Re: PROPOSAL for FHS revised : Mount points for CDs, floppies and alien OS partitions.]
On Thu, 22 Jun 2000, Thorsten Kukuk wrote:
> 1. /cdrom is also already accepted practice by a large number of
> Linux systems, many of the distributions are much older then RedHat
> and co.
The "age" of a distribution isn't as germane to this discussion as is the
size of the installed base. If the majority of Linux users have cdrom in
/mnt, then that is the path of least resistance.
> 2. We don't speak about Linux, we speak about an FHS proposal. (Look
> at the subject.
> FHS is for all Unix systems, not only Linux. And the /use of /mnt
> as a temporary mount point is more widespeard as the practice of
> /mnt/{floppy,cdrom}. Speak with one who uses Solaris, AIX, HP-UX
> or whatever.
I thought that part of the goal of FHS was to define the future, not just
specify the past... Please let me know if I'm incorrect.
If the best solution is to put cdrom, floppy, etc under /mnt, why
shouldn't the FHS promote that?
In my (very humble) opinion, putting cdrom, floppy, and whatever else
under /mnt has two long-term advantages:
** Allows the specification to adapt to changes in technology better -- if
we put mount points in /, new devices may become commonplace enough to
require us to add another standardized mount point, and backwards
compatibility would dictate keeping the outdated devices -- we're already
seeing that with DVD-ROM drives replacing CDROM. Having all that in /
would generate a lot of mount points, most of which would be unused.
** Reduces root clutter. Putting the mount points on the root filesystem
could generate excessive numbers of mount points, as standardizing on this
would logically lead to creating separate directories on the root
filesystem for _every_ mountable device. Now on your average workstation,
you'll probably only see /floppy, /cdrom, /dvd, and maybe /zip, but what
about on a large computer? What about Linux on a s/390? Or a SGI
Origin2000? Do we want to have a root filesystem that has /cdrom0 -
/cdrom19? Now, if all of these directories were defineable as being under
/mnt, it would be rather clean and elegant.
Please elucidate me if I am incorrect in my reasoning.
Thanks,
Jeffrey.
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