On page http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=4#doc_chap3 in the paragraph where the creation of the boot partion is, the text says: "We need to make this partition bootable. Type a to toggle the bootable flag on this partition. If you press p again, you will notice that an * is placed in the "Boot" column." This procedure is not what I experienced, as I have to type the partition number after I typed a. A more correct version would therefore be: "We need to make this partition bootable. Type a to toggle the bootable flag on this partition. When asked for a partion number, press 1 (or if you use a different partitioning schema, the number of the partion you want to be bootable). If you press p again, you will notice that an * is placed in the "Boot" column." Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3.
You're right. Maybe fdisk used to set the bootable flag without asking the partition number when only partition was defined, just like when deleting partitions. Anyway, this is not needed at all anyway. Is there any reason we still set this bootable flag?
The text itself assumes that it's the only partition available. Unless fdisk has been altered it should still take the only partition available and mark it bootable. The reason that it's set bootable is set in http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=34748. My system refused to boot if the /boot partition wasn't set bootable. Perhaps this has changed over time but I'd rather not throw away stuff that might just break ppl's system again only to reintroduce it.
AFAIK, only MS's own MBR uses the bootable flag and neither grub nor lilo need it. I don't think it's a problem to set it anyway, especially if it can help guys who do not know how to make their laptop boot properly ;-) Maybe fdisk used to be smart enough to set the flag on the only defined partition automatically but I just tried with the latest (2.12b) and it _always_ asks for a partition number and accepts any value 1-4 even if the partition is not defined (with a warning), even when no partition is defined.
I've kept the instructions in the Gentoo Handbook but fixed the fdisk instructions to tell the users that they also have to select "1" (for the first - and only - partition).
