Linux is not about choice [was Re: Fedora too cutting edge?]

[Les Mikesell]

Andrew Farris wrote:
>>
>> OK, that's at least partly right but you forgot to tell me what to 
>> call the device when creating the label for filesystems that support 
>> it - or what name to use for access to the raw device for operations 
>> like image copies and addition/removal from raid arrays.  The 
>> underlying problem can't be solved at the filesystem layer.
> 
> Try cat /etc/mtab.  The device being used for the particular label is 
> clearly shown after its mounted, even when auto mounted by label in 
> /etc/fstab.  I fail to see what is so hidden here.  When the device is 
> connected to the machine its also identified in log messages as to which 
> device node it is assigned.

Am I not making it clear that I want to be able to add and move disks 
that may or may not have a linux filesystem on them?  You know, things 
that a unix-like operating system is supposed to let you do in some 
deterministic manner.  I want the disks to work in dual-boot scenarios 
with earlier/later versions of linux.  I want to be able to duplicate 
disks by copying the raw device or even raid-mirroring then failing and 
removing the device.

>>> No, Fedora is about being on the bleeding edge and creating a system
>>> where you don't *need* to migrate configuration files because the files
>>> will be correct if they are using stable identifiers for devices.
>>
>> I haven't found that to be the case.  And I don't see any reason for 
>> today's experimental change to end up being the one that sticks.
> 
> Anaconda should have handled changing your configuration change in 
> /etc/fstab for you at install if all your partitions were labeled.

When does anaconda run?  I want to be able to install an OS, then add 
disks or move them.  Right now a machine by my desktop has 2 scsi and 8 
sata drives in hot-swap bays plus an assortment of pluggable firewire 
and USB external drives, and only the scsi pair were installed when 
anaconda ran.  I'd much, much prefer that the raw devices for the 
swappable bays always had fixed device names for the drive inserted by 
position regardless of insertion order but I realize that's not likely 
to happen, so I'll settle for a reasonable description of how to figure 
out the right name for a newly inserted drive with the understanding 
that it may not have a filesystem lable and I may not want to mount it. 
  At the moment, the most likely thing I'd want to do is add a partition 
from a newly inserted disk to an existing md array, but at some point in 
the setup (and not while anaconda is running...) it is necessary to 
partition and build the arrays out of a bunch of disks that mostly look 
the same.  Is fedora suitable for jobs like this?

 > If
> they aren't all labeled this doesn't happen, which is a short-coming of 
> anaconda in that it will not apply labels to FAT32 or NTFS disks that do 
> not have them (and maybe other filesystems).  There are also bugs 
> against anaconda about this and I think a number of them are closed 
> rawhide so it should be better now.

Anaconda isn't the solution unless I can run it anytime new 
unpartitioned devices are added or if I want something on the device 
other than a typical file system.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com