[Bug 1929087] [NEW] sfdisk refuses to write GPT table between sector 34 and 2047

[Bill Yikes]

Public bug reported:

According to https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GRUB#BIOS_systems, it's
both legal and interesting to place the BIOS BOOT partition from sector
34 to sector 2047, as follows:

$ sudo sfdisk --no-act -f --label gpt /dev/sdb << EOF
start=       34, size=2013,             name=bios,       type=$(sfdisk --label gpt -T | awk '{IGNORECASE = 1;} /bios boot/{print $1}')
start=     2048, size=12582912,         name=swap,       type=$(sfdisk --label gpt -T | awk '{IGNORECASE = 1;} /linux swap/{print $1}')
EOF

The output is:

/dev/sdb1: Sector 34 already used.
Failed to add #1 partition: Numerical result out of range
Leaving.

It's a false error.  As a workaround, users must omit the BIOS BOOT
partition then use gdisk to insert it manually.  This was uncovered in
2015 and perhaps never reported to a bug tracker because it's still
broken.  See https://www.spinics.net/lists/util-linux-ng/msg11253.html

** Affects: util-linux (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1929087

Title:
  sfdisk refuses to write GPT table between sector 34 and 2047

Status in util-linux package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  According to https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GRUB#BIOS_systems, it's
  both legal and interesting to place the BIOS BOOT partition from
  sector 34 to sector 2047, as follows:

  $ sudo sfdisk --no-act -f --label gpt /dev/sdb << EOF
  start=       34, size=2013,             name=bios,       type=$(sfdisk --label gpt -T | awk '{IGNORECASE = 1;} /bios boot/{print $1}')
  start=     2048, size=12582912,         name=swap,       type=$(sfdisk --label gpt -T | awk '{IGNORECASE = 1;} /linux swap/{print $1}')
  EOF

  The output is:

  /dev/sdb1: Sector 34 already used.
  Failed to add #1 partition: Numerical result out of range
  Leaving.

  It's a false error.  As a workaround, users must omit the BIOS BOOT
  partition then use gdisk to insert it manually.  This was uncovered in
  2015 and perhaps never reported to a bug tracker because it's still
  broken.  See https://www.spinics.net/lists/util-linux-ng/msg11253.html

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