diskdrake logo

I- What's it?

The purpose of the DiskDrake project is to make easier the hard disk partitionning. It is graphical, simple and powerful. The license is the GPL (General Public License).
Different skill levels will be available (newbie, advanced user, expert).
It's written entirely in Perl and Perl/Gtk. It uses resize_fat which is a perl rewrite of the work of Andrew Clausen (libresize).

DiskDrake is a project from MandrakeSoft, the company behind the popular Linux-Mandrake operating-system.

A FAQ is in construction.

II - What's available now

DiskDrake should be usable now... it can:
  • create partitions
  • delete partitions
  • change type of partition
  • format partitions
  • assign a mount point ((21/07/99) propose a list of classic mount points and verify the mount point is valid)
  • mount partitions
  • resize fat partitions
  • resize partitions (when not caring loosing its data)
  • clear partition table
  • auto allocation (usefull for install)
  • write fstab
with nice contextual menu (shortcuts available, but dangerous as all actions are available, whereas with the contextual menu these actions are hidden. This will change)

(25/07/99) A new Expert button appear now. It toggles between expert and normal mode. Some changes in information displayed:

  • when you click (or focus) the drive tab (eg: hda), you get information about your drive: size, geometry (cylinders/sectors/heads number), type (eg: IBM DDRS-39130D), and bus/id. In normal mode you have only the size.
  • the windows drive letter (eg: C: D: ...)
  • the `start sector' information from normal mode, it still appears in expert mode
  • the start&end; cylinder of each partition is now displayed in expert mode
  • the type is displayed numerically in expert mode

(25/07/99) The mount point in the `Create' window and `Change type' window is now a combo box. It lets you choose between classical mount points (/ /usr /var ...) but with already allocated mount points removed.

(30/07/99) Added a check to disable the creation of a /boot partition ending above the 1024 cylinder. Also added a warning when creating a root partition ending above the 1024 cylinder and no /boot are available. This way you don't have to worry about this :)

(30/07/99) Saving your partition table in a file is in test. That way you can (hopefully) restore your partition table after problems...

(12/08/99) Lot of stuff! It's been some time since last web page update. Well let's start the features added:

  • in expert you can precise if you want an primary or an extended partition
  • for standalone use, the partition table can be saved on a raw floppy
  • undo is on its way
  • moving partitions is on its way (still buggy!)
  • comestic changes
  • some bugs removed

updated(18/01/00) Sorry for the late updating, i've been quite busy with mandrake 7.0 One ``easy'' way to test diskdrake is to use the latest mandrake :)

  • relooking
  • RAID handling has been added and allow (very) easy use software raid
  • BSD and SUN partition tables are now handled, but very roughly. The package is not released yet, available in DrakX CVS though.

III - Actual development

We need people!!!
  • Tests and remove bugs (no known yet :)
  • integrate ext2resize (which has been release in version 1.0.0 (26/07/99))
  • add possibility to move partition without loosing data (by copying all data)
  • Improve the look
  • Add a text-only version
  • Help text, tutorial...
  • Internationalization
  • Add some features...
  • Packaging (rpm, deb, slp...)

IV- ScreenShot

Warning: features was the main focus, so don't be too hard :)

DiskDrake main interface

create dialog box

updatedcrazy partition table!

V - Contacts

A Mailing List has been created to allow developpers to discuss about DiskDrake.

Send a mail to: sympa@linux-mandrake.com
Put in the subject: subscribe diskdrake
When you're subscribed, send your messages to: diskdrake@linux-mandrake.com

Otherwise you can contact directly the project leader.

VI - Download

Warning: You must have Gtk-Perl. You can get the rpm from the Cooker distribution (the package is named perl-GTK).

You also need perl version 5.00503 or better

Here you can find diskdrake in the rpm drakxtools in cooker: binary (Other mirrors in Cooker) source (Other mirrors in Cooker)