symlinks are fstabbing me

[rickenbacherus]

My system:
hda-Primary/Master-20G ide
hdb-CD-R-Primary/Slave
hdc-DVD-Secondary/Master

Are the following 2 statements correct?
Since hdb invokes scsi emulation hdb is also known as sr0 & sr0 is also known as scd0 & scd0. The same is true of hdc=sr1=scd1. hmmmm....Why so many references to the same drive? What tells me to use /sr0 instead of /scd0 for example?.

Maybe I don't fully understand what fstab does; each line has to have a device name of course-but which device name, does the mount point go there too?-first or second? What about symlinks?

Are there any hard and fast rules for fstab. I'm missing something easy here.

I don't seem to relate well to info pages and man pages. Once I understand what I'm doing I can go there for reference but to learn how to use something...... I guess I prefer visual representations. Anybody seen a chart/diagram for symlinks & devices & etc.?

All the other kids are compiling kernels and I can't get past this!!
;) thank you

[mdwatts]

It depends on the distro as some use sr# while others use scd#, but none use both as it's either sr# or scd#.

/etc/fstab (filesystem table) contains both the device (i.e. /dev/hdc) and mountpoint (i.e. /mnt/cdrom) plus other options such as filesystem type, mount on boot (auto), user(s) (allow users to access) etc. etc. The mount manpage (man mount) lists all the options allowed for each filesystem type.

Symlinks? man ln

ln -s <target> <link name>
or
ln -s <existing name> <new name as link>

Search Google for Linux ( www.google.com/linux ) for any of those topics as you will find all sorts of tutorials (some in easy to understand beginners language) that will explain.

[rickenbacherus]

Originally posted by mdwatts
It depends on the distro as some use sr# while others use scd#, but none use both as it's either sr# or scd#.


Well that clears a few things up. Thanks again mdwatts. :)