My distribution creates two partitions..

Root and another which I'm not sure how to set the mount point.

by default the install suggests /var as the secound mount point.

Does the setting of this mount point change which partition my home directory which contains all my documents and such are stored?

I'm not sure I understand what's going on. Are you sure the second partition isn't a swap partition? If it is, it doesn't need to be mounted anywhere and the correct fstab entry for it should be made automatically.

If it isn't a swap partition, then, well, what do you want to use it for?

Edit: it'd help if you included which distribution you're using, as well as what tool you're using to create the partitions.

yegnal:

It is really vague what you mean in your post. It is better if you rephrase your question, setting out your problem one by one.

Also, please post here what returns from these commands:

$ fdisk -l
$ cat /etc/fstab

you will need to be root to get answers of these commands.

Also post here what is your distro.

Hope it helps.

I'm using Mandriva and when the distro is installed, it creates two partitions plus one swap. Mount point for ROOT is /. It then asks for the mount point of the other partition, default is /usr (my mistake thinking it was /var by default in earlier post).

My concern is that when later versions are released, I install but don't want to loose my documents and such. So when the option during the install comes up of which partitions to format, I can uncheck sda7, and only format sda5.

So I guess I'm just confused as to what effect choosing the mount point effects what directories are written to which partitions.

Example: If I choose the default mount point of /usr for the sda7 partition, are my documents and pictures being written to sda7. Or maybe I need change the mount point during a fresh install to /home to ensure this is the case.



[root@localhost yegnal]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160040803840 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x386bfe1d

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 10199 81923436 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 * 10200 19457 74364885 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 * 10200 15355 41415538+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 15356 15864 4088511 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7 15865 19457 28860741 83 Linux




[root@localhost yegnal]# cat /etc/fstab
# Entry for /dev/sdb5 :
UUID=b12f00e8-e667-4e4e-99e5-b0cf0438eaec / ext3 defaults 1 1
/dev/sr1 /media/cdrom auto umask=0,users,iocharset=utf8,noauto,ro,exec 0 0
/dev/sr0 /media/cdrom2 auto umask=0,users,iocharset=utf8,noauto,ro,exec 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sdb7 :
UUID=173a63b7-84e4-4bea-b67a-5f069b5825a1 /usr ext3 defaults 1 2
# Entry for /dev/sdb6 :
UUID=65e95828-b7a2-4809-8cd6-5fcc7e3d4e62 swap swap defaults 0 0

I'm not using Mandriva so I don't know what its default install is. Generally speaking, during an install, most people (new users) just use one partition, root so you should be able to use sda5 for that. Many people create a root and /home partition and put their data on the /home partition so that when they upgrade their system it changes the root partition without affecting their /home partition.

Thanka, it cofirms what I suspected. I'll change the mount point and keep my files on sda7

But is that to say only /home files and directories will be on sda7 ?

I'm guessing yes

Thanks

If you make a separate partition for /home all youŕe personal files and settings are stored on that partition.
But still when youŕe installing a newer version of youŕe distro ,you have to remember not to format /home
So it is always a good practice to backup /home before installing a newer
version.

no it does not

Meaning ?

no it does not. simple answer to a simple question.

Helpful?

I believe the OP Mandriva has

sda5 is a /boot,
sda6 a swap
sda7 being the /.

Thus /home is a subdirectory of /.