Re: [tlug] The artist formerly known as 'n'

[Tod McQuillin <devin@example.com>]

On Wed, 25 Sep 2002, neil_macphee wrote:

> I do now partition so that my home directory is on its own partition,
> but have never tried to get etc on its own partition. It might be a good
> idea.

Actually, it is probably not a good idea.

When the kernel boots, the first user process it starts is init.  At that
time, only the root partition is mounted.  init knows to launch the
/etc/rc shell script, which is in charge of (among other things) mounting
filesystems other than the root filesystem.

So inherent in the design of init is that /etc lives on the root
filesystem.

You could put it on another partition but you'd probably have to modify
init and I don't really see what it gains you.
-- 
Tod McQuillin