Subject: Re: mounting non-BSD partitions.
To: None <>
From: Brian Hechinger <>
List: current-users
Date: 06/20/1997 17:24:40
Perry E. Metzger drunkenly mumbled...
> The FreeBSD "slice" notation seems to be the current consensus. In it,
> my DOS partition in MBR slot 0 would be sd0s0c -- my boot partition on
> the NetBSD slice would be sd0s1a.

ok, in that vein, here is something to think about.  wouldn't it make a little
more sense (since we are going to change this anyway) to expand on that a bit.
let's look at a Solaris style slice.


c = controller
t = SCSI id
d = uhm, i forget
s = slice (where slice in Solaris is equal to a, b, c, etc in NetBSD)

we could modify this a little to read: (i'm going to keep the letter notation
					even though i think it should change)

c = controller
t = SCSI id
d = slice
s = partition

so in Perry's example  sd0s0c would equal c0t0d0s2 and sd0s1a would be c0t0d1s1

i think that this naming technique has it's advantages and it's disadvantages,
but i would like to see this style of support for multiple SCSI hosts.  just
a thought.

> Its not perfect, but its better than what we have now, and its
> reasonably compatible with FreeBSD's notation which isn't any worse
> than any other notation we could use.

what does a second SCSI host look like under NetBSD??  if sd0a is root on SCSI
ID 0 and sd1a is root for SCSI ID 1 what would the root of SCSI ID 0 on a
second SCSI host look like?

> We need to move to 32 bit device numbers first, though -- the current
> 16 bit ones aren't going to be sufficient.

too true!!


** Brian Hechinger ** ** **
"Yes, evil comes in many forms, whether it be a man-eating cow or
 Joseph Stalin, but you can't let the package hide the pudding!  Evil
 is just plain bad!  You don't cotton to it.  You gotta smack it in the
 nose with the rolled-up newspaper of goodness!  Bad dog!  Bad dog!"
                                --The Tick