Using the Linux fdisk Program

At the fdisk prompt, type m for a list of commands. Table 2.6 lists the available commands.

To begin the partitioning, select the p command (press <p><Return>) to display the current partition table, which should reflect the drive you partitioned earlier with the DOS FDISK program. Listing 2.1 shows a possible listing from the p command.

Listing 2.1 Example of a Current Partition Table

Disk /dev/hda: 15 heads, 17 sectors, 1024 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 255 * 512 bytes



Device       Boot  Begin   Start   End    Blocks    Id   System

/dev/hda1    *     1       1       41     5219      1    DOS 12-bit FAT

dev/hda2           1024    1024    4040   384667+   51  Novell?

Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:

phys=(967, 14, 17) Logical=(4096, 14.17)

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NOTE:  Your screen may appear different than what’s shown in Listing 2.1, because the values are different for each drive type and the partitions already defined on that drive.

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Listing 2.1 indicates the various partitions already defined that it can detect, the start and ending locations of the partition, and how big it is in blocks. The listing also indicates the partition type. Table 2.7 shows all the different types of partitions you can define with the Linux fdisk program. The primary partition types you used are 83-Linux Native and 82-Linux Swap. You can get a similar listing with the l command.

In Listing 2.1, Linux prints a note about the different physical and logical endings at the bottom of the screen. The difference exists because on the system used to write this chapter, a prior partition containing the DOS D drive was left intact, whereas the C drive was repartitioned to a smaller C drive to make room for Linux. Thus, there’s space between the C drive and the D drive. This is where the necessary partitions required by Linux will be created.

The begin, start, and end numbers from Listing 2.1 are very important and you should write them down. You’ll need them in a later step to specify the necessary sizes of the partitions you’ll add.