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Linux Manual Partitioning

The document discusses Linux manual partitioning for both legacy MBR disks and UEFI GPT disks. For MBR disks, a maximum of 4 primary partitions are allowed, while additional partitions must be logical. For GPT disks, a maximum of 128 primary partitions are allowed. The document then provides details on common partition types like /boot, /, swap, /home, and data partitions along with their recommended sizes and usage.

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169 views

Linux Manual Partitioning

The document discusses Linux manual partitioning for both legacy MBR disks and UEFI GPT disks. For MBR disks, a maximum of 4 primary partitions are allowed, while additional partitions must be logical. For GPT disks, a maximum of 128 primary partitions are allowed. The document then provides details on common partition types like /boot, /, swap, /home, and data partitions along with their recommended sizes and usage.

Uploaded by

Nicholas Kevin
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Linux Manual Partitioning

I) Partitioning for Legacy Boot + MBR Disk


1. You can create a maximum of 4 “primary” partitions on MBR Disk, the 5th partition will become
unusable.
2. If you want to create more than 4 partitions, you need to use 1st 3 partitions as “primary” and
rest as “logical”.

Partition Name Optional Mount File Size Type


System

/dev/sda1 BOOT Yes /boot ext4 256 MB Primary

/dev/sda2 ROOT No / ext4 50 GB Primary

/dev/sda3 SWAP Yes none swap 4 GB Primary

/dev/sda4 HOME Yes ext4 Remaining Logical

/dev/sda5 DATA Yes /mnt/DATA ext4/ntfs Remaining Logical

II) Partitioning for UEFI Boot + GPT Disk


1. You can create a maximum of 128 “primary” partitions on GPT, the 129th partition will become
unusable.
2. If you want to create more than 128 partitions, you need to use 1st 127 partitions as “primary”
and rest as “logical”.

Partition Name Optional Mount File Size Type


System

/dev/sda1 BOOT No /boot/efi fat32 512 MB Primary

/dev/sda2 ROOT No / ext4 50 GB Primary

/dev/sda3 SWAP Yes none swap 4 GB Primary

/dev/sda4 HOME Yes ext4 Remaining Primary

/dev/sda5 DATA Yes /mnt/DATA ext4/ntfs Remaining Primary


III) Partition Usage and Information:
Partition Optional Usage Remarks

/boot Yes Bootloader, Used in Legacy boot mode, MBR disk.


Kernels You can set this to around 256 MB.

/boot/efi No Bootloader, Used in UEFI boot mode, GPT disk.


Kernels Some Linux distros need this partition to be at least
512 MB. Eg. Pop_OS

/ No OS, Apps, Cache Your system will fail to boot if the root partition gets
filled up, so set it to at least 50GB.

swap Yes Temporary Setting a swap partition prevents the system from
System Data freezing when RAM is used up completely.
Swap size should be equal to your RAM size if you
use hibernate.
Swap size should be half of your RAM size if you
don't use hibernate.
You need to tune the “vm.swappiness” parameter to
make proper use of swap.

/home Yes User Data This partition is used for storing application
configuration files, cache of system, desktop
environment and user applications.

A separate /home partition will preserve user data


and files when re-installing or changing OS.

/mnt/DATA Yes Secondary Data This partition can be used for storing large files such
as videos, pictures, softwares, ISO etc.

Your secondary data will be preserved if you format


root and home partitions.

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