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.
Relevant Partition IDs
| Partition ID | Description |
|---|---|
| EF02 | BIOS boot partition |
| EF00 | EFI System Partition |
| FD00 | Linux RAID |
| 8200 | Linux swap (auto-mounted by systemd) |
| 8300 | Linux filesystem |
| 8302 | Linux /home (auto-mounted by systemd) |
| 8303 | Linux x86 root (/) (auto-mounted by systemd) |
| 8304 | Linux x86-64 root (/) (auto-mounted by systemd) |
| 8305 | Linux ARM64 root (/) (auto-mounted by systemd) |
| 8306 | Linux /srv (auto-mounted by systemd) |
Create a simple Linux GPT partition layout (UEFI with or without secure boot)
| 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 / 8304 ext4 Linux x86-64 root (/) |
# 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 8304 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 / 8304 ext4 Linux x86-64 root (/) |
# 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 8304 p w Y |
Create the filesystems
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2
# mkswap /dev/sda3
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda4
Additional for UEFI:
# mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sda1
Label the filesystems
# tune2fs -L boot /dev/sda2
# mkswap -L swap /dev/sda3
# tune2fs -L root /dev/sda4
Additional for UEFI:
# fatlabel /dev/sda1 efi
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
Additional for UEFI:
# mkdir /mnt/exherbo/boot/efi
# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/exherbo/boot/efi
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=cf602240-7bac-4b29-8930-2080a5aac7cd / ext4 defaults 0 1 UUID=0930a69b-f2d5-4607-93fe-4f8bfdf2ea87 /boot ext4 defaults 0 2 UUID=8E3D-60F5 /boot/efi vfat umask=0077,shortname=winnt 0 0 UUID=8431f5f2-0cb1-4831-aed2-00d618543e0a swap swap defaults 0 0
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=cf602240-7bac-4b29-8930-2080a5aac7cd / ext4 defaults,noatime,discard 0 1 UUID=0930a69b-f2d5-4607-93fe-4f8bfdf2ea87 /boot ext4 defaults,noatime,discard,noauto 0 2 UUID=8E3D-60F5 /boot/efi vfat umask=0077,shortname=winnt 0 0 UUID=8431f5f2-0cb1-4831-aed2-00d618543e0a swap swap defaults 0 0
SSD: Check estimated remaining life time / Wear Leveling Count
To check the current Wear Leveling Count (supported e.g. by Samsung SSDs).
# smartctl -a /dev/sda
| Code: smartctl Wear_Leveling_Count Output |
177 Wear_Leveling_Count 0x0013 099 099 000 Pre-fail Always - 2 |
The Wear_Leveling_Count starts to count down from 100 to 01, in this example it's 099 since the drive is pretty new.