Futuer of grub/grub2 to F11

[Doug Ledford]

On Mon, 2008-12-29 at 03:05 -0500, Casey Dahlin wrote:
> Lyos Gemini Norezel wrote:
> > Yaakov Nemoy wrote:
> >> 2008/12/17 Jochen Schmitt <Jochen at herr-schmitt.de>:
> >>   
> >> /boot is a 100-200 MB partition on many machines. 
> >
> >> ...there's just no sense supporting /boot on anything
> >> other than a 100-200 MB ext2 or ext3 volume.
> >>   
> > Sorry... but that's just plain wrong.
> >
> > Maybe my use case is odd... but my /boot partition is a *MINIMUM* of 
> > 5GB on all of my computers.
> >
> > Why?
> >
> > 1.) I have a rescue image setup to boot if I need it...
> > and
> > 2.) I have a ghost image I made right after installing this version of 
> > fedora.
> >
> 
> I don't see why either of those should exist entirely in /boot. You are 
> allowed further partitions. Nothing in /boot should remain relevant 
> after we get a proper kernel in memory and enough modules to read the 
> rest of the disk.

You only need a separate /boot partition for a few reasons:

1) BIOS can't read the entire disk so you need to ensure that your boot
loader and kernel fall in the readable section
2) The boot loader can't read your / filesystem type (because of LVM or
ext4 or whatever) so you need a separate space for the boot files

The whole argument that you need /boot separate from / in case your /
filesystem gets hosed is bogus.  If your / filesystem is so hosed you
can't boot the kernel into a usable OS, or even into a bash shell, then
being able to boot buys you nothing, you still need a rescue environment
to get anything fixed.

Lyos' method of putting a rescue image in /boot actually solves that
conundrum nicely.  And no, you don't need a separate partition for it,
using /boot is perfectly good enough.  After all, if /boot gets hosed
due to a kernel bug, and it takes out the boot loader or the initrd or
the kernel image itself, then having the rescue tools on a hidden
partition buys you nothing since you won't have a boot loader and kernel
to boot into the rescue tools.  As long as you remember that the rescue
environment is useless without the boot loader, kernel, and initrd, then
it becomes clear that grouping those things together is perfectly
acceptable because either they all work, or they none work.

-- 
Doug Ledford <dledford at redhat.com>
              GPG KeyID: CFBFF194
              http://people.redhat.com/dledford

Infiniband specific RPMs available at
              http://people.redhat.com/dledford/Infiniband

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