Is it essential for Knoppix to be first partition?

The HD Install HOWTO says "Be sure the root partition is the first partition on the drive, is formatted with ext2 or ext3." Is this correct? It makes dual installations with WinXP impossible, because WinXP must be in the first partition.

Other Linux flavours such as SuSE are happy to be installed in extended partitions, i.e, the second or higher partition on the drive.

I would like to move from
hda1 WinXP system FAT
hda5 Data FAT
hda6 Data FAT

to

hda1 WinXP system FAT
hda5 Data FAT
hda6 Knoppix system ext2
hda7 Knoppix swap swp

Is there something specific to Knoppix or knoppix-installer (or the related partitioning package) that prevents me from doing this?

Quote:

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The HD Install HOWTO says "Be sure the root partition is the first partition on the drive, is formatted with ext2 or ext3." Is this correct?

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No, that surely isn't true. Here's my setup:

Code:

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root@charlie:~# fdisk -l /dev/hda

Disk /dev/hda: 9042 MB, 9042001920 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1099 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

  Device Boot      Start        End      Blocks  Id  System
/dev/hda1  *          1        382    3068383+  b  W95 FAT32
/dev/hda2            383        446      514080  82  Linux swap
/dev/hda3            447        1099    5245222+  83  Linux

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I don't know, but it was probably correct when that WiKi entry was written? (It mentions Knoppix 3.4...)

Quote:

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NOTE: Be sure the root partition is the first partition on the drive, is formatted with ext2 or ext3, and is set to "active."

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Kyle Rankin's excellent book, Knoppix Hacks (which includes 3.4 on disk), shows a swap partition on hdb1 and the rest of the system on hdb2.

In general no Linux even needs to be in a primary partition, never mind the first one on the first hard drive, as Windows demands. (Bootloaders can fool Windows by hiding partitions, if need be.)

As I write this I'm running Knoppix 3.7 with hda5 for swap, hda6 for /home, and hda7 for everything else. And I have more Linuxes farther on down the line (which share the swap and /home partitions with Knoppix).

Put it where you want it and have fun! :D

-- Ed

Many thanks for the swift and informative replies!