[arch-general] [patch] AIF, partition table compatibility with grub2.

[Dieter Plaetinck]

On Tue, 9 Feb 2010 20:26:45 +0100 (CET)
Mark Pustjens <pustjens at dds.nl> wrote:

> Hi list,
> 
> The attatched patch adds the `-D' option to the sfdisk call.
> This causes some extra space to be saved for the MBR, which is needed
> for grub2 in some cases.
> 
> Please let me know what you think.
> 
> Greetings/Groetjes
> 
> Mark Pustjens
> 

Hi!
man sfdisk:

       -D or --DOS
              For DOS-compatibility: waste a little space.  (More
       precisely: if a partition cannot contain sector 0, e.g. because
       that is the MBR of the device, or contains the partition table
       of an extended partition, then sfdisk would make it  start  the
       next  sector. However,  when this option is given it skips to
       the start of the next track, wasting for example 33 sectors (in
       case of 34 sectors/track), just like certain versions of DOS
       do.)  Certain Disk Managers and boot loaders (such as OSBS, but
       not LILO or the OS/2 Boot Manager) also live in this empty
       space, so maybe you want this option if you use one.

I don't really see the point. this wastes some disk space to be
compatible with old, past-legacy bootloaders and OS'es.
why exactly would we want this? "some cases" ?

Dieter