[NTLUG:Discuss] Separate /boot still a good idea?

[Leroy Tennison]

Stuart Johnston wrote:
> I am getting ready to do a new install of Ubuntu 9.10 and wondering if 
> it is still useful to keep /boot on a separate partition.  I'll be using 
> LVM for the rest of the disk.  This is a desktop with possible windows 
> multi-boot on a secondary disk.
>
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As already mentioned, this is probably going to be a "religious" issue.  
Partitions provide boundaries which are both good and bad (unless you 
can move them).  They prevent unintentional encroachment of unrelated 
data but also define upper boundaries for storage.  Their boundaries can 
make data management and backup easier.  A good point was made that 
keeping the OS separate from the data makes for easier upgrades.

Since you are going to use LVM one consideration is the extra risk 
introduced by additional software (what if the disk is good but LVM 
wipes out).  If you go with separate partitions then you can choose 
different file systems which adds another pro-and-con consideration.  
For example, you could use ext2 for /boot and save the space used by a 
journal but I'm not sure the space savings is worth the consideration.

Partitions might provide some protection from data corruption depending 
on the cause (they didn't in my case because I had a significant 
hardware failure) and they can provide some protection against 
accidental "oops" (rm -rf).  Another point is that an unmounted 
partition leaves data hidden and thus less likely to be the target of 
undesirable actions other than a partition delete.  I've read that /boot 
doesn't have to be mounted on a running system so this might be a 
consideration.

I realize I didn't answer your question but I'm not sure it's 
definitively answerable.  Hopefully the above considerations provide 
some ideas which lead to resolution of your question.