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Linux Partition HOWTO

Anthony Lissot

version 3.5, 30 Nov 2005
based on
Linux Partition HOWTO (version 2.4, 3 November 1997) Kristian Koehntopp
Original authorship and version history noted in HTML comments.



This Linux Mini-HOWTO teaches you how to plan and create partitions on IDE and SCSI hard drives. It discusses partitioning terminology and considers size and location issues. Use of the fdisk partitioning utility for creating and recovering partition tables is covered. The most recent DocBook XML version of this document is here. The Turkish translation is here.

1. Introduction
  1. What is a partition?
  2. Related HOWTOs

2. Logical Devices
  1. Device names
  2. Device numbers

3. Partition Types
  1. Foreign
  2. Primary
  3. Logical
  4. Swap

4. Partition Requirements
  1. What partitions do I need?
  2. Which filesystems need their own partitions?
  3. How big should the swap partitions be?
  4. Placement of swap partitions

5. How to Partition with fdisk
  1. Notes about fdisk
  2. Four primary partitions example
  3. Mixed primary and logical partitions example
  4. Submitted Examples

6. Scripting

7. Working with Partitions
  1. Formatting Partitions
  2. Labeling Partitions
  3. Activating Swap Space
  4. Mounting Partitions
8. Setting up Swap Space

9. How to recover a deleted partition table

10. Appendix
  1. Fragmentation
Copyright (c) 1997-2005 by Anthony Lissot and Kristian Koehntopp
Please freely copy and distribute (sell or give away) this document in any format. It's requested that corrections and/or comments be fowarded to the document maintainer. You may create a derivative work and distribute it provided that you:
Send your derivative work (in the most suitable format such as sgml) to the LDP (Linux Documentation Project) or the like for posting on the Internet. If not the LDP, then let the LDP know where it is available.
License the derivative work with this same license or use GPL. Include a copyright notice and at least a pointer to the license used.
Give due credit to previous authors and major contributors.
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