Re: Guidance on conflicts between GNU GRUB and proprietary software

[Phillip Susi]

On 9/28/2010 3:05 PM, Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko wrote:
> Using an embedding partition on msdos as an optional alternative (not as
> replacement) to MBR gap is a clear possibility, good idea and was
> proposed before but details are very unclear. Like:
> - How to create such partition

The same way you create any other partition?

> - How does grub find it and ensures that it's an embedding partition?
> Any false positive will result in data loss. Obviously no msdos type is
> completely unused by now so it's not a way.

There seem to be quite a few left that are at least unknown to linux
fdisk.  If you really want to make sure, then you can require a grub
signature in the starting sector of the partition.  Also this step would
usually be done by the installer, which would know that the partition is
a grub partition since it just created it.