Handbook:AMD64/Blocks/Disks/cs

Tabulky oddílů
Ačkoli je teoreticky možné použít celý disk k umístění Linuxového systému (např. při tvorbě btrfs RAID), téměř nikdy se tak v praxi neděje. Namísto toho je celý disk rozdělen na menší, lépe spravovatelná bloková zařízení. V případě se jim říká oddíly. V současnosti se používají dvě technologie rozdělování: MBR a GPT.

MBR
The MBR (Master Boot Record) setup uses 32-bit identifiers for the start sector and length of the partitions, and supports three partition types: primary, extended, and logical. Primary partitions have their information stored in the master boot record itself - a very small (usually 512 bytes) location at the very beginning of a disk. Due to this small space, only four primary partitions are supported (for instance, to ).

Pro podporu více oddílů je nutné označit jeden z primárních oddílů jak rozšířený oddíl. Tento oddíl pak může obsahovat logické oddíly (oddíly v oddílech).

Každý oddíl je omezen velikostí 2 TB (kvůli 32bitovým identifikátorům). Dále MBR nepodporuje záložní MBR, tzn. že pokud aplikace nebo uživatel přepíší MBR, informace o oddílech jsou ztraceny.

GPT
"GTP (GUID Partition table)" používá 64bitové identifikátory oddílů. Místo, kde se ukládají informace o oddílech, je také o mnoho větší, než 512 bytů u MBR a nejsou zde omezení počtu oddílů. Velikost oddílů je pak vázána mnohem vyšším limitem (téměř 8 ZB - ano, zettabytů).

Pokud je systémovým softwarovým rozhraním mezi operačním systémem a firmwarem UEFI (namísto BIOSu), GPT je téměř nezbytné, jinak se objeví problémy kompatibility s MBR.

GPT má také výhodu v tom, že na konci disku je záloha GPT, která může být využita k opravě poškozeného primárního GPT na jeho počátku. GPT také nese CRC32 kontrolní součty pro odhalení chyb v hlavičkách a tabulkách oddílů.

GPT nebo MBR
Z popisu uvedeného shora může člověk nabýt dojmu, že GPT by mělo být pokaždé doporučeným postupem, nicméně existuje tu několik háčků.

Použití GPT na počítačích s BIOSem funguje, ale nelze pak použít dual-boot s operačním systémem Microsoft Windows. Důvodem je to, že Microsoft Windows boot v módu EFI, pokud detekuje tabulku oddílů GPT.

Některé chybné BIOSy nebo EFI konfigurované, aby bootovaly v módu BIOS/CSM/legacy mohou mít také potíže s bootováním z disků označených jako GPT. Pokud je to váš případ, je možné jej obejít označením MBR oddílu jako boot/aktivní, což musí být učiněno pomocí příkazu s volbou , abychom vynutili čtení tabulky oddílů s použitím formátu MBR.

V takovém případě spusťte a přepněte označení pomocí klávesy. Stisknutím vyberete první oddíl, stisknutím  zapíšete změny na disk a opustíte aplikaci.

Použití UEFI
Pokud instalujete Gentoo na systém, který používá k bootování operačního systému UEFI (namísto BIOSu), je důležité vytvořit systémový oddíl EFI. Níže uvedené instrukce pro obsahují k tomu nezbytná vodítka.

Systémový oddíl EFI dále musí být oddílem FAT32 (nebo "vfat", jak je zobrazována na Linuxových systémech). Instrukce na konci této kapitoly používají systém souborů "ext2" pro oddíl. Ujistěte se namísto toho použijete "vfat", následovně:

Btrfs RAID
As noted above, btrfs has the ability to create filesystems across multiple devices. Btrfs filesystems generated in this way can act in the following modes: raid0, raid1, raid10, raid5, and raid6. RAID modes 5 and 6 have improved considerably, but are still considered unstable. After a multiple device filesystem has been created, new devices can be added and old devices removed in a few commands. Btrfs takes more involvement than other filesystems making it not as friendly to beginners.

ext4 filesytems can be converted into btrfs filesystems, which may be useful for those who'd like to install Gentoo with a stable, well tested filesystem and gradually increase their knowledge about newer filesystems such as btrfs by experimentation.

LVM2
The Installation CDs provide support for LVM2. LVM2 increases the flexibility offered by the partitioning setup. The installation instructions below will focus on "regular" partitions, but it is good to know LVM2 is supported if that route is desired.

Default partitioning scheme
Throughout the remainder of the handbook, the following partitioning scheme will be used as a simple example layout:

If this suffices and the reader going the GPT route they can immediately jump to Default: Using parted to partition the disk. Those who are still interested in MBR (hey - it happens!) and using the example layout can jump to Alternative: Using fdisk to partition the disk.

Both and  are partitioning utilities. is well known, stable, and recommended for the MBR partition layout while was one of the first Linux block device management utilities to support GPT partitions. Those who like the user interface of can use  (GPT fdisk) as an alternative to.

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

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 the or  architectures 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   is the number of 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 ):

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 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 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.