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When I was installing Arch Linux, even before I create the partitions if I type lsblk I get

loop0
Sda (no sub partitions)
Sr0 (CD ROM is mounted)

Now in the terminal when I type pwd I get

/root

So just being curious I did

ls /

And it showed folders like bin boot dev lib mnt etc.

So my question is if the partitions aren't made yet and no data is stored, then why does ls / show all of these folders? At what location in the disk are these folders stored?. Also, there are already folders for / /mnt and /boot So I'm not able to understand why we make new partitions for root , boot Then mount these partitions to /mnt and /boot Can someone help me with this. Im following the tutorial from https://itsfoss.com/install-arch-linux/

1 Answer 1

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Don't expect "/" to represent any specific disk – that's not what it means at all. It is the root filesystem of the currently running OS and can be arbitrarily chosen at boot time.

As you've booted the computer from the Arch Linux Install CD, right now you're looking at the contents of that CD (or more precisely, contents of a Squashfs archive arch/x86_64/airootfs.sfs found on the CD). They have nothing to do with the contents of your sda disk.

(You can see the complete layout using findmnt, although expect it to be slightly complex when "live CDs" are involved – usually they create a virtual / out of multiple layers via overlayfs.)

Later in the tutorial you will install a bootloader (GRUB2) to the disk, and that will have a configuration telling it to use something like /dev/sda2 as the root partition, thereby mapping its contents to the installed system's /.

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