Option to use /dev values instead of UUID values

[Liam Proven]

On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 5:23 PM, Dotan Cohen <dotancohen at gmail.com> wrote:
>> It would be helpful if you gave your reasons for wanting this feature.
>>
>
> I often have several bootable partitions, and if I have to edit fstab
> by hand it is easier if the /dev values are used.

Well, yes, /dev/?d? entries *are* much easier to read than UUIDs.
However, device names have several disadvantages, which are important.
A UUID is a permanent, direct link to a particular partition. If you
delete an earlier partition on the disk, or merge 2 of them or
something like that, then /dev entries change. If you delete /dev/hda2
then /dev/hda4 can become /dev/hda3 and so on, which can result in a
non-bootable system. UIIDs do not change & aren't affected by this.

If you move a partition from one drive to another, the UUID goes with
it - so move /home from /dev/sda to /dev/sdb and the fstab will still
find it. It won't if it's going by device node.

And if there *was* an option to go back to using device nodes, then
where would you put the UI for this option?

-- 
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