lfs-book/chapter02/creatingpartition.xml

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<sect1 id="space-creatingpartition">
<title>Creating a new partition</title>
<?dbhtml filename="creatingpartition.html"?>

<para>In order to build our new Linux system, we will need some space:
an empty disk partition. If you don't have a free partition, and no room
on any of your hard disks to make one, then you could build LFS on the
same partition as the one on which your current distribution is installed.
This procedure is not recommended for your first LFS install, but if you
are short on disk space, and you feel brave, take a look at the hint at
<ulink url="&hints-root;lfs_next_to_existing_systems.txt"/>.</para>

<para>For a minimal system you will need a partition of around 1.3 GB.
This is enough to store all the source tarballs and compile all the packages.
But if you intend to use the LFS system as your primary Linux system, you
will probably want to install additional software, and will need more space
than this, probably around 2 or 3 GB.</para>

<para>As we almost never have enough RAM in our box, it is a good idea to
use a small disk partition as swap space -- this space is used by the kernel
to store seldom-used data to make room in memory for more urgent stuff.
The swap partition for your LFS system can be the same one as for your host
system, so you won't have to create another if your host system already uses
a swap partition.</para>

<para>Start a disk partitioning program such as <command>cfdisk</command>
or <command>fdisk</command> with an argument naming the hard disk upon
which the new partition must be created -- for example
<filename>/dev/hda</filename> for the primary IDE disk. Create a Linux native
partition and a swap partition, if needed. Please refer to the man pages of
<command>cfdisk</command> or <command>fdisk</command> if you don't yet
know how to use the programs.</para>

<para>Remember the designation of your new partition -- something like
<filename>hda5</filename>. This book will refer to it as the LFS partition.
If you (now) also have a swap partition, remember its designation too. These
names will later be needed for the <filename>/etc/fstab</filename> file.</para>

</sect1>