I have posted questions about needing a seperate boot partition(mount point /boot) for redhat. This is my understanding. By having a seperate partition with my boot info, it makes it eaiser for the computer to find the needed info at startup. If I just had a directory /boot on the main partition it would take longer for the computer to find needed files?

Is this right?

No. It doesn't matter where the boot files are stored as far as performance is concerned. The idea behind splitting the boot partition off has to do with being able to correct partition structure problems separate from the root, usr, home, var, etc partitions. And no, you don't need a separate partition, /boot can be a subdirectory off the root partition, although this isn't recommended by some people.

The idea of splitting the /boot partition off is that you don't have /boot mounted while your box is running thus (hopefully) avoiding hosing everything including the kernel in the case of a power outage or other irregular shutdown (like wife or kids).
It should only be mounted for booting - /boot!!

So you are saying I should unmount it after it is all booted up.
#umount -t ext3 (boot partition) /boot

You could. But, you can also make it read-only.
It's up to you.

By default in RedHat 9, the /boot partition is always mounted and only writable by root.

I prefer having a boot partition.
When it comes to partitions, there are many different opinions on the subject.

I would prefer to have a boot partition coz it will make the kernel more easier to find its related files then need to search high and low for its, This is my opinion, and the others maybe have the others.

I agree with Mathieu, if your question is regarding the partition, it will never come out with a green light, coz everyone have their own opinion and their own style of partition, unless you decide to follow someone's partition.

There is also a partition recovery aspect to it. Back in the old days of ext2, where a hard shutdown would take eons to fsck an ext2 file system, it was much faster to fsck a tiny /boot and tiny / partitions to get your system up and running as quickly as possible. The idea was to ignore the problems on the monstrous /home, /var, /usr, etc. because those partitions aren't required to get your system running. Once you could boot using /boot and /, you'd worry about these later.

Of course, this this information doesn't apply to a system running ext3, because the ext3 journal can be recovered in seconds, regardless of the size of the partition.

Everyone is correct in saying that there's no 'right' answer as far as partitioning schemes go. Everyone has their own opinion...

I just thought I'd throw my two cents in.