Re: mount

Firstly, thnx for another great topic. And a request for more "beginners" linux related info.

Now for my dumb questions...

mount is a filesystem operation

The first time I had to use a *nix system was early last year for a cs project which HAD to run on Linux. Anyway, it was in java. So I coded it on Windows, saved it on a floppy and went to the linux box to test it. That's when someone told me about this "mounting" stuff. So it was kinda wierd and I didn't understand it. I thought it was kind of strange that the floppy drive had to be mounted and unmounted. I understand now this is an extensibility feature as Rahul said.

Anyway, one problem was that people would log into their account, mount the floppy drive, use it and then NOT unmount it before they logged off. So the next guy who logged in couldn't access the drive. What's the solution in that situation?

the directory structure in a *nix system heirarchy is of the form /(root) withinwhich there are other folders like boot, etc, dev, home etc...

Can you elaborate a bit on the directory hierarchy. I have seen a bit about the diff folders like boot, etc, usr etc... But what exactly does each contain? And are all of these first level under root? As in /boot, /etc, /usr

Do all linux distro's contain this exact same hierarchy? If not, how do they differ? Also what if they want to add some custom "user friendly" feature like "My Documents" or something... where would that folder be located?

Also there are commands that you use from the cmd line like ps, grep, set, etc... These are actualy programs (executables) right? Where are these stored in the hierarchy? Also, are they available in ALL distro's like a standard?

Also what exactly are executables in Linux called? What extensions do they have?

now the important thing here is to understand the numbering for partitions under the /dev(device) directory.

Every new device you mount will be added under /dev? So if I mount a zip drive or whatever, it should appear there.

a in hda means the primary master device on the bus. if you had a primary slave, it would be denoted as hdb.

hda == Your main hard drive.
hdb == If you have a second harddrive it will appear as that.
Similarly, if you have a thrid, fourth harddrives, will it continue as hdc, hdd etc...?
And under those if you have partitions they are numbered.

for secondary devices, they would be hdc and hdd.

What counts as secondary devices?

# mount -t vfat /dev/hda6 /tmp/d
now, wheni browse the /tmp/d directory, all my d: files are visible, with complete read/write support.

This is quite cool. So I can access my music stuff on Windows which is in the main hd (hda). Does mount work "by value" or "by reference". As in, does it make a copy of the files in hda6? What if I mount to /tmp/d and then add files to it, remove some files, edit etc... Will the changes also be made to the originals?

So, sorry for the whole bunch of stupid questions. My aim is to advance to intelligent ones after reading your posts on Linux.