* Mark <bts@bts.grml.org> [20080813 06:26]:

> Thanks Mika; we may be on different wavelengths?  I never use GNU "fdisk" but
> only GNU "cfdisk" and no problems.  There is also GNU "parted"?  And shared
> libparted?  The only program I ever use is GNU cfdisk, I assume dynamic-linked
> to libparted?  Yes?  No?

> I do not understand Debian's bug 46188 response (today) from Aurélien GÉRÔME. 
> He claims: "util-linux fdisk is more mature than gnu-fdisk whose upstream
> development has stopped from quite some time."  Even if true, Debian is supposed
> to enable choice.

ACK regarding "supposed to enable choice", I'll f'up on #461888.

> But is it true?
> http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/features.shtml
> "Latest Stable Release
> 1.8.8 was released on 2007-08-10"
> (only 1 year vs. 6 years old for util-linux?)

> Aurélien could resolve the artificial conflict here, with or without GNU
> collaboration.  Thanks for contacting GNU, we'll see what they say.

Don't mix parted and GNU fdisk, two different programs just using
the same lib. And GNU fdisk IS pretty out-of-date, just visit
http://directory.fsf.org/project/fdisk/ and browse through the
links to mailinglist, code, etc..

Just to get an idea about the state of GNU fdisk:

# fdisk -l > /tmp/fdisk.gnu
[1]    947 segmentation fault (core dumped)  fdisk -l > /tmp/fdisk.gnu
# fdisk -v
GNU Fdisk 1.0

And I definitely won't mix fdisk and cfdisk from two different
packages. The only chance I see is to use fdisk/cfdisk of util-linux by
default and provide gnu-fdisk on request. Though I'd like to see
this within the official Debian packages.

regards,
-mika-