HDD

Apart from the last step, setting up /etc/fstab there are no differences between partitioning a HDD or SSD drive. All modern Linux partitioning tools take care of aligning the partitions automatically.

Create a simple Linux GPT partition layout (UEFI)

Code: GPT partition layout for UEFI

/dev/sda1 200 MiB /boot/efi EF00 vfat EFI System Partition /dev/sda2 500 MiB /boot 8300 ext4 Linux filesystem /dev/sda3 512 MiB 8200 swap Linux swap /dev/sda4 25 GiB / 8300 ext4 Linux filesystem

# gdisk /dev/sda

Code: gdisk commands

Command (? for help): p Disk /dev/sda: 156301488 sectors, 74.5 GiB [...] n 1 enter +200M EF00 c 1 EFI System Partition n 2 enter +500M 8300 n 3 enter +512M 8200 n 4 enter enter 8300 p w Y

Create a simple Linux GPT partition layout (Legacy BIOS)

Code: GPT partition layout for legacy BIOS

/dev/sda1 1 MiB EF02 BIOS boot BIOS boot partition /dev/sda2 100 MiB /boot 8300 ext4 Linux filesystem /dev/sda3 512 MiB 8200 swap Linux swap /dev/sda4 25 GiB / 8300 ext4 Linux filesystem

# gdisk /dev/sda

Code: gdisk commands

Command (? for help): p Disk /dev/sda: 156301488 sectors, 74.5 GiB [...] n 1 enter +1M EF02 n 2 enter +100M 8300 n 3 enter +512M 8200 n 4 enter enter 8300 p w Y

Create the filesystems

Only for UEFI:

# mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sda1

# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2

# mkswap /dev/sda3

# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda4

Label the filesystems

# tune2fs -L boot /dev/sda2

# mkswap -L swap /dev/sda3

# tune2fs -L root /dev/sda4

And verify with:

# blkid

Mount the filesystems

# mkdir -p /mnt/exherbo

# swapon /dev/sda3

# mount /dev/sda4 /mnt/exherbo

# mkdir /mnt/exherbo/boot

# mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/exherbo/boot

Optional: For installation or rescue purposes you might also need to mount the following.

# mount -o rbind /dev /mnt/exherbo/dev/

# mount -o bind /sys /mnt/exherbo/sys/

# mount -t proc none /mnt/exherbo/proc/

Configure /etc/fstab

List the UUIDs with:

# blkid

For HDDs

File: /etc/fstab

UUID=0930a69b-f2d5-4607-93fe-4f8bfdf2ea87       /boot   ext4    defaults        0 2
UUID=8431f5f2-0cb1-4831-aed2-00d618543e0a       swap    swap    defaults        0 0
UUID=cf602240-7bac-4b29-8930-2080a5aac7cd       /       ext4    defaults        0 1

For SSDs

• You could go for relatime as a compromise instead, but there are currently no known issues (exception is mutt) when using noatime
• discard enables the TRIM function which should be available on all modern SSDs, check with
  # hdparm -I /dev/sda
• mdraid, dm-crypt and the loopback block driver support passing discard commands to the underlying layer(s) since kernel 3.7

File: /etc/fstab

UUID=0930a69b-f2d5-4607-93fe-4f8bfdf2ea87       /boot   ext4    defaults,noatime,discard,noauto        0 2
UUID=8431f5f2-0cb1-4831-aed2-00d618543e0a       swap    swap    defaults                               0 0
UUID=cf602240-7bac-4b29-8930-2080a5aac7cd       /       ext4    defaults,noatime,discard               0 1

Then proceed to configure GRUB and your Kernel.