Hi,
If this is a big e-mail ... I'd hate to hear what you call some of the 
others. :)

Let's take a look

Kevin Byun wrote:
> I've searched the web for 2 weeks for this but can't seem to find the
> answer.  Here is my question.
> 
>  
> 
> I am trying to install SL 4.0 on my desktop( and to my HP Pavilion DV1170
> upon success) which is running on Win-XP-PRO( I am trying to enable the
> dual-boot).
> 
> On my disk space that are set aside for the windows, I made about 6
> partitions for the ease of management.  I also left 50 MB of free space in
> the beginning of my drive(within 1024 cylinder) and about 30 G after windows
> partition.  Here is my actual question.(sorry guys for making a long email):
> 
> 1.	Why is it giving me an error when I tried to auto-partition.

You'd have to give us the error.  Personally, I'd not use auto-partition 
if I'm wanting to customize things.  Since it sounds like you're already 
someone who knows about partitioning, I'd say to work with the manual 
partitioner.

> 2.	Why is it not allowing me to partition further after partitions to
> SWAP, boot, /(root) has been successfully partitioned.

Again ... what is it saying?
What are you doing and/or clicking on, that isn't working?
and just for curiousities sake, what other partition are you trying to add?
If you are trying to add the window's partitions, it won't work unless 
they are formated in the vfat file system.  S.L. doesn't support ntfs.

> 3.	In the SL web page, under documentation, there was an instruction on
> partitioning /boot for 100 MB.  But on other page that I found on the SL web
> page,
> 
> It says that boot partition is not needed since they fill up with new kernel
> downloads.  Which one should I follow?
> 

Now this depends on which two pages we're talking about.  If you could 
point me to them I'll try to fix them up.  But yes, I remember writting 
both.

Here's the deal.

Older RedHat based releases you needed to have /boot partition is your 
root partition (where / is) was on cylindars too far down the disk.  It 
was because the boot loaders (lilo and grub) just weren't able to handle 
it and wouldn't work correctly.
All of the Scientific Linux releases (S.L. 3.0.1 to S.L. 4.2 and beyond) 
  haven't had this problem with the boot loader.  So, there really was 
no need for the /boot partition.  The boot loaders even worked fine with 
dual boot.  (And triple boot, quad boot ... you get the picture.)  I've 
even tried it with a fairly large disk putting everything at the very 
end of the disk, it still worked fine.

So, if you don't want to have a /boot partition, even if you are dual 
booting, you don't have to.

Not if you do want to have a /boot partition, I would say that 100 Mb is 
probrubly the proper size.  Now having said that, I think that that 50 
Mb is ok also.
I have a machine that currently has 3 regular kernels, and 3 smp 
kernels.  And it is using 22 Meg in /boot.  So it looks like as long as 
you arn't planning on having over 12 kerneles installed at a time, 
having 50 Meg boot is ok.

Now having said that you don't HAVE to have /boot ... there is currently 
one exception.  If you plan on using LVM and having your root partition 
on it, then you DO have to have a /boot partition.  This is because the 
boot loaders don't know how to boot from a LVM partition.

Hope this helps.
Troy
-- 
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Troy Dawson  [log in to unmask]  (630)840-6468
Fermilab  ComputingDivision/CSS  CSI Group
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