What is mounting in Linux?

Essentially it is the process of connecting to a drive, whether it is a floppy drive, CD-ROM or Hard disk.

It includes information about the file system type ie NTFS, FAT32, FAT, EXT etc etc.

It also includes the information about where it should be listed. For example, the main Linux Partition will be mounted as / and contains /etc, /var, /tmp etc. You can then connect a second drive somewhere down that tree, such as /dev/cdrom or /mnt/cdrom.

If you want to see where such properties are defined have a look at the file /etc/fstab.

The command:

man fstab

will provide further information.

Good luck and hope that helps! If you have any other questions then please feel free to drop me a mail, although I don't profess to be an expert!

I like the answer above. You can also think of it as similar to mapping a drive on a server. The drive is there, but until you connect to it, your system does not know about it. In a way it is similar to partioning and formatting as well, but not nearly as intensive. A way of telling the OS that the device is there and ready to be used.

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