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Singular file system

The simplest, most basic partitioning scheme in any Linux operating system consists of 3 partitions:

Type File System Description
EFI System Partition vfat Stores boot loaders and bootable OS images in .efi format
Root File System ext4, btrfs, XFS, or other Stores the Linux OS files (kernel, system libraries, applications, user data)
Swap Swap partition or file Stores swapped memory pages from RAM during high memory pressure

This guide assumes the following:

  • There is only 1 disk that needs partitioning
  • /dev/nvme0n1 is the primary disk

Preparing the disk

Determine the disks that are installed on your system. This can easily be done with fdisk:

fdisk -l

It outputs a list of disk devices with one or more entries similar to this:

Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 232.89 GiB, 250059350016 bytes, 488397168 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 840 
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX

The line starting the device file with /dev/ is the relevant one. Start partitioning the disk with cfdisk:

WARNING: Make sure you are modifying the correct device, else you will lose data!

cfdisk /dev/nvme0n1

If the disk has no partition table yet, cfdisk will ask you to specify one. The default partition table format for UEFI systems is gpt. Create a layout with at least 3 partitions:

Size FS Type
1G EFI System
(RAM size) Linux Swap
(remaining) Linux root (x86-64)

NOTE: Specifying the correct file system type allows some software to automatically detect and assign appropriate mount points to partitions. See Discoverable Partitions Specification for more details.

You can verfiy that the partitions have been created by running fdisk -l again:

Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 232.89 GiB, 250059350016 bytes, 488397168 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 840 
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX

Device             Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1      2048   2099199   2097152     1G EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p2   2099200  35653631  33554432    16G Linux swap
/dev/nvme0n1p3  35653632 488396799 452743168 215.9G Linux root (x86-64)

This time fdisk will also list the partitions present on the disk.

NOTE: You might notice a pattern with how Linux structures its block devices. Partitions also count as "devices" which you can interact with. Each partition has an incrementing counter attached to its name to specify its order in the partition layout.

Formatting partitions

Format the partition with the appropriate mkfs subcommand for the file system you want to use, e.g. ext4:

mkfs.fat -F 32 /dev/nvme0n1p1   # EFI System Partition
mkswap /dev/nvme0n1p2           # Swap space
mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1p3        # ext4 root file system

Next mount the file systems:

ATTENTION: Depending on which file system you chose earlier for your root file system, additional mount parameters might be beneficial or necessary, e.g. btrfs requires specifying the subvolume you want to mount. Refer to the file system's manual to determine relevant mount parameters.

mount /dev/nvme0n1p3 -o noatime /mnt
mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 --mkdir /mnt/boot
swapon /dev/nvme0n1p2
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