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authorBenno Schulenberg2015-06-17 08:28:33 +0200
committerKarel Zak2015-06-17 11:01:38 +0200
commit7f5769182f521c13b27f46c1f0e2a06f328c03f7 (patch)
treef27aebc7c150d4877424cf3eadb1164252f5387b /disk-utils/sfdisk.8
parentsfdisk: show that the command --verify optionally takes device names (diff)
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sfdisk: improve some formatting and wording in the man page
The main fix is: giving -J, --json its own paragraph. Signed-off-by: Benno Schulenberg <bensberg@justemail.net>
Diffstat (limited to 'disk-utils/sfdisk.8')
-rw-r--r--disk-utils/sfdisk.833
1 files changed, 17 insertions, 16 deletions
diff --git a/disk-utils/sfdisk.8 b/disk-utils/sfdisk.8
index 91cba7286..671dc2e4b 100644
--- a/disk-utils/sfdisk.8
+++ b/disk-utils/sfdisk.8
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
.\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
.\" permission notice identical to this one.
.\"
-.TH SFDISK 8 "December 2014" "util-linux" "System Administration"
+.TH SFDISK 8 "June 2015" "util-linux" "System Administration"
.SH NAME
sfdisk \- display or manipulate a disk partition table
.SH SYNOPSIS
@@ -35,7 +35,7 @@ never been important for Linux, and this addressing concept does not make any
sense for new devices.
.sp
.B sfdisk
-(since version 2.26) aligns start and end of the partitions to
+(since version 2.26) aligns the start and end of partitions to
block-device I/O limits when relative sizes are specified, or when the
default values are used.
.sp
@@ -57,28 +57,29 @@ input format. If standard input is a terminal, then \fBsfdisk\fR starts an
interactive session.
.sp
If the option \fB\-N\fR is specified, then the changes are applied to
-the partition addressed by \fIpartition-number\fR. The unspecified fields
+the partition addressed by \fIpartition-number\fR. The unspecified fields
of the partition are not modified.
.sp
-Note that it's possible to address unused partition by \fB\-N\fR. For example
-MBR always contains 4 partitions, but the number of the used partitions may be
-smaller. In this case sfdisk follows the default values from the partition
-table and it does not use built-in defaults for the unused partition specified
-by \fB\-N\fR. See also \fB\---append\fR.
+Note that it's possible to address an unused partition with \fB\-N\fR.
+For example, an MBR always contains 4 partitions, but the number of used
+partitions may be smaller. In this case \fBsfdisk\fR follows the default
+values from the partition table and does not use built-in defaults for the
+unused partition given with \fB\-N\fR. See also \fB\---append\fR.
.TP
.BR \-A , " \-\-activate \fIdevice\fR [" \fIpartition-number\fR...]
Switch on the bootable flag. If no \fIpartition-number\fR is specified,
then all partitions with an enabled flag are listed.
.TP
.BR \-d , " \-\-dump " \fIdevice\fR
-Dump the partitions of a device in a format that is usable as input to sfdisk.
+Dump the partitions of a device in a format that is usable as input to \fBsfdisk\fR.
See the section \fBBACKING UP THE PARTITION TABLE\fR.
.TP
.BR \-g , " \-\-show\-geometry " [ \fIdevice ...]
List the geometry of all or the specified devices.
+.TP
.BR \-J , " \-\-json " \fIdevice\fR
-Dump the partitions of a device in JSON format. Note that sfdisk is not able to
-use JSON as input format.
+Dump the partitions of a device in JSON format. Note that \fBsfdisk\fR is
+not able to use JSON as input format.
.TP
.BR \-l , " \-\-list " [ \fIdevice ...]
List the partitions of all or the specified devices. This command can be used
@@ -124,20 +125,20 @@ Don't create a new partition table, but only append the specified partitions.
.BR \-b , " \-\-backup"
Back up the current partition table sectors before starting the partitioning.
The default backup file name is ~/sfdisk-<device>-<offset>.bak; to use another
-name see \fB\-\-backup\-file\fR.
+name see option \fB\-O\fR, \fB\-\-backup\-file\fR.
.TP
-.BR "\-\-color"[\fI=when\fR]
+.BR \-\-color [ \fI=when ]
Colorize the output. The optional argument \fIwhen\fP
can be \fBauto\fR, \fBnever\fR or \fBalways\fR. If the \fIwhen\fR argument is omitted,
-it defaults to \fBauto\fR. The colors can be disabled, for the current built-in default
-see \fB\-\-help\fR output. See also the COLORS section.
+it defaults to \fBauto\fR. The colors can be disabled; for the current built-in default
+see the \fB\-\-help\fR output. See also the \fBCOLORS\fR section.
.TP
.BR \-f , " \-\-force"
Disable all consistency checking.
.TP
.BR \-\-Linux
Deprecated and ignored option. Partitioning that is compatible with
-Linux (and other modern OS) is the default.
+Linux (and other modern operating systems) is the default.
.TP
.BR \-n , " \-\-no\-act"
Do everything except writing to the device.