Here's my understanding. OSX, and other flavors of Unix, "mount" items. Once mounted, that item is given a place in the /volumes folder and the system can read from and write to it (or not, but that depends on the volume's file system - OSX can't write to NTFS drives, but it can read them). So, when you mount something, it is like telling the system it exists as its own drive. Unmounting simply removes the volume from the operating system's awareness. You mount things like thumb drives or hard drives; plug one in, then open up /volumes in finder and have a look at what's there. Unplug the device and look again. You also mount dmg files because they are "disk images", or, basically, little drives, or so OSX thinks of them. Once mounted, OSX can install from them, sort of like inserting a CD with an application on it. I don't fully understand why you have to mount dmg files to get them to work, but that's basically what is going on. On Jul 29, 2012, at 1:52 PM, Mark Furness <[email protected]> wrote:
> As the subject line asks, what does "mount" mean? > > I see things are mounted or not. Is one better or needed for a reason? > > Mark > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. > Have a great day, Alex (msg sent from Mac Mini) [email protected]; http://www.facebook.com/mehgcap -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
