Why my linux startup fine with nothing in the /boot folder

[Vincentas]

Hi,

I installed Gentoo Linux, build the kernel with "genkernel", and copy the image file into the /boot folder, also I installed grub. It all works fine. What confusing me is that now I cannot find the kernel and grub under the /boot folder, the folder is empty. I did some "emerge" jobs after installation, I don't know why those files disappear. Why my linux can still start up without those kernel and grub files?

ps: gentoo as a vmware guest, /boot is a seperate partition with ext2

Thanks to all.

[rubberman]

When you boot, what does the mount command (no arguments) show? Does the boot partition show up? If not, then the boot loader was able to find it and boot, but the OS didn't mount it in the /boot mount point. Show us the contencts of your system file /etc/fstab please.

[TylerD75]

As rubberman indicated, the default Gentoo operation is to NOT mount the /boot partition (if it is a separate partition). You can choose to change this in /etc/fstab, or you can mount it manually when you need to.