To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
Subject: Re: rfc: test whether a device has a partition table
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 14:54:21 -0700
Organization: OSDL
Message-ID: <bkt3qe$imh$1@build.pdx.osdl.net>
References: <UTC200309242029.h8OKTo008219.aeb@smtp.cwi.nl>
Reply-To: torvalds@osdl.org
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Andries.Brouwer@cwi.nl wrote:
>
> As everyone knows it is a bad idea to let the kernel guess
> whether there is a partition table on a given block device,
> and if so, of what type.

So you say, and so you've said for a long time, but claiming that "everybody
knows it" is clearly not true.

In particular, I think that a kernel that doesn't do partitioning is quite
fundamentally broken. I'm sure others will agree.

If you have unusual cases (and let's face it, they don't much happen - we
have traditionally had _very_ few problems with getting things partitioned)
then you should be able to override them from user space and have user space
be able to tell the kernel about special partitions. 

And hey, surprise surprise, you can do exactly that.

Also, surprise surprise, pretty much nobody actually does it. Because the
defaults are so sane.

Repeat after me: make the defaults so sane that most people don't even
have to think about it.

In short, I think your first sentence (upon which the rest of the argument
depends) is just quite _fundamentally_ flawed.

                Linus
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