> *click* Ahh, now it all makes sense. If I'm understanding you and Randy > correctly, there's always a folder within / called usr. If I wish, I can > mount a partition as /usr and that hides the contents of the 'real' usr
Essentially. But /usr is there, at least if the directory entry for it is created. The 'hiding' isn't really an intention, but it's a side effect. If you have your normal usr on another partition, then you have just a directory entry 'usr' on that partition. Once it's mounted at /usr, tnen the previously (usually) empty directory gets 'replaced' with what's at the mount point. The idea is not necessarily to hade any existing contents in /usr, but of course if you were to stuff a few files in there, and then mounted a partition at /usr, and then unmounted it - guess what -- :) your original contents at /usr would still be there. Another example -- most people put /home on a separate partition. As an example, my physical partition /dev/hdb1 is just a filesystem with a couple of entries (dfox root and others) in it. /hone is not there. But /home is a directory entry on the / partition. Without that partition mounted, I would not be albe to go to my home directory (/home/dfox) because /home contains no files (and thus no directory 'dfox'). But if I take that partition and put it at /home by mounting it, then (voila) I get /home/dfox, /home/root, /home/ftp and the others. And if I had a partition with /home in it, I'd end up with /home/home/dfox, which is obviously not what is needed :). By extension, '/' (the root) doesn't really exist, then. I have a partition that contains directories such as bin, usr, etc, var perhaps, lib, and so forth, and I mount that on /, and I get /bin, /usr, /lib, and so forth. / isn't physically at least, a partition.
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