martin f krafft wrote:
> > The main argument against placing such directories under / is that
> > they may (they _will_, IMHO) increase clutter as the number of
> > supported devices increase (e.g. for instance, we _already_ would need
> > /zip, /jaz, /ls120, among others), or the number of devices supported
> > by the machine is greater than 1 (e.g. /cdrom0, /cdrom1, /zip0,
> > etc.). Since we are talking about a hierarchical system, it seems
> > reasonable to put these instances under a "removable media" directory
> > (this is being done by some already -- e.g. /mnt/cdrom). However, IIRC
> > this didn't make up in FHS 2.2 because there were no consensus about
> > the _name_ that should be reserved to that directory. Some proposed
> > names I remember were /vol, /misc, and /media (I'm sure there were
> > others).
>
> okay, valid points, but has there been a resolution? 2.3 is still a bit
> away, but it should really cover this i find.
>
> > BTW, due to the lack of consensus we are already using /media in our
> > systems. IMHO it fits perfectly with what we are trying to accomplish.
>
> it's better than /vol and /misc, yes. kinda new to my eyes, but i could
> deal :)
>
> should we keep cross-posting, or should this discussion move to
> fhs-discuss? (if no resolution has been found already)?
SuSE has also gone to /media, RedHat seems to soldier on with /mnt, which
is definitely wrong, and it is not just a few times that I have seen a system
that needed rebooting because a quick "mount blabla /mnt" neatly shadowed
out mount and umount as well as a lot of other stuff.
/vol in the form it was suggested is definitely going to cross (established)
Solaris practice, /misc has a certain constituency as it is in the example
files that come with autofs.
We also have a problem of encapsulation here - some desktops want to
mount the filesystem as they become available, which seems to be easy
enough. It would to some extent solve the clutter problem - /media/jaz
becomes only available as a directory entry if there is an actual file-
system (insert discussion of devfs here...). The Automounter works the
other way around, /misc/jaz means a jaz drive directory will be created
if a jaz drive is available, as soon as it is being used. Personally
I stay with /misc and the automounter and start cursing (or let the
admin curse) if /media and a voldaemon also mount the stuff.
Unmounting the media is much more difficult, and is IMHO a basic flaw
of Linux (and many other commercial Unix) systems. The unmounting
solicits a laconic "... busy" message. What should happen is that all
local processes are signalled if the owner removes a removable media
mount, and NFS mounts receive a "stale file handle" message the next
time they try accessing the stuff. This behaviour should at least be
available as a mount option (-o bump, say), even if the default is
deemed to be -o nobump (the current bahaviour). Maybe now with a
development stream available some kind soul will put this into the
kernel.
N.B. I left the cross-posting. And Yes, requests for kernel
improvement have no place in the FHS list ...
Thomas
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