note that ext3 support will have limited functionality that is yet to be defined. Use tools like resize2fs(8) and mke2fs(8) to manage these types of filesystems. To manually resize an ext3 filesystem and/or a partition use resize2fs(8), fdisk(8) or similar tools. For LVM situations, you will need to use the LVM commands to resize the LVM elements. REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to <bug-parted@gnu.org> SEE ALSO
fdisk(8), mkfs(8), The parted program is fully documented in the info(1) format GNU partitioning software manual. AUTHOR
This manual page was written by Timshel Knoll <timshel@debian.org>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others). parted 2007 March 29 PARTED(8)
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