The /etc/fstab file is used by some programs to determine where partitions are to be mounted by default, which file systems must be checked and in which order. Create a new file systems table like this: cat > /etc/fstab << "EOF" # Begin /etc/fstab # filesystem mount-point fs-type options dump fsck-order /dev/xxx / fff defaults 1 1 /dev/yyy swap swap pri=1 0 0 proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=4,mode=620 0 0 shm /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0 # End /etc/fstab EOF Of course, replace xxx, yyy and fff with the values appropriate for your system -- for example hda2, hda5 and reiserfs. For all the details on the six fields in this table, see man 5 fstab. When using a reiserfs partition, the 1 1 at the end of the line should be replaced with 0 0, as such a partition does not need to be dumped or checked The /dev/shm mount point for tmpfs is included to allow enabling POSIX shared memory. Your kernel must have the required support built into it for this to work -- more about this in the next section. Please note that currently very little software actually uses POSIX shared memory. Therefore you can consider the /dev/shm mount point optional. For more information, see Documentation/filesystems/tmpfs.txt in the kernel source tree. There are other lines which you may consider adding to your fstab file. One example is a line to use if you intend to use USB devices: usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs defaults 0 0 This option will of course only work if you have the relevant support compiled into your kernel.