# /boot on the separate partition?

## tnt

is there any special reason why to put /boot on the separate partition?

I'll use reiserfs on my / and I'll always mount it with -o notail, so lilo can read it.

anything else that could be better with separated /boot ?

oops... please, move this topic in the "Installing Gentoo" forum    :Embarassed: 

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## CrankyPenguin

Think of it like bulkheads in a ship.  When one area fails The remaining bulkheads are still sealed as such the ship as a whole doesn't sink.  With a computer system if one partition fails then the whole is not irretreivable.  In the Win or Mac world however where all are one then if the partition is damaged data, programs, os all of them are lost together.

Boot in specific is the first partition loaded, and in dual-boot situations it is often the only one loaded before moving onto windows, etc.  After the initial boot process it is not loaded and this keeps the boot version of the kernel (now loaded into RAM) safe from accidental disk failures that might otherwise corrupt swap or home.

As a general rule the larger the partition the greater the likelyhood of faults.  The more critical the partition (i.e. / versus /mp3s) the more costly the fault.

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## crazycat

I think it makes not so much sence to make boot partition separate, since one has always an option to quickly boot from livecd or from anything grub can read. I think os is expendable, while home directory is not , so it makes much more sence to back up personal data instead. One can also accidentionaly delete glibc, or other important libs and that would make the system as incapabale as if a kernel were deleted.

I have an ubuntu livecd for most emergencies, since I can connect to internet with a nice gui, mount my root filesystem and for example overwrite lost glibc or kernel files. I also use reiserfs for root with /boot on it directly. I dont have notail, since I've heard only older bootloaders have a problem with it.

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> Even if you want to save some disk space, there are times when temporarily mounting your filesystem with the "notail" option can be a good thing. In particular, some older boot-loaders have problems loading kernels that were created on a ReiserFS filesystem with tail packing enabled. If you're using a LILO earlier than version 21.6, you'll have this problem. You will also have problems with old versions of GRUB, which will not be able to load its stage1 and stage1_5 files.
> 
> 

 

this quote was taken from http://funtoo.org/en/articles/linux/ffg/2/

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## eccerr0r

I use it for another separate reason - this time I keep the boot image on its separate partition because i can't boot off of software RAID5  :Smile: 

I have a 4-disk RAID5, and I have a 4-way RAID1 for the boot image.  RAID1 partitions can be boot from grub, so it reads the kernel and the kernel takes up the RAID5 from there.  That way, any one of my disks can die and I can still boot the machine.

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