lfs-book/chapter03/creatingpart.xml

<sect1 id="ch04-creatingpart">
<title>Creating a new partition</title>

<para>First, let's start with telling you that it is possible to build LFS 
on only one partition, which is where your original distribution is 
installed. This is not recommended if it is the first time you try LFS, 
but may be useful if you are short on disk space. If you feel brave, take 
a look at the one partition hint at <ulink 
url="&hints-root;one-partition-hint.txt">&hints-root;one-partition-hint.txt</ulink>
Keep in mind, this is a real hint in that sense of the word, not a 
finished document yet.</para>

<para>Before we can build our new Linux system, we need to have an empty Linux
partition on which we can build our new system. I recommend a partition size
of at least 750 MB. This gives enough space to store all the tarballs and 
to compile all packages without worrying about running out of the necessary 
temporary disk space. But you probably want more space than that if you
plan to use the LFS system as your primary Linux system. If that's the
case you'd want more space so you can install additional software. If a 
Linux Native partition is already available, this subsection can be 
skipped.</para>

<para>The cfdisk program (or another fdisk like program you prefer) is
to be started with the appropriate hard disk as the option (like /dev/hda 
if a new partition is to be created on the primary master IDE disk). It is 
used to create a Linux Native partition, write the partition table and exit 
the  cfdisk program. Please refer to the documentation that comes with your
fdisk program of choice (the man pages are often a good place to start)
and read the procedures about how to create a new Linux native
partition and how to write the partition table.</para>

<para>The new partition's designation should be remembered. It 
could be something like hda11. This newly created partition will be 
referred to as the LFS partition in this book.</para>

</sect1>