fstab question

[demian]

I saw this syntax occuring more and more often recently when people post their /etc/fstab file:


/mnt/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 ro,user,noauto,dev=/dev/cdrom 0 0


This is apperently the way a lot of distros set up the fstab file. That makes no sense to me at all. I know about the possiblity to specify the volume label for a certain device rather than the device file to make the fstab more flexible but what's the point of using the above line over this one:

/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 ro,user,noauto 0 0

[Craig McPherson]

According to the mount manpage, all the "dev" mount option does is cause the kernel to interpret block and special character devices on the filesystem instead of treating them as normal files. It does not seem to take any arguments, and it's a default option so there's no need to even specify it.