Hi all,

I've just recovered my notebook, and want to install linux as the 2nd OS on it. Now I am not sure, if I should create an extra small boot partition (12-15mb) for boot loader. I know many people do this. But is it really necessary or advantageous to do so?

My situation now is, I used the IBM recovery CD set, so I have only two primary partitions on my disk till now. On the first partition (55GB, NTFS) the winxp is installed, the IBM rescue partition is on the 2nd partition (5GB, FAT32).

So there would be two possibilities to arrange for the multi boot

1.

1st primary: windows xp - 10G, NTFS
2nd primary: suse linux - 10G, reiserfs - linux "/" for system
3rd extended:
a) windows d - 15G NTFS
b) windows e - 8G FAT32
c) linux /swap - 1G
d) linux /tmp - 1G
e) linux /home - ca. 10G
4th primary: 5G, FAT32 - IBM rescue partition

2.

1st primary: /boot - 15M
2nd primary: windows xp
3rd extended: with all linux system and /home inside
4th primary: IBM

in the second case, maybe I will need to use partitionmagic to move and generate partitions. only if the /boot partition will bring advantages.

so, what are you experts' suggestions?

thanks a lot

a linux newbie

A separate boot partition really isn't needed, the installer will create a /boot directory in your / directory.