Frode writes:
HD, 1st partition is WinXP). I use manual setup of partitions, as I
have
always done, planning to use the following approximate scheme:
sda1 - primary - ntfs - 45 GB - winXP
sda2 - primary - ext2 - 200 MB - /boot
sda5 - extended - ext4 - 7 GB - /home
sda6 - extended - swap - 2 GB - [swap]
sda7 - extended - ext4 - 20 GB - /
It seems that anaconda overrides my choice of not ticking the 'create
primary partition' box in the 'add partition' dialog, making all three
first partitions created primary. This means that both /boot and either
/home or / would be primary partitions.
Questions:
- 'Olde' knowledge says that only one primary partition can be visible
to the system at one time. Is this not longer true?
It was never true. You could always divide a disk into up to four primary
partitions, one of which can be an extended partition that's further
subdivided into logical partitions.
The only restriction was in the default DOS/Win bootloader. One of the
primary partitions is marked as the active partition, and the default
DOS/Win bootloader boots from whichever partition is marked active. And
whichever O/S gets booted always has access to all disk partitions.
If grub gets installed as the bootloader, it completely ignores the active
partition flag, and uses its own menu system and configuration file to let
you select which partition and operating system it boots.