[frostypepper]

Whilst installing Ubuntu 9.10 minimal install I was given the option to pick a partition table type. I am partitioning and formating my partitions in ext3 (as I have heard ext4 can cause some corruptions sometimes). I was given a slew of partition table options and am not sure which to go with. Msdos, sun, etc? Any help or incite is appreciated.

One other question, do I need a swap partition? I was reading that it needs to match your ram size for hibernation, but my boot drive is a tiny disk-on-module (2Gb). I am not concerned with hibernation, can I leave out the swap? I read some posts on the ubuntu forums that this is an ok practice.

[hikaricore]

Ext4 is pretty stable these days, there were issues when the filesystem was first released.
Ext3 should be fine for anything you ever need, stick with that unless you really feel like changing for whatever reason.

As far as swap is concerned unless you're going to be running a ton of applications at once (IE not just xbmc) you should be fine with none.
If you do run into a problem later you can always just make a swap file instead of actually partitioning space for it.

Hope this helps. ^_^

[frostypepper]

Thanks for the input hikaricore, I believe I will see what no swap drive does for me.

Does anyone else know what sort of partition table type I should use? I went through a advanced install with minimal 9.10. I ended up using a msdos partition table type(with a ext3 file system) as it looked like it was selected by default. I am just not sure what the best option is or if it even matters.

[frostypepper]

So nobody knows about partition table types? I have asked wide and far, seems nobody has a clue.

[sraue]

So nobody knows about partition table types? I have asked wide and far, seems nobody has a clue.

its a bit not clear what you mean, if you mean the partition type, that should be "Linux" (83) under (s)fdisk.

about the swap partition/file: you dont need this, because you boot from an flashdrive (DOM) i would prefer to use nerver an swapfile or partition. later i would also mount some of directories as an tmpfs filesystem (like /tmp, /var/tmp, /var/log etc..)

[frostypepper]

Woohoo got a answer (thanks to srs5694 on the ubuntu forums), thought I would pass it along. When doing a advanced install of ubuntu you will eventually be given the option to pick what sort of of partition table type (not partition type like ext3, ext4, swap, etc). Your options are:

aix
amiga
bsd
dvh
gpt
mac
msdos
pc98
sun
loop

It picks msdos by default, this is best if you are dual booting with windows.

Here is a blatant copy/paste from my other post in the ubuntu forums from srs5694:

"For a Linux-only system, either Master Boot Record (MBR; called "msdos" by most libparted-based tools) or GUID Partition Table (GPT) will work fine. MBR is more common, but GPT has some advantages, including support for larger disks (MBR tops out at 2TiB), partition names, no confusing or limiting primary/extended/logical partition distinctions, on-disk backups of partition table data, and CRC values to help spot corrupt partition tables. The biggest drawback to GPT is compatibility; not all OSes support it, and Windows in particular can't boot from GPT on BIOS-based computers (although Windows Vista and later, and some earlier versions, can read GPT data disks).

Overall, then, for a Linux-only system, or for a system that boots Linux and other GPT-friendly OSes (such as FreeBSD or Mac OS X), I'd go with GPT. If the system must dual-boot Windows, I'd go with MBR (except possibly on disks from which Windows doesn't boot, depending on the Windows version). If you go GPT, be sure to create a BIOS Boot Partition, which is a partition type that GRUB 2 uses on GPT disks to improve its reliability. To do this, create a small (~30KB-1MB) partition and set the bios_grub flag in parted or GParted or set the partition type code to EF02 in gdisk.

That said, if you pick MBR for a Linux-only system, it's not the end of the world. Linux has been using MBR for a long time; it's just that GPT is an improvement, and a modest one for most disks."

Thanks to all who contributed, and thanks to srs5694! I hope this helps someone in the future.