docs: tweak wording, grammar and formatting of fdisk man page

Signed-off-by: Benno Schulenberg <bensberg@justemail.net>

1 files changed, 53 insertions, 50 deletions

diff --git a/fdisks/fdisk.8 b/fdisks/fdisk.8
index d1979821f..221231021 100644
--- a/fdisks/fdisk.8
+++ b/fdisks/fdisk.8
@@ -19,40 +19,41 @@ fdisk \- manipulate disk partition table
 .SH DESCRIPTION
 .B fdisk
 is a dialog-driven program for creation and manipulation of partition tables.
-It understands GPT, MBR, SUN, SGI and BSD partition tables.
+It understands GPT, MBR, Sun, SGI and BSD partition tables.
 
-The block devices can be divided into one or more logical disks called
+Block devices can be divided into one or more logical disks called
 .IR partitions .
 This division is recorded in the
 .IR "partition table" ,
 usually found in sector 0 of the disk.
 (In the BSD world one talks about `disk slices' and a `disklabel'.)
 
-All partitioning is driven by device I/O limits (topology) by default.
+All partitioning is driven by device I/O limits (the topology) by default.
 .B fdisk
-is able to optimize disk layout for 4K-sector size and use alignment offset on
-modern devices for MBR and GPT. It's always good idea to follow fdisk defaults
+is able to optimize the disk layout for a 4K-sector size and use an alignment offset on
+modern devices for MBR and GPT.  It is always a good idea to follow \fBfdisk\fR's defaults
 as the default values (e.g. first and last partition sectors) and partition
-sizes specified by +<size>{M,G, ..} notation are always aligned according 
+sizes specified by the +<size>{M,G,...} notation are always aligned according
 to the device properties.
 
 Note that
-.B partx (1)
-provides rich interface for script to print disk layout,
+.BR partx (8)
+provides a rich interface for scripts to print disk layouts,
+.B fdisk
+is mostly designed for humans.  Backward compatibility in the output of
 .B fdisk
-is mostly designed for humans. The backward compatibility in the fdisk output
-is not guaranteed. The input (commands) should be always backwardly compatible.
+is not guaranteed.  The input (the commands) should always be backward compatible.
 
 .SH OPTIONS
 .TP
 .BI "\-b " sectorsize
-Specify the sector size of the disk.  Valid values are 512, 1024, 2048 or 4096.
-(Recent kernels know the sector size.  Use this only on old kernels or
+Specify the sector size of the disk.  Valid values are 512, 1024, 2048, and 4096.
+(Recent kernels know the sector size.  Use this option only on old kernels or
 to override the kernel's ideas.)  Since util-linux-2.17, \fBfdisk\fR differentiates
 between logical and physical sector size.  This option changes both sector sizes to
 .IB sectorsize .
 .TP
-.BI "\-c"[=mode]
+.BR "\-c"[=\fImode\fR]
 Specify the compatibility mode, 'dos' or 'nondos'.  The default is non-DOS
 mode.  For backward compatibility, it is possible to use the option without
 the \fImode\fR argument -- then the default is used.  Note that the optional
@@ -77,27 +78,28 @@ A reasonable value is 63.  This option is DEPRECATED.
 .BI \-h
 Display a help text and exit.
 .TP
-.BI \-L[=\fIwhen\fR]
-Colorize output in interactive mode.  The optional argument \fIwhen\fP can
-be \fBauto\fR, \fBnever\fR or \fBalways\fR. The default is \fBauto\fR.
+.BR "\-L"[=\fIwhen\fR]
+Colorize the output in interactive mode.  The optional argument \fIwhen\fP can
+be \fBauto\fR, \fBnever\fR or \fBalways\fR.  The default is \fBauto\fR.
 .TP
 .B \-l
 List the partition tables for the specified devices and then exit.
 If no devices are given, those mentioned in
 .I /proc/partitions
-(if that exists) are used.
+(if that file exists) are used.
 .TP
 .BI "\-s " partition...
-Print the size (in blocks) of each given partition. This option is DEPRECATED
+Print the size (in blocks) of each given partition.  This option is DEPRECATED
 in favour of
-.B blockdev (1).
+.BR blockdev (1).
 .TP
 .BI "\-t " type
-Disable support for all disklabels and enable support only for specified \fItype\fP.
-This is necessary for example to access protective or hybrid MBR on devices
+Enable support only for disklabels of the specified \fItype\fP, and disable
+support for all other types.
+This is necessary for example to access a protective or hybrid MBR on devices
 with GPT.
 .TP
-.BI "\-u"[=unit]
+.BR "\-u"[=\fIunit\fR]
 When listing partition tables, show sizes in 'sectors' or in 'cylinders'.  The
 default is to show sizes in sectors.  For backward compatibility, it is possible
 to use the option without the \fIunit\fR argument -- then the default is used.
@@ -124,28 +126,28 @@ documentation (the Documentation/devices.txt file).
 .SH DISK LABELS
 .B GPT (GUID Partition Table)
 .RS
-GPT is modern standard for the layout of the partition table. GPT uses 64-bits
-logical block addresses, checksums, UUIDs and names for partitions and
-unlimited number of the partitions (although the number of the partition is
+GPT is modern standard for the layout of the partition table.  GPT uses 64-bit
+logical block addresses, checksums, UUIDs and names for partitions and an
+unlimited number of partitions (although the number of partitions is
 usually restricted to 128 in many partitioning tools).
 
 Note that the first sector is still reserved for a
 .B protective MBR
-in the GPT specification. It prevents MBR-only partitioning tools
-to mis-recognizing and overwriting GPT disks.
+in the GPT specification.  It prevents MBR-only partitioning tools
+from mis-recognizing and overwriting GPT disks.
 
-GPT is always better choice than MBR especially on modern hardware with UEFI
+GPT is always a better choice than MBR, especially on modern hardware with a UEFI
 boot loader.
 .RE
 
 .B DOS-type (MBR)
 .RS
-partition table can describe an unlimited number of partitions.  In sector 0
+A DOS-type partition table can describe an unlimited number of partitions.  In sector 0
 there is room for the description of 4 partitions (called `primary').  One of
 these may be an extended partition; this is a box holding logical partitions,
 with descriptors found in a linked list of sectors, each preceding the
 corresponding logical partitions.  The four primary partitions, present or not,
-get numbers 1-4.  Logical partitions start numbering from 5.
+get numbers 1-4.  Logical partitions are numbered starting from 5.
 
 In a DOS-type partition table the starting offset and the size of each
 partition is stored in two ways: as an absolute number of sectors (given in 32
@@ -156,28 +158,28 @@ will work up to 2 TB.  The latter has two problems.  First, these C/H/S fields
 can be filled only when the number of heads and the number of sectors per track
 are known.  And second, even if we know what these numbers should be, the 24
 bits that are available do not suffice.  DOS uses C/H/S only, Windows uses
-both, Linux never uses C/H/S. The
+both, Linux never uses C/H/S.  The
 .B C/H/S addressing is deprecated
 and may be unsupported in some later fdisk version.
 
-.B Please, read the DOS-mode section if you want DOS compatible partitions.
+.B Please, read the DOS-mode section if you want DOS-compatible partitions.
 .B fdisk
-does not care about cylinders boundary by default.
+does not care about cylinder boundaries by default.
 .RE
 
-.B BSD/SUN-type
+.B BSD/Sun-type
 .RS
-disklabel can describe 8 partitions, the third of which should be a `whole
+A BSD/Sun disklabel can describe 8 partitions, the third of which should be a `whole
 disk' partition.  Do not start a partition that actually uses its first sector
 (like a swap partition) at cylinder 0, since that will destroy the disklabel.
-Note that
+Note that a
 .B BSD label
-is usually nested within DOS partition.
+is usually nested within a DOS partition.
 .RE
 
 .B IRIX/SGI-type
 .RS
-disklabel can describe 16 partitions, the eleventh of which should be an entire
+An IRIX/SGI disklabel can describe 16 partitions, the eleventh of which should be an entire
 `volume' partition, while the ninth should be labeled `volume header'.  The
 volume header will also cover the partition table, i.e., it starts at block
 zero and extends by default over five cylinders.  The remaining space in the
@@ -188,14 +190,14 @@ label only when working with Linux on IRIX/SGI machines or IRIX/SGI disks under
 Linux.
 .RE
 
-A sync() and an ioctl(BLKRRPART) (reread partition table from disk)
+A sync() and an ioctl(BLKRRPART) (rereading the partition table from disk)
 are performed before exiting when the partition table has been updated.
 
 .SH "DOS mode and DOS 6.x WARNING"
-.B Note that all this deprecated. You don't have to care about things like
-.B geometry and cylinders on modern operation systems. If you really want
-.B DOS compatible partitioning then you have to enable DOS-mode and cylinder
-.B units by '-c=dos -u=cylinders' fdisk command line options.
+.B Note that all this is deprecated.  You don't have to care about things like
+.B geometry and cylinders on modern operating systems.  If you really want
+.B DOS-compatible partitioning then you have to enable DOS mode and cylinder
+.B units by using the '-c=dos -u=cylinders' fdisk command-line options.
 
 The DOS 6.x FORMAT command looks for some information in the first sector of
 the data area of the partition, and treats this information as more reliable
@@ -204,19 +206,20 @@ clear the first 512 bytes of the data area of a partition whenever a size
 change occurs.  DOS FORMAT will look at this extra information even if the /U
 flag is given -- we consider this a bug in DOS FORMAT and DOS FDISK.
 
-The bottom line is that if you use cfdisk or fdisk to change the size of a DOS
-partition table entry, then you must also use .B dd to zero the first 512 bytes
+The bottom line is that if you use \fBfdisk\fR or \fBcfdisk\R to change the
+size of a DOS partition table entry, then you must also use
+.BR dd "(1) to " "zero the first 512 bytes"
 of that partition before using DOS FORMAT to format the partition.  For
-example, if you were using cfdisk to make a DOS partition table entry for
-/dev/sda1, then (after exiting fdisk or cfdisk and rebooting Linux so that the
+example, if you were using \fBfdisk\fR to make a DOS partition table entry for
+/dev/sda1, then (after exiting \fBfdisk\fR and rebooting Linux so that the
 partition table information is valid) you would use the command "dd
 if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda1 bs=512 count=1" to zero the first 512 bytes of the
 partition.
 
 .B fdisk
-usually obtain the disk geometry automatically.  This is not necessarily the
+usually obtains the disk geometry automatically.  This is not necessarily the
 physical disk geometry (indeed, modern disks do not really have anything like a
-physical geometry, certainly not something that can be described in simplistic
+physical geometry, certainly not something that can be described in the simplistic
 Cylinders/Heads/Sectors form), but it is the disk geometry that MS-DOS uses for
 the partition table.
 
@@ -240,7 +243,7 @@ this is unlikely to cause difficulty unless you have OS/2 on your machine.
 
 For best results, you should always use an OS-specific partition table
 program.  For example, you should make DOS partitions with the DOS FDISK
-program and Linux partitions with the Linux fdisk or Linux cfdisk program.
+program and Linux partitions with the Linux fdisk or Linux cfdisk programs.
 
 .SH AUTHORS
 .MT kzak@redhat.com