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Do you use a /boot/ ???
yes
80%
 80%  [ 155 ]
no
16%
 16%  [ 31 ]
dont you need linux for that?
1%
 1%  [ 3 ]
is that my swap file?
1%
 1%  [ 3 ]
Total Votes : 192

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apokalyptik
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 13, 2002 8:23 pm    Post subject: yea Reply with quote

exactly, which is why i was asking here.
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jthj
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2002 5:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

my 2 cents.

Having boot in a seperate non mounted partion really isn't a hassle so it's worrh it.

Cheers
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apokalyptik
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2002 5:58 am    Post subject: but... Reply with quote

it's extra work. what are the pros and con's as you see it?
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2002 6:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I guess I figure it's only a few extra keystorkes so it's really not that much more work. And the advantage is that it protects your kernel from file system corruption. Which granted depending on how bad your situation is may not be a big help. But IMHO it's a good thing and worth the extra 5 min spent. And as far as booting of cds and floppys my firewall has neither so if it became unbootable b/c of something like that I'd have to pull a cd rom out of my main box stick it in the firewall and boot. That's a lot more of a pain then just creating a boot partition :-).
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millenium_psyrax
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2002 9:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

A boot partition is needed to work around any BIOS Hard Drive limitations, e.g. I have a 60GB drive on a PC that can only take and 8.5GB drive due to it's BIOS.

Also, a seperate boot partition on a seperate drive is good for security, as well as hard drive corruption. I can see no real disadvantage, so my question is "Why not have seperate /boot partition?"
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pjp
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2002 2:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think Naan Yaar has addressed the "Why not" question very well. When I rebuild my system, /boot will not be on its own partition.
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pilla
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2002 2:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have four Linux distros installed in my computer + Bad Thing. I don't have a single /boot because it would be a Single Point of Failure. If I don't screw the entire disk, I probably would be able to boot with some of the distros.
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apokalyptik
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 17, 2002 5:45 am    Post subject: O.K. so basically Reply with quote

I see the followiung (recap for easy reading)

PROS:
I. work around HDD limitations (makes sense considering linux does not care what your bios thinks about your hardware, but your bios DOES care when its booting from a disk)

II. The kernel being on a seperate filesystem will prevent a problem concerning other partitions from affecting the kernel itself. (note: a partition problem being "oops i mke2fs'd the wrong partition" not "darn i fdisked the wrong drive")

III. Laziness [ease of installation] (e.g: "hey its in the docs, I do it... I dont have time for 20 questions")

IV. Grub cannot read certain types of partitions (mainly software RAID (grub is indifferent to hardware raid -- for the most part)) (note: does not apply to lilo (based on a post contained herein))

V. Multiple distrobutions can easily share the same kernel

VII. increased security from kernel tampering (minimal)

CONS:
I. Single point of failure (e.g. if i muff something up here i break all of my os's [linux only, or course])

II. O.K. you can boot your system, you're still left with a corrupted / nonexistant / nonfunctional system and accompanying binaries (if applicable)

III. Grub doesnt care where your kernel is as long as the right kernel= is supplied

IV. Multiple distobutions sharing the same kernel isnt always a good thing... it can be trouble when you're first starting out to figure out why your newly built kernel that you built everything into for convenience wont load any of the manddrake modules when booting into mandrake...

V. If you're backing up you should backup everything and not HOPE for an n tact boot partition

VI. booting from a recovery cd is probably a more productive method of restoring your system then booting from a broken system (thus the reason for needing repairs)

VII. a saved .config and a few minutes is all it takes to rebuild the kernel if lost

VIII. for someone new to linux the extra partitions (not to mention working with directories not mounted at boot time) can be an obstacle
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rac
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 19, 2002 6:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This thread brought another (albeit minor and perhaps transient) riff on the "bootloader can't read my root partition" reason to my attention.
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Pitr
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 19, 2002 7:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, what ever the guide says, I have to have a /boot - since you can't boot from RAID1 - thus we make a tiny RAID0 partition to boot from :)
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 6:05 pm    Post subject: Complete Newbie Reply with quote

Hello everyone!

This is literally my first post on any Linux oriented website. Just to give you an idea of how new I am.

I just started installing Gentoo v2.6 (I believe) on Monday night and currently have a couple of questions. I do have a very slight understanding about such things as partitioning, boot, swap, etc. However, I still have some questions about some of these things.

This thread is about the need for a /boot partition. My first question is: What is the /boot partition exactly used for? Is it used for storing the kernel/source (same thing?) files? Is it where you actually install the kernel/source? What would the difference be if I were to install the kernel/source to /boot (assuming that you can do this) or to /? Is there a recommended size for the boot partition? I.E. 32M, 512M, 1G? How much space is recommended and what all is it used for?

I am currently up to the point of configuring the fstab file during the install process. So far I slightly understand what it is doing but do not understand any of the details of it.

I appreciate any help that anyone can give me. I've got a LONG ways to go but I figure it will be fun and very educational. Thanks!
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nixnut
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 6:11 pm    Post subject: Re: Complete Newbie Reply with quote

r4in wrote:
This thread is about the need for a /boot partition. My first question is: What is the /boot partition exactly used for? Is it used for storing the kernel/source (same thing?) files? Is it where you actually install the kernel/source? What would the difference be if I were to install the kernel/source to /boot (assuming that you can do this) or to /? Is there a recommended size for the boot partition? I.E. 32M, 512M, 1G? How much space is recommended and what all is it used for?
The /boot partition is used to store kernel images and configuration files for the bootloader. Since kernel images are not very large and you normally don't have much of them 32MB is space enough.
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Mickey
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 27, 2005 1:44 am    Post subject: Re: O.K. so basically Reply with quote

Quote:


II. O.K. you can boot your system, you're still left with a corrupted / nonexistant / nonfunctional system and accompanying binaries (if applicable)

III. Grub doesnt care where your kernel is as long as the right kernel= is supplied

IV. Multiple distobutions sharing the same kernel isnt always a good thing... it can be trouble when you're first starting out to figure out why your newly built kernel that you built everything into for convenience wont load any of the manddrake modules when booting into mandrake...

V. If you're backing up you should backup everything and not HOPE for an n tact boot partition

VI. booting from a recovery cd is probably a more productive method of restoring your system then booting from a broken system (thus the reason for needing repairs)

VII. a saved .config and a few minutes is all it takes to rebuild the kernel if lost


None of these are truely con's. These are just rebutals for the pro's you listed. That leaves you with only 2 legit cons.
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olger901
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 27, 2005 6:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

millenium_psyrax wrote:
A boot partition is needed to work around any BIOS Hard Drive limitations, e.g. I have a 60GB drive on a PC that can only take and 8.5GB drive due to it's BIOS.

Also, a seperate boot partition on a seperate drive is good for security, as well as hard drive corruption. I can see no real disadvantage, so my question is "Why not have seperate /boot partition?"


Exactly, I especially agree security wise. Because if your /boot isn't a seperate partition and you just make a directory called /boot and someone gets some access to your system remotely they can remove the /boot dir for example if you mount it as a partition read-only this can't be done. NExt to that it's a good thing to prevent data corruption as said above.
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