How do I copy the contents of a folder(files and subfolders) to a directory or a mount point?

For example; I want to move /usr to a new partition, without altering permissions, symlinks or anything else, so I would then write:

cp -av /usr /mnt/newpartition

However, this will create a usr-directory on newpartition, which I don't want(because if I then mount the new partition in /usr the path to all the files would be /usr/usr).

I bet its so simple its embarassing, but I really cant figure it out...

Sounds like what you want to do would be:

Note the added -r. That will make the copy recursive so that not only files will be copied, but any directories and the files they contain will be copied as well. Since you are copying /usr, I am assuming you want every file and directory under it as well.

You want to copy the contents, not the directory:

cp -av /usr/* /mnt/newpartition

Ah, thank you! It really was embarassingly simple... I was thinking more along the lines of old DOS with *.*, but that got me nowhere.

MS3FGX, I think the -a flag is the same as -dpr, so it should be recursive already.

Ah yes, so it is. My mistake I didn't notice that.

Heres a bit of an unrelated question, but I dont want to start a new topic just for this...

The thing is I have moved my Gentoo installation to different harddrives. I have pretty much backed up /, /usr and /home, switched harddrives and moved the files back again. Hopefully this will work. One thing that remains though is installing Grub to /dev/hda(one of the drives that were replaced).

When I installed Gentoo I ran this command, before installing Grub, in a chrooted environment:

grep -v rootfs /proc/mounts > /etc/mtab

Now im just booting from a livecd. Can I run this even though im not chrooted? That would make my life a bit easier as im feeling quite unsure of how the chrooting is done properly.

You want to start a new topic, so that those that have the answer will see the question. Burying it at the bottom of a solved thread will get no attention. It also makes it much harder for people to search, to find the answer themselves (which I assume you'll do, since installing grub from a bootcd is a common question).

Oh, sorry - I forgot to search. Happens easily when I start to approach things in an unnecessarily complicated way(that is, looking in the Gentoo handbook about installing Grub... reading strange commandlines and "chroot" - uh oh! confusion, etc. et al - "I better ask on this board"!). Yeah, well, sometimes my brain works that way so I need to be reminded to search. Thanks!

It was really a piece of cake. Mount root-partition, cd to /boot/grub, run 'grub' the, 'root (hd, partition)' and 'setup (hd)'(where you want Grub installed in mbr).