How to edit partition labels?

Robert P. J. Day rpjday at mindspring.com
Thu Aug 5 23:40:09 UTC 2004


On Fri, 6 Aug 2004, Michael Schwendt wrote:

> On 05 Aug 2004 16:33:50 -0400, C. Linus Hicks wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 2004-08-05 at 16:24, netmask wrote:
>>> Also, you must use initrd to use labels in fstab
>>
>> This is not true. An initrd is only _required_ if you have not compiled
>> into the kernel a module necessary for boot.
>
> Wrong. You can only mount partitions via their ext2/ext3 volume labels if
> the initrd contains a mount command which understands the labels, e.g.
> nash.

only partially true.  as i understand it (and i asked about this way 
back in history once upon a time), you only need an initrd if you want 
to mount the *root* filesystem by label.

the explanation i got back then was that initially mounting the root 
filesystem is done by the kernel in kernel space, where there is no 
knowledge of labels -- you have to use device names.  once that's 
done, the remaining mounts out of /etc/fstab are done in user space, 
and labels are fine.

if you use an initrd, then the mounting of the root filesystem will 
(somehow) be able to use labels -- perhaps the initrd forces the 
mounting to happen in user space?

can someone clarify this?

rday





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