drive partition on install

[Peter Boy]

Am Fr, den 23.07.2004 schrieb John Wendel um 02:19:
> Could someone please explain the need for a 100MB /boot? Mine is currently 
> holding 8MB of files, with 92MB wasted.

100 mb is some sort of wasting space, indeed. But today most people have
hard disks of 120 gb and more it just doesn't matter. You should
allocate enough space to have 2-5 kernel versions installed in parallel.
20 - 30 mb are sufficient.

RH installer will complain about the space of the /boot filesystem if it
is smaller as 75 or 100 mb (don't remember exactly) but you can ignore
the warning.

RH installs an update kernel in parallel to the existing one (so you can
easily switch back to the formerly working kernel just in case something
doesn't work after an update, which is a very handy feature!). But there
is no mechanism to deinstall a very old kernel. So in theory you can end
up with 10 oder 20 kernels installed in parallel (back in the day of RHL
with quite a long time t live). I suppose RH demands for such a huge
(relatively) space just to be absolutely sure there doesn't arise any 
problem during a kernel update.

With a smaller /boot partition after a kernel update you should check
how many kernels are installed (terminal window:  rpm -q kernel) and if
there are more than 5 kernel versions, you should erase the oldest one
by rpm -e kernel-2.x.xx-x.xxx as root in a terminal window).



Peter