Arch Linux

quiqueck

Member

Registered: 2013-04-15

Posts: 93

Missing information about FHS / differences

Since i bought a new SSD and want to update my over 10 year old arch installation system with some new things, e.g. i didn't  knew the periodic TRIM option, i came across "usual" mount points on an arch linux system for other harddrive partitions.

I always used /run/media/labelname in /etc/fstab but i don't know why

Looking for an answer in the wiki i did not find one. Shouldn't at least a recommendation  somewhere in fstab about where to mount other partitions which are wanted to be used permanently?
There is also a folder /run/mount, why not use this folder? And afaik other distributions use /media (not sure if this is still true today), a hint about differences would also be welcome.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 24,428

Re: Missing information about FHS / differences

There is no inherent difference. You can mount things wherever you want. as long as you don't mount over some of the standard  paths (don't mount it over /bin or so... ) it plain doesn't matter. "Historically" a subdir under /mnt is an option, or /media, or ... udisks uses /run/media/labelname, maybe you have that from there.

Maybe https://man.archlinux.org/man/core/man-pages/hier.7.en or https://man.archlinux.org/man/file-hierarchy.7.en help?

I mount most of my stuff as a subdir on root e.g. /windows for the NTFS from a dual boot /data for the big HDD raid where stuff is put that doesn't need SSD speed and is big.

Last edited by V1del (2025-05-23 17:10:40)

quiqueck

Member

Registered: 2013-04-15

Posts: 93

Re: Missing information about FHS / differences

You can mount things wherever you want. as long as you don't mount over some of the standard  paths (don't mount it over /bin or so... )

In general i know this, but isn't this an important information for new archlinux users?

Something like:

• <dir> is the directory where the file system will be mounted to, aka the mountpoint. The directory must be created beforehand. In general it doesn't matter where this mointpoint exist, just make sure to not use an existing directory.

It might also be important that a mount will hide a previous mount on the same mountpoint.

Just a suggestion

twelveeighty

Member

Registered: 2011-09-04

Posts: 1,321

Re: Missing information about FHS / differences

It is important information to new (Arch) Linux users, but it is in fact in both the Installation Guide and the Mount Wiki article. And in mount's man page as well, for that matter: "[...] the previous contents (if any) and owner and mode of dir become invisible [...]".

In general, though, if you feel the Wiki isn't clear enough, you are free to update/improve it yourself.