Folders and Files

Now, let's populate our new filesystem with a few folders and files. Make sure your linux2 partition is still mounted (however, you are still in linux1). If you haven't rebooted, it will still be. Goto that directory by typing cd /mnt/linux2

Type the following (be careful of spelling, and again, make sure you are mounted):
mkdir bin boot etc home lib mnt proc root sbin tmp usr var

Next, go into your newly made /usr directory by typing cd /mnt/linux2/usr
Make the following directories inside this directory by typing:
mkdir bin include man sbin share src

Next, go into your newly made /usr/man directory by typing:
cd /mnt/linux2/usr/man

Make the following directories inside this directory by typing:
mkdir man1 man2 man3 man4 man5 man6 man7 man8

Next, go into your newly made /usr/share directory by typing
cd /mnt/linux2/usr/share

Make the following directories inside this directory by typing:
mkdir aclocal autoconf automake

Next, type the following to create another directory:
mkdir /mnt/linux2/var/run

Now, the only directory we are missing is the /dev directory. The easiest way to make this as well as populate it is to copy it from your existing distribution. We could make it from scratch with the mknod command, but it will give you the same output as copying it plus it takes a while. So, at the prompt, type cp -dpR /dev /mnt/linux2. The -dpR will keep order in this directory, preserve permissions, and not attempt to read the files while copying (this has a nasty habit of locking up the system - and yes, that is a space after /dev). Feel free to prune out this directory by deleting un-needed devices if you know what these devices are.

Now, let's copy the kernel from your existing linux1 distribution to the new linux2 distribution. It's normally located in the /boot directory and that is where you should put it in the new distribution to maintain linux file hierarchy standards. Type cp /boot/vmlinuz /mnt/linux2/boot. You substitute whatever the name of your kernel is for vmlinuz - Again, don't worry, we will be making our own kernel in a future chapter.

Next, we need to copy the /etc/passwd and the /etc/group file from your existing system to the new system. These are your password and group belonging files. But, BEFORE we can do that, we need to determine weather or not your system is using shadow passwords or not. If it is, we need to temporarily disable it for the copy. The easiest way to check this is to open up your /etc/passwd file with vi. Here's what mine looks like (and yes, I changed the password for this purpose!):

Notice the very first line says root: and then a bunch of crazy characters? This means you are not using shadow passwords. If yours looks like that, go ahead and copy these two files over to /mnt/linux2/etc

If yours only has one x or one * between colons, that means you are using shadow passwords. We need to disable these temporarily. Type the following two commands at the prompt to turn them off:

pwunconv
grpunconv

Now go ahead and copy them over to /mnt/linux2/etc

Now, let's re-enable your shadow passwords by typing the following:

pwconv
grpconv

Now that these files are copied over, edit them both and get rid of everything except for the first line that contains the stuff for root. Go ahead and save.