Grub Manual

[Jacques B.]

>
> In a running system, it's the base of the mounted filesystem.
>
> In a partition, it's the base of the partition. For the root filesystem,
> and only for the root filesystem, they're the same.
>
> grub, the boot loader, does not deal in mounted filesystems, it only
> looks at a single filesystem, typically but not necessarily, in a partition.
>
> How about you print this before commenting further?
> http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.ps.gz
>
> One of the better things about GNU's documentation is that the same
> files that create the info files can also create postscript and PDF files.
>
>
> Cheers
> John
>

The beauty of a debate.  Makes people think.  I did some digging and
found the following:
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-9-Manual/ref-guide/s1-grub-terminology.html
Where you will find a section called "GRUB's Root File System" which says:
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Some users are confused by the use of the term "root file system" with
GRUB. It is important to remember that GRUB's root file system has
nothing to do with the Linux root file system.

The GRUB root file system is the root partition for a particular
device. GRUB uses this information to mount the device and load files
from it.

With Red Hat Linux, once GRUB has loaded its root partition (which
equates to the /boot partition and contains the Linux kernel), the
kernel command can be executed with the location of the kernel file as
an option. Once the Linux kernel boots, it sets the root file system
Linux users are familiar with. The original GRUB root file system and
its mounts are forgotten; they only existed to boot the kernel filI

Refer to the root and kernel commands in Section 2.6 GRUB Commands for
more information.
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Based on that I have to conclude that what Karl stated isn't
necessarily incorrect (my apologies).  It did lack some clarification
differentiating between grub's root file system vs the OS root file
system.  However Karl was not correct through knowledge of this, but
rather by accident.  He was of the opinion that anything that was on
its own partition had a root and could be properly referred to using
that term.

Ultimately it goes back to refraining from posting authoritative
instructions unless one is an authority on the subject.  Of course the
same could be argued for those of us posting a rebuttal.  In this case
Karl's understanding of how to use the term root was erroneous.
Others were using it properly however were unaware of grub's own use
of the term (myself included).

Jacques B.