Many Thanks To Lennart, Bob, Giles and D. Hugh,

All very helpful. Lots to think about.

As a result of earlier advice from GTALUG members, I have already prepared two (2) USB memory stcks with bootable images, for verifying that the fresh PC build can indeed (at least): 1. boot System Rescue and 2. do a standard Linux installation:

Once I get this new "baby" home, I'll start tinkering to get a final HDD configuration and debian Linux installation.

Thanks also for much useful information around using VMs to run both Linux and Windows, elicited by Michael G. in thread subject "[GTALUG] VM decisions for school laptop..".

One poster remarked that I'm "overthinking" the partitioning. So true. My Mother was a pathologically nit-picking bookkeeper -- what can I say ?? This thoroughness heritage was both the strength and the weakness of my IT career.

The unfortunate "overthinking" mental condition has much improved during the slow slide, since retirement, into old age (when mercifully, most of the brain cells for anxiety have died off from overuse :) ...

----- Original Message -----

Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2018 7:56 PM

Subject: Re: [GTALUG] New Desktop PC -- debian Linux - Proposed 2 TB HDDPartitioning;

On 11 April 2018 at 23:02, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:

| From: Giles Orr via talk <talk@gtalug.org>
| These days it
| seems you want a /boot partition though - but I'm not the one to explain
| the ins and outs of that.

I've not seen a use for a /boot partition.

With UEFI booting, you need a separate EFI System Partition. This
will be shared by all systems that boot off that drive. This gets
mounted on the mount point /boot/efi. It will be some variant of FAT
but the partition type will be distinct.

To correct my own post based on what Hugh said ... I was both right and horribly wrong about that. I was entirely correct "I'm not the one to explain [this]." And horribly wrong: what you usually want is what Hugh said: an EFI System Partition. I'd conflated that with a /boot/ partition because it appears there. My apologies.

Giles
https://www.gilesorr.com/
gilesorr@gmail.com