Pistonite VM

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Disk Setup ​

This is 1.9-1.11 from https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Installation_guide

Find the Virtual Disk ​

Run fdisk -l to list the disks. You should see the virtual disk like this

Disk /dev/sda: 256 GiB, 274877906944 bytes, 536870912 sectors
Disk model: Virtual Disk
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk /dev/sda: 256 GiB, 274877906944 bytes, 536870912 sectors
Disk model: Virtual Disk
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes

In this guide, we will setup the EFI partition, a swap partition, and a root partition. You can setup more partitions if you want.

Create the partitions ​

We will have:

  1. 1GB for the EFI partitions, for 2 kernels we will be installing later
  2. 8GB for the swap partition
  3. The rest for the root partition

Run the following to enter parted. Replace /dev/sda with the disk you want to partition.

bash
parted -a optimal /dev/sda
parted -a optimal /dev/sda

Then do this:

  1. Create a GPT partition table
    mklabel gpt
    mklabel gpt
  2. Create a partition for EFI
    mkpart primary fat32 0% 1GiB
    mkpart primary fat32 0% 1GiB
  3. Set it as the EFI System Partition
    set 1 esp on
    set 1 esp on
  4. Create the swap partition of 8GiB (9-1=8)
    mkpart primary 1GiB 9GiB
    mkpart primary 1GiB 9GiB
  5. Create the root partition
    mkpart primary 9GiB 100%
    mkpart primary 9GiB 100%
  6. print to make sure everything is OK
    Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name     Flags
1      1049kB  1074MB  1073MB  fat32        primary  boot, esp
2      1074MB  9664MB  8590MB               primary
3      9664MB  275GB   265GB                primary
    Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name     Flags
1      1049kB  1074MB  1073MB  fat32        primary  boot, esp
2      1074MB  9664MB  8590MB               primary
3      9664MB  275GB   265GB                primary
  7. quit to exit parted

Format the partitions ​

Run fdisk -l again to see the partitions and their labels

Disk /dev/sda: 256 GiB, 274877906944 bytes, 536870912 sectors
...

Device        Start       End   Sectors  Size Type
/dev/sda1      2048   2097151   2095104 1023M EFI System
/dev/sda2   2097152  18874367  16777216    8G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda3  18874368 536868863 517994496  247G Linux filesystem
Disk /dev/sda: 256 GiB, 274877906944 bytes, 536870912 sectors
...

Device        Start       End   Sectors  Size Type
/dev/sda1      2048   2097151   2095104 1023M EFI System
/dev/sda2   2097152  18874367  16777216    8G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda3  18874368 536868863 517994496  247G Linux filesystem

Then run

  1. Format the EFI partition
    bash
    mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/sda1
    mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/sda1

TIP

The difference between vfat and fat is that vfat supports longer file names. Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table. You can also run mkfs.fat though.

  1. Format the swap partition and label it swap
    bash
    mkswap -L swap /dev/sda2
    mkswap -L swap /dev/sda2
  2. Format the root partition and label it root
    bash
    mkfs.ext4 -L root /dev/sda3
    mkfs.ext4 -L root /dev/sda3

TIP

Formatting the root partition might be a bit slower than the other partitions

Mount the file systems ​

  1. Mount the root partition to /mnt
    mount /dev/sda3 /mnt
    mount /dev/sda3 /mnt
  2. Mount the EFI partition to /mnt/boot
    mount --mkdir /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
    mount --mkdir /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
  3. Enable the swap volume
    swapon /dev/sda2
    swapon /dev/sda2