User:Zulu Foxtrott/GentooOnARM/EasyInstall/PartitioningWithFdisk

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 ):

Use the key to display the disk's current partition configuration:

This particular disk was 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  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. When prompted for the last sector, type +2M to create a partition 2 Mbyte in size:

Mark the partition for UEFI 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.