On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 03:59:21PM +0000, Gareth Randall wrote: > Hi, > > I'd like to fix a long-standing bug in the parted info documentation in > which a reference is made to a non-existant document. I've also taken the > opportunity to write a longer introduction and make it more upbeat. > > The bug concerns the line: > "This manual used to introduce the reader to these systems and their > working. This content has moved to the GNU Storage Guide." > > This text dates from about 10 years ago and the GNU Storage Guide still > doesn't appear to be available. A web search for "GNU Storage Guide" will > reveal several bugs in different GNU/Linux distributions relating to this, > such as this one: > https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=600563 > > Here is my proposed patch, also posted at: > http://paste.debian.net/330368/ > in case there are line break issues in the text below. > > Hope you like it! > > Yours, > > Gareth Randall > > > diff --git a/doc/parted.texi b/doc/parted.texi > index cb12e8d..bdd692d 100644 > --- a/doc/parted.texi > +++ b/doc/parted.texi > @@ -291,12 +291,39 @@ or you want to modify a root or boot partition, use > GParted Live: > @section Introduction to Partitioning > @cindex partitioning overview > > -Unfortunately, partitioning your disk is rather complicated. This is > -because there are interactions between many different systems that need > -to be taken into consideration. > +Partitioning your disk is interesting because it allows you to boot from > +multiple different operating systems and use multiple filesystems.
I don't think interesting is the right word to use, this should be an objective overview of partitioning. Something like: Partitioning is the process of dividing a storage device into local sections, called partitions, which help organize multiple filesystems and their associated operating systems. > > -This manual used to introduce the reader to these systems and their > -working. This content has moved to the GNU Storage Guide. > +A storage device presents itself as a long sequence of bytes, numbered I'd drop the word 'long' here. > +starting from zero and increasing until the maximum capacity of the > +device is reached. Bytes are normally read and written a sector at a > +time, rather than individually, and each sector is typically 512 bytes > +or 4096 bytes depending on the device. There are more sector sizes than 512 and 4096, better not to try to make an exhaustive list. > + > +@example > ++------------------------------------------------------------+ > +| storage device with no partitions | > ++------------------------------------------------------------+ > +0 start end > +@end example > + > +In order to store multiple filesystems, a storage device can be divided > +up in to multiple partitions. Each partition can be thought of as a file They aren't files and shouldn't be called files. I'd use words like sections, or areas. > +which contains a real filesystem inside of it. To show where these > +partitions are on the device a small table is written at the start, > +shown as PT in the diagram below. This table is called a partition > +table, or disklabel, and also stores information about what sort of > +filesystem each partition contains and whether it is bootable. The partition table doesn't store information about the filesystem, it stores information about the start/end (or length) of the partition and a partition type, along with some flags. > + > +@example > ++--+---------------+----------------+------------------------+ > +|PT| Partition 1 | Partition 2 | Partition 3 | > ++--+---------------+----------------+------------------------+ > +0 start end > +@end example > + > +There are many good online resources that describe partitioning in more > +detail. If you are going to mention resources you should include links. Thanks for helping improve the docs, Brian -- Brian C. Lane | Anaconda Team | IRC: bcl #anaconda | Port Orchard, WA (PST8PDT)
