Syslinux - Mar 2010 - isohybrid: change default offset to 1 to avoidparted troubles

It might help to attach the attachment before sending.  - Shao

-----Original Message-----
From: Miller, Shao 
Sent: Monday, March 01, 2010 09:38
To: 'For discussion of Syslinux and tftp-hpa'
Subject: RE: [syslinux] isohybrid: change default offset to 1 to
avoidparted troubles

-----Original Message-----
From: syslinux-bounces at zytor.com [mailto:syslinux-bounces at zytor.com] On
Behalf Of Kim Mik
Sent: Tuesday, December 08, 2009 14:34
To: For discussion of Syslinux and tftp-hpa
Subject: Re: [syslinux] isohybrid: change default offset to 1 to
avoidparted troubles
> On 12/06/2009 03:37 PM, Sven-Hendrik Haase wrote:
> > Using the default offset 0, parted will complain about a recursive
> > partition and will be unable to do any further work on a USB device
that
> > uses an isohybrid image created with offset 0.
> > Setting offset to 1 will fix this.
> 
> I will not make this the default.  Rejected.
> 
>     -hpa
> 
> -- 
> H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
> I work for Intel.  I don't speak on their behalf.
I know it is already rejected, but here is the full explanation by cmdr
about the problem:
  http://gparted-forum.surf4.info/viewtopic.php?id=13581

Just if anyone is interested in this topic.

- Gert Hulselmans

-----Original Message End-----

Attached is cmdr's diff to the isohybrid script, also for those
interested.  I think a problem here is with disk utilities' complaints
of a recursive partition table.  I wonder if there's a way to address
this _other_than_ changing "offset" in the isohybrid script.  Original
isohybrid on the "left" ("<") and modified one on the
"right" (">").

- Shao Miller
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On 03/01/2010 06:39 AM, Miller, Shao wrote:
> 
> Attached is cmdr's diff to the isohybrid script, also for those
> interested.  I think a problem here is with disk utilities' complaints
> of a recursive partition table.  I wonder if there's a way to address
> this _other_than_ changing "offset" in the isohybrid script. 
Original
> isohybrid on the "left" ("<") and modified one on
the "right" (">").
> 
Note that all of these are command-line options already.  His diff just
changes the default.

Either way, I think it might be hard to deal with.  The problem is
exactly that the partition table *is* recursive (meaning that one of the
partitions contain the partition table itself) -- intentionally.
Operating systems don't seem to have an issue with it, but (g)parted does.

The offset option allows one to generate a different table, but then one
has to mount the whole device (e.g. /dev/sdc) not the partition
(/dev/sdc1) -- which also means that one can't use the remainder of the
device as a disk partition.

	-hpa