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Is a /boot partition necessary anymore?

Well, the question title says it all. Are there any benefits of creating a separate directory for /boot. Is there any kind of grub/any-other-bootloader crash that can corrupt the partition it is installed on? or any dual-boot scenarios where having separate /boot partition can save me?

Community
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binW
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  • see 6490 and 247 – Takkat Feb 18 '11 at 12:16
  • i have seen these questions but the talk about if /boot partition is necessary or not and it is not necessary. you can have perfectly functioning system without it but what i want to know is if there is any benefit of creating one at all. – binW Feb 18 '11 at 12:36

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Exactly what you said. For example, i once had (am talking about 9.04 or 9.10 here) a problem where the root partition got all weird on me. Since i had the boot partition in the same place as everything else i could not boot and try to fix anything. After that i learned that i should have the boot part separate from the rest since in some extreme cases if something goes bad, it will go bad only the specific partition. I also recommend to have not only the partition of boot separate from others but the home also separate so in the event of updating or reinstalling you do not need to do a backup for all your things.

It also helps to have the boot part in another partition since if it happens to malfunction you know you have everything in another partition safe from harm.

Luis Alvarado
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  • You can always do a clean install without reformatting and keep all data in your home folder with the current Ubuntu installer. – Mark Rooney Feb 18 '11 at 13:09
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    Actually although i said the stuff above i use it for a year now all together. I mean 1 partition to rule them all, 1 partition to bind them, 1 partition to bring them all and in ubuntu bind them (except swap of course) – Luis Alvarado Feb 18 '11 at 13:45
  • A separate /boot partition won't help you there. If your root partition is hosed, then the only thing you can do with a /boot partition is load the kernel, which will then crash saying it can't mount the root filesystem. – psusi Feb 18 '11 at 20:25
  • I remember doing something in the boot part that saved me from loosing my information. Like i said it was for 9.04 or 9.10 so i do not remember right now but it solved a specific problem i was having that needed the boot part to be working. – Luis Alvarado Feb 19 '11 at 15:38
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This has changed alot in the last few years with the way Ubuntu has evolved as an operating system. The following link on Jorge Castro's blog pretty much sums it up as not required from the people that bring us Ubuntu.....

Mark Rooney
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  • Evan's answer here sums it up better than my blog does: http://askubuntu.com/questions/247/whats-your-recommendation-on-drive-partitioning-schemes-for-a-desktop-and-home-s/3603#3603 – Jorge Castro Feb 18 '11 at 18:51
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If your root partition is on LVM, software RAID, of XFS filesystem- separate /boot is mandatory. Otherwise it is not necessary, but it is good practice to have separate /boot.

Asmerito
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  • Actually that is not true. Grub2 can boot directly from all of those without the need for a separate /boot partition. – psusi Feb 18 '11 at 20:26
  • True, but we don't know which version of GRUB uses this person who asked this question :) – Asmerito Feb 27 '11 at 08:34