On Fri, Nov 23, 2012 at 10:58 AM, Roman Bysh wrote:

On Fri 23 Nov 2012 04:41:31 AM EST, Arvin Schnell wrote:

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On Thu, Nov 22, 2012 at 09:39:54PM -0500, Roman Bysh wrote:

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Hello List mates,

I recently purchased a Western Digital "Black" 500 GB drive with 7200 rpm.

When I create partitions during the install using the "optimal" option, the following appears when I select fdisk.

fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00033420

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 2048 146802687 73400320 83 Linux /dev/sda2 146802688 155187199 4192256 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda3 155187200 976773119 410792960 f W95 Ext'd (LBA) /dev/sda5 155189248 870322175 357566464 83 Linux /dev/sda6 870324224 976752639 53214208 83 Linux

linux-nxcl:~ # fdisk -lu=cylinders

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00033420

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 1 9139 73400320 83 Linux /dev/sda2 9139 9660 4192256 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda3 9660 60802 410792960 f W95 Ext'd (LBA) /dev/sda5 9661 54176 357566464 83 Linux /dev/sda6 54176 60801 53214208 83 Linux

Why is 1st partition's last cylinder sharing the same number with the 2nd partition's first cylinder when the gui showed the 2nd partition starting on the next cylinder?

Cylinders are calculated from sectors and different sectors can map to the same cylinder. Look at the partition table in sectors and everything will be fine (no overlap).

ciao Arvin

Arvin

That is what I thought. There is no overlap. Whew :-) I tried partitioning using fdisk while in Parted Magic to have the cylinders line up and I got error about physical partitions overlapping.

Most likely because of the 4096 byte sector size. I would recommend that the partitioner no longer show the cylinders. Yes?

I don't think it is obvious one way or the other. Windows XP still defaults to cylinder based alignment of partitions, but it can work with non-aligned partitions as of the last several years. Windows 7 defaults to partitions lined up on 1 MB boundaries. Linux tools just started defaulting to a 1MB partition alignment a couple years ago, but there are still a lot of drives in use with cylinder alignment. Maybe opensuse should update the yast partitioner to look at the partition alignment and adjust the output to either cylinder aligned or MB aligned based on what it sees in use of the drive. For drives with no partition table, it should default to creating MB aligned partitions in my opinion. Greg -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

* Roman Bysh [11-23-12 12:08]:

On 11/23/2012 11:50 AM, Greg Freemyer wrote:

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On Fri, Nov 23, 2012 at 10:58 AM, Roman Bysh wrote:

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On Fri 23 Nov 2012 04:41:31 AM EST, Arvin Schnell wrote:

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On Thu, Nov 22, 2012 at 09:39:54PM -0500, Roman Bysh wrote:

...

Hello List mates,

I recently purchased a Western Digital "Black" 500 GB drive with 7200 rpm.

When I create partitions during the install using the "optimal" option, the following appears when I select fdisk.

fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00033420

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 2048 146802687 73400320 83 Linux /dev/sda2 146802688 155187199 4192256 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda3 155187200 976773119 410792960 f W95 Ext'd (LBA) /dev/sda5 155189248 870322175 357566464 83 Linux /dev/sda6 870324224 976752639 53214208 83 Linux

linux-nxcl:~ # fdisk -lu=cylinders

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00033420

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 1 9139 73400320 83 Linux /dev/sda2 9139 9660 4192256 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda3 9660 60802 410792960 f W95 Ext'd (LBA) /dev/sda5 9661 54176 357566464 83 Linux /dev/sda6 54176 60801 53214208 83 Linux

Why is 1st partition's last cylinder sharing the same number with the 2nd partition's first cylinder when the gui showed the 2nd partition starting on the next cylinder?

Cylinders are calculated from sectors and different sectors can map to the same cylinder. Look at the partition table in sectors and everything will be fine (no overlap).

ciao Arvin

Arvin

That is what I thought. There is no overlap. Whew :-) I tried partitioning using fdisk while in Parted Magic to have the cylinders line up and I got error about physical partitions overlapping.

Most likely because of the 4096 byte sector size. I would recommend that the partitioner no longer show the cylinders. Yes?

I don't think it is obvious one way or the other.

Windows XP still defaults to cylinder based alignment of partitions, but it can work with non-aligned partitions as of the last several years.

Windows 7 defaults to partitions lined up on 1 MB boundaries.

Linux tools just started defaulting to a 1MB partition alignment a couple years ago, but there are still a lot of drives in use with cylinder alignment.

Maybe opensuse should update the yast partitioner to look at the partition alignment and adjust the output to either cylinder aligned or MB aligned based on what it sees in use of the drive.

For drives with no partition table, it should default to creating MB aligned partitions in my opinion.

Greg I agree. In my case the sector size is 4096 bytes so the 1MB alignment of partitions is required.

Should this be requested via openFate or Bugzilla?

Whatever decision is warranted, trimming of quoted material to only that necessary to keep the discussion in context would *really* be appreciated. thanks, -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA HOG # US1244711 http://wahoo.no-ip.org Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://linuxcounter.net -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

On Friday 2012-11-23 18:06, Roman Bysh wrote:

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When I create partitions during the install using the "optimal" option, the following appears when I select fdisk.

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 2048 146802687 73400320 83 Linux /dev/sda2 146802688 155187199 4192256 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda3 155187200 976773119 410792960 f W95 Ext'd (LBA) /dev/sda5 155189248 870322175 357566464 83 Linux /dev/sda6 870324224 976752639 53214208 83 Linux

I agree. In my case the sector size is 4096 bytes so the 1MB alignment of partitions is required.

And you got the alignment. 2048, 146802688, 155187200, 155189248 and 870324224 are all multiples of 2048 (KByte), so where is the problem? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

On Monday 2012-11-26 18:12, Romanator wrote:

On Sun 25 Nov 2012 08:15:15 AM EST, Jan Engelhardt wrote:

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And you got the alignment. 2048, 146802688, 155187200, 155189248 and 870324224 are all multiples of 2048 (KByte), so where is the problem?

No problem. I realized that running the multiplication. The WD "Black" (it's using 4096 bytes) 2012 is different from the WD "Blue" that I am using from 2007.

Note that LBA addresses are in units of 512 bytes, and no physical sector size will change that.

It's very misleading to users. The Yast gui representation shows each partition's _start_ and _end_ cylinders increasing by one cylinder. Whereas upon completion "fdisk -lu=cylinders shows them overlapping.

Welcome to the Wonderful World of (IBM-)Microsoft. While I do not necessarily claim it was the first, MS-DOS was the most prominent one to date which used the stupid "1-based, last-inclusive" style, i.e. p1: start=cyl 1 end=cyl 1023 (for a total of 1024 cyls) p2: start=cyl 1024, end=cyl 2047 (for another 1024) Solaris, Apple and BSD, and even EFI GUID partition tables all use the much more sane "0-based, last-exclusive": p1: start=sector 0, length=1024 sects p2: start=sector 1024, length=1024 sects Sometimes people like to see "end" rather than length, and so, it becomes p1: start=sector 0, end=sector 1024 p2: start=sector 1024, end=sector 2048 Why does that make more sense than MS-DOS-style counted cyls, at least people with a bit of a math or CS clue? Because "end" minus "start" conveniently gives you the partition size. With the MS-DOS thing, you need to add a magic 1. And so, tools like parted and (modern versions of) `fdisk -lu=cylinders` use the 0-based last-exclusive scheme, even with MS-DOS partition tables. The cylinder thing in yast should die immediately. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 09:31:07PM +0100, Jan Engelhardt wrote: [ 8< ]

The cylinder thing in yast should die immediately.

@Romanator: Please pass Jan's summary to bugzilla. Else we risk the YaST developers might miss the outcome of the discussion. Afterwards reply to this mail and include the bug ID for cross reference. Cheers, Lars -- Lars Müller [ˈlaː(r)z ˈmʏlɐ] Samba Team + SUSE Labs SUSE Linux, Maxfeldstraße 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany

On Fri, Dec 07, 2012 at 12:13:33PM -0500, Roman Bysh wrote:

On Mon 03 Dec 2012 07:44:26 AM EST, Lars Müller wrote:

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On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 09:31:07PM +0100, Jan Engelhardt wrote: [ 8< ]

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The cylinder thing in yast should die immediately.

@Romanator: Please pass Jan's summary to bugzilla. Else we risk the YaST developers might miss the outcome of the discussion. Afterwards reply to this mail and include the bug ID for cross reference.

Cheers,

Lars

@Lars I'm creating the bugzilla report. Should the "cylinder thing" be marked as a bug or enhancement?

To display or even calculate in MB instead of cylinders is surely a feature that belongs into fate. Regards, Arvin -- Arvin Schnell, Senior Software Engineer, Research & Development SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Jeff Hawn, Jennifer Guild, Felix Imendörffer, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Maxfeldstraße 5 90409 Nürnberg Germany -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

On Friday 2012-12-07 20:34, Roman Bysh wrote:

On Fri 07 Dec 2012 02:27:18 PM EST, Arvin Schnell wrote:

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@Lars I'm creating the bugzilla report. Should the "cylinder thing" be marked as a bug or enhancement?

To display or even calculate in MB instead of cylinders is surely a feature that belongs into fate.

Regards, Arvin

Thanks Arvin,

I will submit it to openFate today or tomorrow.

Cylinder counting is so annoying that it should be considered a bug! :) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org