Welcome to lipe.

lipe is free software. Please see the file COPYING for details.
For documentation, please see the files in the doc subdirectory.
For building and installation instructions please see the INSTALL file.


LiPE is a partition table editor for Linux. It is different from other of
its kind in the sense that you can manipulate the partition table in 
(almost) any way you deem fit. Thus it gives the power while you are still
not required to go into the hexadecimal jungle. Ans its most important
utility is probably data recovery in case of partition table error.

Note as this program handles HD in a raw mode, you need root privilages 
for doing all this.

Now something about the program:
Right now it supports two modes:
(i) Plain text mode
	You can dump (display on screen) or pump (write to device) partition
	table using stdout and stdin in this mode. And I need not mention
	the possibility of redirection.

	Further both dump and pump support two modes ``raw'' and ``readable.''
	Don't get me wrong both are readable, but in raw mode you get plain 
	hex text but in readable mode you get numbers.

	So the commands are

	lipe --dump=raw --device=/dev/hda
	lipe --dump=readable --device=/dev/hdc
	lipe --pump=raw --device=/dev/hda
	lipe --pump=readable --device=/dev/hdb -b 1024
	Last one uses a sector-size of 1024 instead 512. Just-in-case you are
	on of them (you got me:)

	BTW, in pump mode you can write at stdout the partition table and it
	will be written to your HD. But a less painful way will be redirection.
	(remember the < > >> << things :)

(ii) Ncurses Mode (Ok we are talking about graphics here)
	This mode supports text-mode graphics. And in this mode LiPE mimics 
	the functionality of PowerQuests(r) PTEDIT program (An utility included
	with Partition Magic). Now lets do some tricks here.

	lipe --device=/dev/hdb --text

	Ya we have got our command line options totally messed up, but hey there
	is always a new version to wait for ;)

	So what do we have now graphical-text (yack!)

	Okay the commands in graphical mode are as follows:

	Left Arrow Key or `h': Move Left (Easy enough)
	Down Arrow Key or `j': Move Down
	Up Arrow Key or `k': Move Up
	Right Arrow Key or `l': Move Right
	ctrl-f or `n': Next Partition Table
	ctrl-b or `p': Previous Partiton Table
	F1 or `?': Help (Sorry nothing will come)
	F2 or `w': Write data (Be careful!!!)
	F3 or `!': Reset data
	F4 or `r' or Enter: Edit a value
	Esc or `q' or ctrl-x: Exit the program 

	You will be asked to save the data whenever the LiPE feels the need. You 
	can choose by y or n to save or not to save the data.

Well this program is meant for advanced users. So don't expect us to write a How-to
about disk partitioning and stuff.

You should also read the man page of LiPE.


TODO:
	We are working right now on a graphical interface using svgalib. So hang on.
	Also many options and configurations will be supported in future versions.


Authors and website:
http://home.iitk.ac.in/student/neerajcd/LiPE
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ptedit/

Neeraj Jakhar (Me :) neerajcd@iitk.ac.in

And yes do send feedback :).