  We analyse the so-called Marginal Instability of linear switching systems,
both in continuous and discrete time. This is a phenomenon of unboundedness of
trajectories when the Lyapunov exponent is zero. We disprove two recent
conjectures of Chitour, Mason, and Sigalotti (2012) stating that for generic
systems, the resonance is sufficient for marginal instability and for
polynomial growth of the trajectories. We provide a characterization of
marginal instability under some mild assumptions on the sys- tem. These
assumptions can be verified algorithmically and are believed to be generic.
Finally, we analyze possible types of fastest asymptotic growth of
trajectories. An example of a pair of matrices with sublinear growth is given.
