Re: Not really a bug...

[Andrew Clausen]

address@hidden wrote:
> Note, that I really don't know, whether /windows/C was mounted,
> so / might well have been the only mounted filesystem on the
> harddrive.

Interesting.

> > Can you reproduce the problem?  Or does reproducing it involve
> > destroying stuff?
> 
> Well, it would involve messing with filesytems I use and need. Of
> course it's half as bad, since I can write down the exact partition
> data before attempting to reproduce the problem, but I'll wait to
> see, whether the problem is with the real-root-dev-stuff.

Actually, it's possible to test this stuff in gdb, without doing
writing to disk.  Steps:

(1) build Parted from the source:

        $ cd ~/parted-1.4.10
        $ CFLAGS=-g ./configure && make

(2) as root, start gdb

        # cd ~/parted-1.4.10/parted
        # libtool gdb parted
        (gdb) set args /dev/hda
        (gdb) run

(3) set a break point (inside the check command):

        (parted) ctrl-c
        (gdb) list do_check
        (gdb) break 137
        (gdb) cont

(4) at this stage, it's up to you what to test.  You can test if
the entire disk is busy with:

        (parted) check 1        [or number]
        (gdb) print ped_disk_is_busy (disk)

It will say 1 if it is busy, and 0 if it isn't.  If you want to check
if parted thinks an individual partition is busy, use:

        (gdb) print ped_partition_is_busy (part)

(the partition number supplied to check is used to determine which
partition to check)

> >  # cat /proc/sys/kernel/real-root-dev
> 
> It says
> 773
> which doesn't mean much to me...

affable:~$ echo $[773 / 256], $[773 % 256]
3, 5
affable:~$ ls -l /dev | grep ' 3, \+5 ' | grep '^b'
brw-rw----    1 root     disk       3,   5 May  6  1998 hda5

This is correct, isn't it?  (BTW: 3,5 means major=3, minor=5... it's
just the way Linux addresses devices... see
/usr/src/linux/Documentation/devices.txt)

> I can imagine. I'd offer you some help, too, but I really don't know
> anything about partition-tables, filesystems and the like. You'll be
> my hero, though.

The learning curve isn't very big, IMHO.  The most important thing is
being able to write nice code :-)  /me never turns back volunteers...

Andrew Clausen