Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2008 11:51:12 -0700
From: Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@oracle.com>
To: "Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@crashcourse.ca>
Cc: Calvin Walton <calvin.walton@gmail.com>,
       Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
       Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] FILESYSTEMS: Make "advanced partitions" immediately
 unselectable.
Message-Id: <20080728115112.282f3585.randy.dunlap@oracle.com>
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On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:42:47 -0400 (EDT) Robert P. J. Day wrote:

> On Mon, 28 Jul 2008, Randy Dunlap wrote:
> 
> > >   yes, it's nitpicking but, as it's laid out right now, it's
> > > unnecessarily confusing and inconsistent.  but i don't know if
> > > there's a trivial fix for it.
> >
> > Yes, I'd call MSDOS partitions basic, not Advanced, and then put all
> > others under an Advanced menu that can be toggled on/off easily with
> > menuconfig.
> >
> > Not quite trivial, but not messy either.
> >
> > Patch below.  Comments?
> 
> ... patch snipped ...
> 
>   i suspect that's as good as it's going to get, but it's unfortunate
> that it adds yet another level of submenu under "Partition types."

I looked but didn't see a way to avoid that.

> personally, i was pondering a top level submenu entry of "Advanced
> partition types" in which the (non-advanced) MSDOS partition support
> was yanked out of there *entirely*.

I did that first but left MSDOS partitioning in the main FS menu.
I didn't like it being separated from the others.

>   it strikes me that, at least on x86, MSDOS partition support is so
> fundamental that it should take work for someone to turn it *off*.
> perhaps simply have it on by default, and force someone to go under
> "Configure standard kernel features (for small systems)"
> (CONFIG_EMBEDDED) to make it go away?

That could be done, but still, I'd rather have all of the partition types
close together instead of far apart.

>   seriously, how often is someone going to build a kernel for x86 and
> not need MSDOS partition support?  just curious.

since MP3 players & cameras use it?  :)
Other than that, I could do without it for awhile.


Thanks.
---
~Randy
Linux Plumbers Conference, 17-19 September 2008, Portland, Oregon USA
http://linuxplumbersconf.org/
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