Where is '/home/root' ?

joegumbo · 07-01-2008, 04:22 PM

Just a quick question...

I don't seem to have a '/home/root' directory after installing Slackware 12.1.

Quote:

root@darkstar0:~# ls /home/root
/bin/ls: cannot access /home/root: No such file or directory
root@darkstar0:~# ls /home
ftp/ joegumbo/ lost+found/
root@darkstar0:~#

This is a new install and I don't want to mess things up too quickly

, so...

Should I manually make a '/home/root' directory. This is the first time I remember ever not having a /'home/root' directory in Linux.

Thanks,
-Joe

XavierP · 07-01-2008, 04:25 PM

No. ~/root is actually just /root. One question though, why do you need this?

joegumbo · 07-01-2008, 04:37 PM

I asked mostly for my own edification. But, if I ever did need or want to log into root graphically (probably a once in a lifetime event), wouldn't there need to be a place for hidden files, settings and so forth?

Thanks for the info!

-Joe

joegumbo · 07-01-2008, 04:49 PM

Actually, I just tried logging in a root and 'startx'. KDE loaded and there was a home folder o the desktop. But the pathn is different. But, ~/root is /root.

This is not a complaint... just an observation. Things are a little different in Slackware.

-Joe

randomsel · 07-01-2008, 04:58 PM

The reason for ~/root to be /root is that sometimes /home is a different disk/partition, and if it breaks, the system administrator still has ~ in there, so he can work with no problem (and fix it).

joegumbo · 07-01-2008, 05:05 PM

That's a great idea!

Thanks randomsel!

-Joe

saulgoode · 07-01-2008, 05:19 PM

The file system is designed so that files necessary to boot up the system are in locations guaranteed to be available to get the system up and running (e.g., the same partition that holds the kernel). For example, the 'mount' command is needed to access other partitions and if a directory such as /usr is to be mounted during bootup, 'mount' can't be located in /usr/bin/ -- this is why you find 'mount' in /bin (/bin is always hard-bound to the / partition, never mounted).

Likewise, the root user account is necessary to get things started (init and startup scripts run as root) and it makes sense that root's home folder is on the same partition that holds the kernel (i.e., the root partition "/" ).

The home folders for other users are not needed during the boot process; placing them in /home/ allows that directory to be located on a separate partition and mounted after all of the critical stuff has been initialized (the /home partition might even be on a different server in a network).

GazL · 07-02-2008, 07:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by joegumbo

... But, ~/root is /root.

This is not a complaint... just an observation. Things are a little different in Slackware.

This is not a Slackism. A lot of UNIX systems do it this way, and for good reason.

ufotofu · 07-02-2008, 10:36 AM

Also just to clarify, when people say "~/root" I think they really mean "~root". The syntax "~/root" refers to a directory named "root" under the current user's home directory, while "~root" refers to the actual home directory of the user "root".

zux · 07-02-2008, 11:27 AM

i have never seen a /home/root
in any distribution
it's allways /root

GushpinBob · 07-03-2008, 10:43 AM

It makes a hell of a lot of since to have root's home directory not contained in the home directory as one of the posters mentioned that the /home directory could be on a different partition/disk. I have this setup on my home server: a RAID setup mounted as /home and the rest of the system on a "small" 120GB hard drive.

joegumbo · 07-04-2008, 12:42 AM

From the ubuntu Forums:

Quote:

[SOLVED] /home/root does ot exist
As the title says, /home/root does ot exist after fridays updates.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=699130

on page 2 of the same thread:

Quote:

Re: [SOLVED] /home/root does ot exist
- go to System->Administration->Users and Groups
- click on the "root" user, and click properties
- choose the Advanced tab and change '/home/root' in "Home directory" to '/root'.

You may also want to check some of the paths mentioned in this thread about SlackWare from 1999:

Quote:

libNew.so => /home/root/rootsys/root/lib/libNew.so (0x4000c000)
> libBase.so => /home/root/rootsys/root/lib/libBase.so (0x4000f000)
> libCint.so => /home/root/rootsys/root/lib/libCint.so (0x4011b000)
> libClib.so => /home/root/rootsys/root/lib/libClib.so (0x402f0000)
> libCont.so => /home/root/rootsys/root/lib/libCont.so (0x402fb000)
> libFunc.so => /home/root/rootsys/root/lib/libFunc.so (0x40358000)
> libGraf.so => /home/root/rootsys/root/lib/libGraf.so (0x40383000)
> libGraf3d.so => /home/root/rootsys/root/lib/libGraf3d.so (0x404fe000)
> libHist.so => /home/root/rootsys/root/lib/libHist.so (0x4058a000)
> libHtml.so => /home/root/rootsys/root/lib/libHtml.so (0x40629000)
> libMatrix.so => /home/root/rootsys/root/lib/libMatrix.so (0x40640000)
> libMeta.so => /home/root/rootsys/root/lib/libMeta.so (0x40663000)
> libMinuit.so => /home/root/rootsys/root/lib/libMinuit.so (0x406a1000)
> libNet.so => /home/root/rootsys/root/lib/libNet.so (0x406fc000)
> libPostscript.so => /home/root/rootsys/root/lib/libPostscript.so (0x40722000)
> libProof.so => /home/root/rootsys/root/lib/libProof.so (0x4073e000)
> libRint.so => /home/root/rootsys/root/lib/libRint.so (0x4075b000)
> libTree.so => /home/root/rootsys/root/lib/libTree.so (0x40765000)
> libUnix.so => /home/root/rootsys/root/lib/libUnix.so (0x407f1000)
> libZip.so => /home/root/rootsys/root/lib/libZip.so (0x40804000)
> libGpad.so => /home/root/rootsys/root/lib/libGpad.so (0x40860000)
> libGui.so => /home/root/rootsys/root/lib/libGui.so (0x40909000)
> libGX11.so => /home/root/rootsys/root/lib/libGX11.so (0x40a54000)

http://root.cern.ch/root/roottalk/roottalk99/0119.html

Also check out:

Quote:

/root The home directory for the root user; not to be confused with /. Some Linux systems use /home/root instead of /root. Pronounced "slash root."

http://lowfatlinux.com/linux-directories.html

joegumbo · 07-04-2008, 01:25 AM

More...

From an old post re Mandrake (not Mandriva)

[quote] bash-2.05b# bin/gcc -v
Reading specs from bin/../lib/gcc-lib/i686-pc-linux-gnu/3.3/specs
Configured with: /home/root/utils/gcc-3.3/configure --enable-threads=posix
--prefix=/usr/local/gcc3.3 --enable-shared --disable-checking
--enable-long-long --enable-languages=c,c++,ada,f77,objc,java
--with-system-zlib
Thread model: posix
gcc version 3.3]/quote]

joegumbo · 07-04-2008, 01:27 AM

The link for the Mandrake thread:
http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2003-06/msg00271.html

joegumbo · 07-04-2008, 01:52 AM

More...

From a forum dealing with Fedora CORE 3 and CentOS4 (almost at the bottom of the page)

Quote:

Save the file

Become the root user.

Create an executable shell script called reb in /home/root containing
the folowing lines:

# This script is intended to be run as root
# It stops tomcat, recompiles DSpace and copies over the new .war files,
before restarting tomcat

http://www.linuxtraining.org.uk/blogger.html