What is this new /run filesystem?
Apparently, many tools (among them udev) will soon require a /run/ directory that is mounted early (as tmpfs). Arch developers introduced /run last month to prepare for this.
The udev runtime data moved from /dev/.udev/ to /run/udev/. The /run mountpoint is supposed to be a tmpfs mounted during early boot, available and writable to for all tools at any time during bootup, it replaces /var/run/, which should become a symlink some day. [1]
There is more detail here: http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Linux-distributions-to-include-run-directory-1219006.html
[1] From thread on the Arch Projects ML
The /run
directory is the companion directory to /var/run
. Like for example /bin
is the companion of /usr/bin
.
That means that daemons like systemd
and udev
, which are started very early in the boot process - and perhaps before /var/run
is available (i.e. mounted) - have with /run
a standardized file system location available where they can store runtime information.
Like /bin
contains important programs, which may be needed in the boot process before /usr
is available (in case it is on its own filesystem).
The /run
idea is a relatively new idea/standard.