Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc
Date: Sat, 07 Dec 2002 18:54:02 GMT

> Can anyone explain what the advantage of using disk labels in ext3
> instead of using plain /dev/hd? ?

If you're talking about /etc/fstab entries, one potential advantage that springs to mind is that if the partition numbers change (say, because you repartition or add support for BSD partitions or the like), the /etc/fstab entries with labels will still work. Another advantage is that it might be easier to understand the purpose of partitions when examining /etc/fstab — but that is, IMHO, counteracted by the fact that it obscures the true layout of those partitions.

> The reason I'm asking is that the other day, when I put my two disk on
> one computer, my RH8 get very confused because there were two disks
> labeled /export. It refused to boot, even to single mode, even after I
> have set one of the disk to 'none' in BIOS!

Ouch!

> More over, what is the tools that I can use to handle the disk label?
> none of the disk tools that I know of can do it, fdisk, cfdisk, sfdisk,
> parted...

tune2fs -L {volume-label} /dev/{ID}

device filename for the partition.

Rod Smith

> More over, what is the tools that I can use to handle the disk label?

$ apropos label
e2label (8)          - Change the label on an ext2 filesystem

$ e2label /dev/hda
e2label: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/hda
Couldn't find valid filesystem superblock.

$ e2label /dev/hda2
/