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Re: Misleading Debian's installer choice



Merciadri Luca wrote:
> First, I always found the `mount point' expression weird in this
> context, because, for me, the mount point _is_ always the partition,
> during the installation, but this is not the problem.

You have this common terminology exactly backwards. One mounts /dev/hda1
on mount point / or /dev/sdb5 on mount point /home; one does not mount
/home on /dev/sdb5. HTH :-)  I fixed the next paragraph for you:
| The biggest problem is that you are able to choose between, say, `/',
| `/var/', '/usr/', `/home/', etc. But, without thinking a lot, `/'
| *habitually* contains the rest. So, mounting say hda1 `/`, and
| hdb1 on `/home/` could appear as weird for the user, at first glance (only).

> I'm here speaking about users who're not beginners,
> but who want to understand the distinction the Debian installer makes
> between the `/' as it is normally in Linux filesystems, and the `/' in
> the installation process, which is actually everything except what was
> asked to be put on other partitions.

The mental model that most non-beginners should have is that the system's
root is / , which is where some system disk is mounted, and that additional
disks are mounted to other mount points in the tree. The disk mounted at /
is not a special case in not containing everything under /  -- the disk
mounted on /home does not necessarily contain everything under /home either.
(I may have another (larger) disk mounted on /home/joey.)

Everything said in the installation process should be consistent with that.
Of course, the installer doesn't require users understand this stuff either.
But I think you're making it seem more complicated than it is.

-- 
see shy jo

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