Andrew George wrote:
>
[snipped]
May have already been answered, but in case it hasn't ...
> >
> Heres a related question
> The following is part of my partition table
> Device Mount Point Distribution
> /hdb5 /boot Debian
> /hdb6 / Debian
> /hdc6 /boot Mandrake
> /hdc7 / Mandrake
>
[snipped]
> For example...If I'm in Mandrake with dev/hdb5 mounted as /mnt/debboot
> should I specify the kernal location for Debian as /mnt/debboot/vmlinuz-2.0.38
> and Lilo will set the MBR to go to hdb5 (even though it will mount hdb5 as /boot
> when the kernal reads Debian's fstab)?
No. When you'ld boot into Deb, lilo would look for the kernel image in
/mnt/debboot/ in Deb's / filesystem, because that's how you'ld have defined or
spec'd it in your lilo configuration.
If the kernel image for Deb is in /boot of that configuration, then you need to
specify the kernel image and location as this for lilo.
This means that either you need to copy your Deb kernel image to your Mandrake
/boot directory, or create a symlink to it in your Mdk /boot directory. This sym
link would be
/boot/vmlinuz-2.0.38 -> /mnt/hdb5/boot/vmlinuz-2.0.38
or
/boot/vm... -> /mnt/hdb5/vm...
I think it'ld need to be /mnt/hdb5/boot/vm... The boot part does not actually
exist in your /mnt path, except once /dev/hdb5 has been mounted.
/mnt/hdb5 would be mounted to /dev/hdb5, however I'm not sure if /dev/hdb5 actually
needs to be mounted. This would be easy and quick to test, but if you don't want
to bother with trial and error, then simply mount /dev/hdb5 to /mnt/hdb5 (or vice
versa - in wording) before modifying your lilo conf.
If you don't use /mnt/hdb5 for the name of this mount point, then I'ld suggest not
placing an entry for this mount in your fstab file. For example, if you name it
instead /mnt/hdd, and you define the fstab entry as /dev/hdb5, then to mount
/mnt/hdd to any other /dev filesystem, you'ld need to either type out the entire
mount command, for mount to not use fstab, or you'ld need to modify fstab, when
ever you'ld want to mount a different filesystem to this mount point.
If you name it /mnt/hdb5, then you can safely define the entry in fstab, for
/dev/hdb5.
That's why I used this for the mount point name. Directories don't take up any
space worthy of mention, especially when it's only the hardlink of the directory;
therefore, you can create as many different mount points in /mnt as you want and
then define these in fstab, probably with the noauto option, to avoid needing to
type out the complete mount command each time, letting you mount this filesystem
for example by simply running
mount /mnt/hdb5
which is shorter than
mount -vt ext2 /dev/hdb5 /mnt/hdb5
When using the former case, mount automatically looks in fstab for the definition
of the mount point.
F.e., I have two Linux configurations with different filesystems for /boot, /,
/usr, /usr/local, /usr/src, /home, /var, and /tmp. One of these configs is the
primary Linux config and the other is test/build, relative to the primary config;
therefore, I created /mnt points named boot, root, usr, local, src, home, var and
tmp (besides also a:, c:, floppy, and cdrom). Then I created fstab file entries
for each of these, because when ever I say, for example,
mount /mnt/boot
I always want it mounted to the same partition. If I ever want to access my other
single and small filesystem configuration, then I merely run mount typing out the
full mount command, mapping it to /mnt/root, albeit could also mount it /mnt/boot
or any other /mnt point which is not in use.
e.g.
mount -vt ext2 /dev/hdb2 /mnt/root
If I want to access /boot of that config, then it's through /mnt/root/boot. If I
want to access the /var directory, then it's /mnt/root/var, or for /root, it's
/mnt/root/root.
Based on this, you'ld need to create the symlink in your Mdk /boot directory,
accessing the Deb /boot through /mnt/debroot/boot/... Add the fstab entry and you
can mount by simply running
mount /mnt/hdb5
and
ls /mnt/hdb5/boot/vm*
would show all of the vm* files in the /boot of Deb.
This extra rap may be helpful in illustrating the use and flexibility of mount.
Hopefully that's not too long winded.
mike
> Trying to burn my boot floppies (and play with another distribution while I've
> got a spare Hard Drive)
>
> Andrew
