On Sat, Mar 15, 2003 at 03:23:05AM +0000, Matthew Garrett wrote: > Jameie Wilkinson wrote: > >This one time, at band camp, Matthew Garrett wrote: > >>I only have two directories in /var/ that appear in /. I have somewhat > >>more in /tmp than I do in /var/tmp, and more in /lib than I do in > >>/var/lib. Am I missing your point here? > >/bin - boottime version of /usr/bin > >/lib - boottime version of /usr/lib > >/root - (gratuitous, I know) boottime version of /home > The /usr and / distinction is clearly demarked, with / containing things > that would otherwise be in /usr but are required to boot. The /var and / > distinction is entirely different. The primary reason to have /var on a > separate partition is because /var is the most likely filesystem to fill > up under normal usage. > >>Mountall is called early in the boot sequence. I can't see anything in > >>my startup that ought to be storing runtime state that happens before > >>that. A network mounted /var is a special case, not normal booting. > > > >What about a separate partition /var, which is a quite normal case? > When would you need to run something that keeps state before being able > to mount another partition? What about mtab? You might need to mount both /var and /var/run before you're able to use it; and who knows how users might have things symlinked in the wild. It's a little bit difficult to use mtab to track the status of mounted filesystems when you have to mount an indeterminate number of filesystems before you can make use of it. Requiring a completely new directory at the top level is the best way to ensure a smooth upgrade for all our users, not just those who don't fall into one of the seemingly large "corners". -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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