Re: [PATCH] nested partitions

[Robert Millan]

On Sun, Jan 24, 2010 at 06:38:40PM -0600, Bruce Dubbs wrote:
> I like this idea, but wonder if it would be useful to have something  
> like (grub drive, partition type, filesystem type) for each partition to  
> consider.  For example:
>
> (hd0,gpt1,ext2)

Filesystems have essentially the same problem, but collision is much less
likely, and "nested filesystems" are already handled like an oddity (via
loop command) for which responsibility is left to the user.

>> With this approach, the burden is no longer in GRUB.  Then I don't care
>> how weird disk layouts can become, because GRUB doesn't have to probe
>> them.  We can even support things like this if it makes users happy:
>>
>>   (hd0,bsd2,msdos1,sun1,apple4,msdos1)
>
> Can you translate that.  I don't understand.

When you hide complexity from the user, the user doesn't generally care or
want to understand what this involves.  When we accept "(hd0,1)" from the
user, it implies we know what's the partition label in hd0, but reality is
that we're just guessing.  User, however, will expect things to "just work",
and if they fail will blame it on GRUB.  This is what I refer to when I
speak of burden.

-- 
Robert Millan

  "Be the change you want to see in the world" -- Gandhi