Handbook:AMD64/Blocks/Disks/es

Particiones
Aunque teóricamente es posible utilizar el disco duro completo para albergar la instalación Linux, esto casi nunca se hace. En su lugar, los dispositivos de bloque enteros se dividen en partes más manejables y pequeñas. En los sistemas AMD64 éstas se llaman particiones. Actualmente hay dos tecnologías estándar de particionamiento en uso: MBR y GPT.

MBR
La configuración MBR (Registro de Arranque Maestro -Master Boot Record-) utiliza identificadores de 32 bits para el sector de comienzo y longitud de las particiones y ofrece soporte para tres tipos de particiones: primaria, extendida y lógica. Las particiones primarias almacenan su información en el propio registro maestro de arranque, un lugar muy pequeño (normalmente 512 bytes) al comienzo del disco. Debido a esta limitación en el tamaño, solo se permiten cuatro particiones primarias (por ejemplo desde hasta ).

Para poder ofrecer más particiones, una de las particiones primarias se puede marcar como partición extendida. Esta partición puede contener particiones lógicas (particiones dentro de otra partición).

Cada partición está limitada a un tamaño de 2 TB (debido a los identificadores de 32 bits). Además, la configuración MBR no ofrece una copia de respaldo del MBR, por lo que si una aplicación escribe información en el MBR, toda la información sobre particiones se pierde.

GPT
La configuración GPT (Tabla de Particiones GUID -GUID Partition table-) utiliza identificadores de 64 bits para las particiones. El lugar donde se almacena la información sobre particiones es mayor que los 512 utilizados en la configuración MBR, y además no hay limitación en el número de particiones. Por otro lado el tamaño de cada partición es bastante mayor (al menos 8 ZB, sí, zetabytes).

Cuando se utiliza UEFI (en lugar de BIOS) como interfaz de software de sistema entre el sistema operativo y el firmware, se requiere el uso de GPT ya que se podrían producir problemas de compatibilidad si se utiliza MBR.

GPT también tiene la ventaja de ofrecer una copia de respaldo GPT al final del disco, que puede utilizarse para recuperarla en caso de que se produzcan daño en la GPT primaria que se almacena al comienzo del disco. GPT también mantiene sumas de comprobación CRC32 para detectar errores en las tablas de particiones y en la cabecera.

GPT o MBR
From the description above, one might think that using GPT should always be the recommended approach. But there are a few caveats with this.

Using GPT on a BIOS-based computer works, but then one cannot dual-boot with a Microsoft Windows operating system. The reason is that Microsoft Windows will boot in EFI mode if it detects a GPT partition label.

Some buggy BIOSes or EFIs configured to boot in BIOS/CSM/legacy mode might also have problems with booting from GPT labeled disks. If that is the case, it might be possible to work around the problem by adding the boot/active flag on the protective MBR partition which has to be done through  with the   option to force it to read the partition table using the MBR format.

In this case, launch  and toggle the flag using  on the first partition. Then write the changes to the disk and exit the   application:

Using UEFI
When installing Gentoo on a system that uses UEFI to boot the operating system (instead of BIOS), then it is important that an EFI system partition is created. The instructions for  below contain the necessary pointers for this.

The EFI system partition also needs to be a FAT32 partition (or vfat as it is shown on Linux systems). The instructions at the end of this chapter use ext2 as the example file system for the partition. Make sure to use vfat, like so:

Advanced storage
The AMD64 Installation CDs provide support for LVM2. LVM2 increases the flexibility offered by the partitioning setup. During the installation instructions, we will focus on "regular" partitions, but it is still good to know LVM2 is supported as well.

Default partitioning scheme
Throughout the remainder of the handbook, the following partitioning scheme is used. If this suffices, then the reader can immediately jump to Default: Using parted to partition the disk or Alternative: Using fdisk to partition the disk. Both are partitioning tools,  is well known and stable and recommended for the MBR partition layout, while   is more recent and recommended for GPT layouts.

Before going to the creation instructions, the first set of sections will describe in more detail how partitioning schemes can be created and what the common pitfalls are.

What is the BIOS boot partition
A BIOS boot partition is a very small (1 to 2 MB) partition in which boot loaders like GRUB2 can put additional data that doesn't fit in the allocated storage (a few hundred bytes in case of MBR) and cannot be placed elsewhere.

Such partitions are not always necessary, but considering the low space consumption and the difficulties we have with documenting the plethora of partitioning differences otherwise, it is recommended to create it in either case.

For completeness, the BIOS boot partition is needed when GPT partition layout is used with GRUB2, or when the MBR partition layout is used with GRUB2 when the first partition starts earlier than the 1 MB location on the disk.

Default: Using parted to partition the disk
In this chapter, the example partition layout mentioned earlier in the instructions will be used:

Change the partition layout according to personal preference.

Viewing the current partition layout with parted
The  application offers a simple interface for partitioning the disks and supports very large partitions (more than 2 TB). Fire up  against the disk (in our example, we use ). It is recommended to ask  to use optimal partition alignment:

Alignment means that partitions are started on well-known boundaries within the disk, ensuring that operations on the disk from the operating system level (retrieve pages from the disk) use the least amount of internal disk operations. Misaligned partitions might require the disk to fetch two pages instead of one even if the operating system asked for a single page.

To find out about all options supported by parted, type  and press return.

Setting the GPT label
Most disks on x86/amd64 are prepared using an msdos label. Using, the command to put a GPT label on the disk is  :

To have the disk with MBR layout, use.

Removing all partitions with parted
If this isn't done yet (for instance through the  operation earlier, or because the disk is a freshly formatted one), first remove all existing partitions from the disk. Type  to view the current partitions, and   where NUMBER is the partition to remove.

Do the same for all other partitions that aren't needed. However, make sure to not make any mistakes here - parted executes the changes immediately (unlike  which stages them, allowing a user to "undo" his changes before saving or exiting fdisk).

Creating the partitions
Now create the partitions. Creating partitions with  isn't very difficult - all we need to do is inform parted about the following settings:


 * The partition type to use. This usually is primary. If the msdos partition label is used, keep in mind that there can be no more than 4 primary partitions. If more than 4 partitions are needed, make one of the first four partitions extended and create logical partitions inside it.
 * The start location of a partition (which can be expressed in MB, GB, ...)
 * The end location of the partition (which can be expressed in MB, GB, ...)

First, tell parted that the size unit we work with is megabytes (actually mebibytes, abbreviated as MiB which is the "standard" notation, but we will use MB in the text throughout as it is much more common):

Now create a 2 MB partition that will be used by the GRUB2 boot loader later. Use the  command for this, and inform   to start from 1 MB and end at 3 MB (creating a partition of 2 MB in size).

Do the same for the boot partition (128 MB), swap partition (in the example, 512 MB) and the root partition that spans the remaining disk (for which the end location is marked as -1, meaning the end of the disk minus one MB, which is the farthest a partition can go).

When using the UEFI interface to boot the system (instead of BIOS), mark the boot partition as the EFI System Partition. Parted does this automatically when the boot option is set on the partition:

The end result looks like so:

Use the  command to exit parted.

Alternative: Using fdisk to partition the disk
The following parts explain how to create the example partition layout using. The example partition layout was mentioned earlier:

Change the partition layout according to personal preference.

Viewing the current partition layout
is a popular and powerful tool to split a disk into partitions. Fire up  against the disk (in our example, we use ):

Type to display the disk's current partition configuration:

This particular disk is configured to house seven Linux filesystems (each with a corresponding partition listed as "Linux") as well as a swap partition (listed as "Linux swap").

Removing all partitions with fdisk
First remove all existing partitions from the disk. Type to delete a partition. For instance, to delete an existing :

The partition has now been scheduled for deletion. It will no longer show up when printing the list of partitions (, but it will not be erased until the changes have been saved. This allows users to abort the operation if a mistake was made - in that case, type immediately and hit enter and the partition will not be deleted.

Repeatedly type to print out a partition listing and then type  and the number of the partition to delete it. Eventually, the partition table will be empty:

Now that the in-memory partition table is empty, we're ready to create the partitions.

Creating the BIOS boot partition
First create a very small BIOS boot partition. Type to create a new partition, then  to select a primary partition, followed by  to select the first primary partition. When prompted for the first sector, make sure it starts from 2048 (which is needed for the boot loader) and hit enter. When prompted for the last sector, type +2M to create a partition 2 Mbyte in size:

Mark the partition for EFI purposes:

Creating the boot partition
Now create a small boot partition. Type to create a new partition, then  to select a primary partition, followed by  to select the second primary partition. When prompted for the first sector, accept the default by hitting. When prompted for the last sector, type +128M to create a partition 128 Mbyte in size:

Now, when pressing, the following partition printout is displayed:

Type to toggle the bootable flag on a partition and select. After pressing again, notice that an * is placed in the "Boot" column.

Creating the swap partition
To create the swap partition, type to create a new partition, then  to tell fdisk to create a primary partition. Then type to create the third primary partition,. When prompted for the first sector, hit. When prompted for the last sector, type +512M (or any other size needed for the swap space) to create a partition 512MB in size.

After all this is done, type to set the partition type,  to select the partition just created and then type in 82 to set the partition type to "Linux Swap".

Creating the root partition
Finally, to create the root partition, type to create a new partition, then  to tell   to create a primary partition. Then type to create the fourth primary partition,. When prompted for the first sector, hit. When prompted for the last sector, hit to create a partition that takes up the rest of the remaining space on the disk. After completing these steps, typing should display a partition table that looks similar to this:

Saving the partition layout
To save the partition layout and exit, type.

With the partitions created, it is now time to put filesystems on them.