Re: PROPOSAL for FHS revised : Mount points for CDs, floppies and a lien OS partitions.]

[Wade Hampton <whampton@staffnet.com>]

Daniel Quinlan wrote:
> 
> Thorsten Kukuk wrote:
> 
> >> No, the majority doesn't have cdrom in /mnt. [snip]
> 
> Robert Hart writes:
> 
> > I do not wish to have a market share discussion [snip]
> 
> I also do not wish to have a market share discussion.  I can almost
> guarantee that technical arguments primarily based on market share will
> be ignored or discounted.  Please drop it right here.
I agree. I have been trying to catch up on the discussions on this
and agree with this and finally feel up to speed enough to comment.
> 
> Addressing the technical issue at hand, /mnt has been specified as a
> single mount point for temporary use since the original FSSTND 1.0
> released on February 14, 1994 (and it was used that way on every
> distribution predating FSSTND).  A single /mnt mount point has been the
> standard practice on most Unix systems for longer than Linux has been
> around.  Multiple directories under /mnt also conflicts with the
> standard system administration practice of mounting on /mnt --
> directories under /mnt are made inaccessible to all users when a someone
> mounts something on /mnt as root.  It's simply a bad idea to put user
> mounts under /mnt because they are likely to break.
I personally like /mnt/floppy, /mnt/cdrom, etc., however this is a 
VERY GOOD argument.  

Some objectives:
1.  keep it simple, but make it a standard
2.  try to be compatible with UNIX's and most distributions
3.  keep it flexible
4.  keep the individual mount points out of root (I used to use
    /floppy0 and /floppy1 for mount points -- shame, shame).


> For all of the above technical reasons, I do not support changing FHS to
> specify any hierarchical structure under /mnt (optional or otherwise).
I agree.
> 
> However, it does seem that we could benefit from having a subdirectory
> off of / or /var for temporary mount points, [snip]

How about A: and B: and C: -- oh, thats already been done and SUCKS.
A directory with a short name would be useful, like /mp or /mounts.
It should not be too close to /mnt or it will confuse (e.g., /mnts 
would not be a good choice).

I like the /[moint point name]/floppy -> /[mount point name]/fd.0 
scheme, as it simplifies it for a user (/floppy) and for a sysadmin
(the full name is exposed).

Cheers,
-- 
W. Wade, Hampton  <whampton@staffnet.com>  
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