Grub Manual ... Solved

[Les Mikesell]

Michael Schwendt wrote:
> 
> Blame the endless number of new threads. You've just started a new
> thread about GRUB instead of continueing in the old thread.
> 
>> I ask you to read it again. The
>> definition of a root directory has been tested and it is right.
> 
> It's still very unfortunate to refer to a "root directory" when
> dealing with GRUB.

It's more unfortunate to think of a "root directory" as a property of 
the thing itself.  It isn't - instead it is an attribute given by the 
thing viewing it.  When grub boots, it will see the top of the partition 
it was told to use as it's root directory.  When the Linux system is up 
and running, a process running there will likely have something else 
that it sees as the root directory.

> All that matters is  what the GRUB root device is,
> how it is defined via device.map and the BIOS disk numbering scheme,
> and where it is mounted (!) when you access the files on it. As long
> as it's mounted on the /boot mount-point, referring to a "root
> directory" is misleading.

Where (or even if) the OS sees the partition is not relevant to grub, 
but it is very relevant to someone who wants to modify the grub 
configuration, kernel, or initrd files.  This is the missing piece in 
the documentation, especially if you move away from the /boot partion 
convention, want to have multiple copies, etc.

> You can even make the GRUB root device a
> separate partition, but still store the kernel+initrd in a
> sub-directory. That is because GRUB doesn't care where a file is
> stored as long as it is told what the absolute path to the file is and
> what device to enable.

Note that absolute paths have a leading / which we define as the root 
directory.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com