Partitioning for XP & Linux, How Much for What?

Whatever you want to "blame" for the problem, it's a fact that there's
an issue which affects most, if not all, 2.6-based Linux distros. You
may be someone who has created many dual-boot systems and have an
arsenal of work-arounds, but there's a lot of Linux-curious people out
there to whom this is new stuff. Adding Linux to a Windows machine
SHOULD be an easy affair, with Linux installing the Grub or Lilo
bootloader, which then offers a choice of OS upon boot-up.

My point here is that people thinking of doing a Windows/Linux
dual-boot need to be aware of this issue, because it CAN leave your
Windows partition unbootable!

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage chrisv wrote:

Whatever you want to "blame" for the problem, it's a fact that there's
an issue which affects most, if not all, 2.6-based Linux distros. You
may be someone who has created many dual-boot systems and have an
arsenal of work-arounds, but there's a lot of Linux-curious people out
there to whom this is new stuff. Adding Linux to a Windows machine
SHOULD be an easy affair, with Linux installing the Grub or Lilo
bootloader, which then offers a choice of OS upon boot-up.

My point here is that people thinking of doing a Windows/Linux
dual-boot need to be aware of this issue, because it CAN leave your
Windows partition unbootable!

Of course it can. But don't balme the kernel, blame the distributors.
If it were the kernel, _every_ 2.6 based distro would be affected
and a bug-report should go into the 2.6 bugzilla. If it is
the distro, people should complain rather loudly to their vendor,
since they paid money explicitely to not have this type of problem.

Arno
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