[NTLUG:Discuss] bootable flag

[Chris Cox]

On Wed, 2009-05-27 at 05:26 -0500, Ralph Green wrote:
> Howdy,
>  I almost always create a /boot partition when I setup a system.  I have
> been setting that partition with the bootable flag when I am given the
> choice.  It seems to work, but I am suspecting that it is more accurate
> to set the / partition to be bootable.  What do you think?

If your machine is 5 (probably 7+ years actually) years or old or more,
then the purpose of /boot was to make sure the boot area resided in
the lower tracks of the HD so that old BIOS's could handle it.

Hasn't been an issue for a LONG time though.

I still do /boot though.  I make it small and use ext2 to avoid
journal overhead (50MB < /boot < 100MB).

So... nothing necessarily wrong with just using /.  I have several
fat root setups in place... but sometimes I regret them, for other
reasons besides /boot though.