[OpenIndiana-discuss] New Wiki page for adding a Windows GRUB entry

[Jim Klimov]

On 2013-08-30 19:33, Jean-Pierre wrote:
> FIXME : The Windows wording for partition is volume and the OpenIndiana
> one is slice.

I did not read it all (yet) but this here is a bit of misunderstanding
that I'd like to correct early on. Maybe just simplification for people
new to this all, but not correct still.

Solaris on x86, including OI, uses one partition on the standard MBR
table. "Requires" for root pools, "May use" for data pools (alternative
is direct use of EFI/GPT partitions on "dedicated" disks for example,
which is not currently available for rpools).

For example, Windows or in many cases Linux do directly use the whole
MBR partition to house one filesystem, start to end. Some systems (say,
Linux LVM) can use the partition to house a number of OS-configurable
volumes which in turn contain filesystems. This approach may be easier
to reconfigure than the limited (in amount and implementation detail)
standard partitioning, especially if the volume manager allows use of
fragmented partitions not stored in one contiguous range of LBA blocks.

In case of an MBR partition, OI sets up a "slice label" (SMI table) in
it; the firstmost located slice (conveniently named s8, whereas SPARC
version of the table ends at s7) is reserved for boot and is sized one
"cylinder" (16065 legacy sectors == 512b blocks); the logically first
slice (s0) is used for rpool as long as the default config is concerned.
On SPARC there is no concern for MBR or multi-booting, and the SMI table
just occupies the whole disk usually.

You can have many slices in the table - up to 8 typically, though the
legacy SMI table usually (not required) designates s2 as "backup" and
it addresses all of the slice table from zero to end. An individual
slice can be (part of) a different ZFS pool, for example.

So, long story short, "The OpenIndiana wording for partition is slice"
is not a correct statement, and may mislead readers in the future :)

HTH,
//Jim Klimov