linux-kernel - Re: Linux & FAT32 label

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Date:   Sun, 5 Nov 2017 15:35:42 -0500
From:   Theodore Ts'o <tytso@....edu>
To:     Pali Rohár <pali.rohar@...il.com>
Cc:     Andy Shevchenko <andy.shevchenko@...il.com>,
        Andreas Bombe <aeb@...ian.org>, Karel Zak <kzak@...hat.com>,
        util-linux@...r.kernel.org,
        "linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Andrius Štikonas <andrius@...konas.eu>,
        Curtis Gedak <gedakc@...il.com>, pavel@....cz
Subject: Re: Linux & FAT32 label

On Sun, Nov 05, 2017 at 03:07:45PM +0100, Pali Rohár wrote:
> 
> Current behavior of the last blkid and fatlabel tools is: Try to read
> label from the root directory. If it does not exist, then fallback to
> label stored in boot sector. And when fatlabel is changing label it
> updates both locations.
> 
> So tools which already uses fatlabel for get & set operations should not
> be affected as setting new label makes boot and root in sync.
> 
> New proposed behavior is: Try to read label from the root directory. If
> not exist, then treat disk as without label.

Why is it important to ignore the label from the boot sector?  What is
the situation where if there is not a label in the root directory, and
there is a label in the boot sector, it is the Wrong Thing to return it?

For that matter, aside for a diskette from DOS 3.x (where using the
label from the boot sector *is* the right thing), why/when would we
ever have a label in the boot sector and not in the root director?

      	   	    	     	     	   - Ted