[ILUG] apt-cdrom q

[Paul J Collins]

>>>>> "RM" == Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> writes:

    RM> begin Paul J Collins quotation:
    >> The reason Debian uses /cdrom is that the FHS, which Debian tries to
    >> adhere to, specifies that /mnt itself is to be used as a mount point.

    RM> I'm not sure I buy your premise.

    RM> http://www.pathname.com/fhs/2.1/fhs-3.7.html includes: "This
    RM> directory is provided so that the system administrator may
    RM> temporarily mount filesystems as needed.  The content of this
    RM> directory is a local issue...."  I see nothing there that
    RM> precludes having mount directories within mnt, and putting
    RM> /mnt/cdrom there.

    RM> On the other fin, http://www.pathname.com/fhs/2.1/fhs-3.html
    RM> makes crystal-clear that "introducing a new subdirectory of
    RM> the root filesystem is prohibited" beyond the following:

    RM> "/"
    RM> bin
    RM> boot
    RM> dev
    RM> etc
    RM> home
    RM> lib
    RM> mnt
    RM> opt
    RM> root
    RM> sbin
    RM> tmp
    RM> usr
    RM> var

    RM> It seems to me that Debian persists in using /cdrom and /floppy
    RM> _despite_ the FHS.

I think they're caught between a rock and a hard place here; section
3.7 of the FHS you quote above describes /mnt as "Mount point for
mounting a filesystem temporarily".  My reading of that is that
temporary mounts are to be made directly on /mnt, leaving no option to
create /mnt/cdrom, /mnt/floppy and so on.  I guess rather than screw
up something that has expected behaviour, they decided to add
something that has no expected behaviour.  There may have also been
precedent in previous Debian releases; I'm only familiar with potato.

FHS 2.2-beta reiterates that /mnt is a mount-point and adds provision
for a /media directory, which is to contains mount-points for
removable media: /media/cdrom, /mdeia/dvd and so on.

http://www.pathname.com/fhs/2.2-beta/fhs-2.2-beta.txt (line 885)

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