My partition setup, but cannot mount?

[Amn]

Hi all,

I have designed (on paper) that my new Linux install will use several partitions to form the single root filesystem. In details it looks like this:

/dev/sda1: /boot directory
/dev/sda5: swap partition
/dev/sda6: /var/log
/dev/sda7: /var
/dev/sda8: /tmp
/dev/sda9: /usr,/bin,/sbin,/lib,/opt
/dev/sda10: /, /dev, /proc
/dev/sda11: /home, /root

However i now come to realise that it in fact may not be possible to mount the /dev/sda9 partition properly, since as far as I understood about 'mount', it will mount a single device (partition in this case) at a single filesystem point. In other words, how will I be able to keep /usr,/bin,/sbin,/lib,/opt on a same partition, and fuse them into my root tree? I really dont want to split the partition into 5, one per directory, and I dont want to have a single partition for the drive...Is my design realisable?

Thanks...

[RobinVossen]

You might be able to put this all together, but I dont get why youd want this.
Well you need to have mount(executeable) and /etc and /proc for sure on one partition.
Id put /bin and /sbin on the sda10 if you want it as big as this.
Id change sda6 with 7. Just since it makes more logic.
But again I dont get this.
If you want to make a Huge Partition Schreme Id do:
/boot
/
/home
/root
/var
swap

Ahwell, you can try it Make sure the fstab file makes sence to you before you begin with this.

Cheers,
Robin

[matonb]

/dev/sda9: /usr,/bin,/sbin,/lib,/opt
/dev/sda10: /, /dev, /proc
/dev/sda11: /home, /root

Hi Amn,

How do you propose to mount these points ?

[Amn]

Hi Amn,

How do you propose to mount these points ?

I have no idea, you tell me? That was my original question - how do I mount a filesystem hosting /usr, /lib, /sbin, /bin and /opt with each connected to the their respective nodes in the / tree?

[Amn]

You might be able to put this all together, but I dont get why youd want this.
Well you need to have mount(executeable) and /etc and /proc for sure on one partition.
Id put /bin and /sbin on the sda10 if you want it as big as this.
Id change sda6 with 7. Just since it makes more logic.
But again I dont get this.
If you want to make a Huge Partition Schreme Id do:
/boot
/
/home
/root
/var
swap

Ahwell, you can try it Make sure the fstab file makes sence to you before you begin with this.

Cheers,
Robin

The reason my layout is the way it is, is that files obviously have different lifetimes, and I facilitated this fact by splitting parts of the known UNIX tree into several partitions, so each can let the filesystem optimise it independently of others, not to mention eventually i might decide to use different filesystems (xfs/jfs/reiserfs) for different partitions, those having many small files like /tmp (PERHAPS) managed by reiser4 for instance. Not to mention if a partition dies, if it is not the last one hosting my private files (/home) in most cases i will be able to reinstall the system without too much trouble.

Also the outer tracks (lower partitions are faster), so parts of / tree that are accessed most often use lower partition numbers. /home and /root are last for instance, because i project they will host many large files, but the user is usually the slowest part of the human-machine interface, so i predict my own files will "live in peace" compared to system files.

[Amn]

I mean it is easy to mount a /usr hosting partition to /usr tree branch. Let's say / is hosted on partition sda10 and /usr (with all its subbranches) on sda9.

Then i just do:

mount /dev/sda10 /
mkdir /usr
mount /dev/sda9 /usr

But how do i proceed mounting /lib for instance, which is ALSO on partition sda9 ? Thats the tricky part. I could get away with LVM, since my original design only requires separated hosting of different parts of / tree, but LVM only creates device nodes, which in turn have to be mounted anyways, so the problem still stands.

UnionFS looked like a possible solution, but it turned out it is for slightly different purposes.

RobinVossen, you mentioned having /etc and /opt on ONE partition. How do i mount these then, the same problem arises as the one i am trying to solve?

[RobinVossen]

Ah I see waht you want.
Well on the Disk you already need the folders like usr and etc for example.
You have to mount that on / but since you want to mount more filesystems this way I think you might need Statical Linking to Acomlish what you want.
I get the point. But I think you are one of the first people trying this