In order for certain programs to be able to determine where certain partitions are supposed to be mounted by default, the /etc/fstab file is used. A new file /etc/fstab is created containing the following: cat > /etc/fstab << "EOF" # Begin /etc/fstab # location of filesystem mount point fs-type options /dev/*LFS-partition device* / *fs-type* defaults 1 1 /dev/*swap-partition device* swap swap defaults 0 0 proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 # End /etc/fstab EOF *LFS-partition device*, *swap-partition device* and *fs-type* have to be replaced with the appropriate values (/dev/hda2, /dev/hda5 and reiserfs for example). When adding a reiserfs partition, the 1 1 at the end of the line should be replaced with 0 0. For more information on the various fields which are in the fstab file, see man 5 fstab. There are other lines which you may consider adding to your fstab file. One example is the line which you must have if you are using devpts, note that you must also create the /dev/pts directory for this to work: none /dev/pts devpts gid=4,mode=620 0 0 Another example is a line to use if you intend to use USB devices. This time, you don't create the directory as it's part of the proc virtual filesystem: none /proc/bus/usb usbdevfs defaults 0 0 Both of these options will only work if you have the relevant support compiled into your kernel.