On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 03:09:23PM +0100, Alaric Snell-Pym wrote: > My theory is that /altroot could be the mountpoint of an alternate > root partition Yes. > while /stand is something of a distant ancestor of /rescue Not really. Standalone programs are ones that are not just statically linked, but which run without a kernel. They're not really used on PC's, but other ports do use/offer them. > However, both seem pretty vestigial these days. No. > /altroot, I think, dates to a time when bootable CD-ROMs unheard of It's not just the ability to boot (you may often need this if you hosed your bootblocks too), it's the ability to have the previous-version of your /, including /etc. > Is it worth removing them from hier(7) and base.tgz, which I presume > is what creates them, in the name of a simpler base system? No. -- Dan.
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