Re: Debian, FHS & /floppy

[Paul E Condon <pecondon@quiknet.com>]

martin f krafft wrote:
> 
> also sprach Andras Simonyi <simka@ludens.elte.hu> [2002.01.14.1733 +0100]:
> > I can't help asking this concerning Debian's FHS compliance: why on
> > earth make all the Debian-versions the mount-points of removable media
> > in the root directory instead of /mnt/, which is the required standard
> > in FHS? Of course I can change /cdrom and /floppy to /mnt/cdrom etc, but
> > then I have to change various config files as well (eg. for apt to
> > work).
> 
> i consider /mnt/{cdrom,floppy} a redhat sickness. first of all, please
> show me where the FHS supposedly dictates those two mount points into
> /mnt?
> 
> then, look at section 3.11:
>   "/mnt : Mount point for a temporarily mounted filesystem"
> 
> and that's exactly what it's for. so you can mount a filesystem
> temporarily. you could still do that if you had /mnt/{cdrom,floppy}, but
> when a temp filesystem is mounted, you couldn't access either of the
> media, and you might even have troubles mounting on /mnt if a
> subdirectory is already used as a mountpoint.
> 
> /mnt/{cdrom,floppy} are actually offending the FHS. the FHS has not
> specific path for them, but /floppy and /cdrom strike me as the best and
> most logical. i should talk to the team and have them add that...
> 
> what do others think?
> 
I just read the FHS for the first time a few days ago. (I learned of its
existance in the answer to I question to this list.) I was struck by
what seemed to me to be a clear prohibition against putting anything
into / (root) that is not specifically mentioned in the FHS. It does
give a little wriggle room since it is "directories" that are
prohibited, not "mount points". But I'm not impressed by my own wriggle.
It would allow unlimited additions to /, so long as the addition is a
mount point for a separate partition as opposed to an ordinary
directory. This is clearly a silly distinction. 

So I'll suggest a rephrasing of the original question: 
Why does the FHS containing wording which appears to prohibit placing
mount points in / ? Mount points really are directories, aren't they?
And directories are prohibited.

I think the appearance of prohibition is really a problem of wording in
the FHS. It might be fixed by adding /cdrom, and  /floppy to the list of
things that may be put in /. 

My own feelings are that I'm not bothered by having mount points in /,
but it does bother me to have a standards document that is so misleading
to an uninitiated reader.

-- 
Paul E Condon 
pecondon@quiknet.com