why can't i see *all* mounts with "mount"?

[Robert Nichols]

John Wendel wrote:
> Isn't it possible to make /etc/mtab a link to /proc/mounts?  I seem to 
> remember that some distos do this.

The two are not equivalent.  /proc/mounts doesn't show some of the
options that were passed to the mount command.  For example, on my
system /etc/mtab shows that /usr/opt has been mounted on /opt with
the -bind option:

    /dev/hda5 /usr ext2 ro,noatime 0 0
    /usr/opt /opt none rw,bind 0 0

/proc/mounts doesn't tell the whole story:

    /dev/hda5 /usr ext2 ro,noatime 0 0
    /dev/hda5 /opt ext2 ro,noatime 0 0

FWIW, there are also cases where /proc/mounts includes information
not present in /etc/mtab.

-- 
Bob Nichols     "NOSPAM" is really part of my email address.
                 Do NOT delete it.