DiskSpace

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Required partitions
Overview
Root partition (always required)
Swap (very recommended)
Separate /boot (sometimes required)
BIOS-Boot or EFI partition (required on GPT disks)
Optional partitions
Partition for sharing data with Windows, MacOS... (optional)
Separate /home (optional)
More Complex Schemes
Space Requirements
Absolute Requirements
Installation on a small disk

The goal of this page is to offer advice and strategy on partitioning a Linux system.

Required partitions
Overview
The easiest partitioning scheme, on a non-GPT disk, is simply a root partition and a swap partition.
Nam
Size
e
swap

size of RAM

the rest of the disk

If the disk is GPT type (this can be checked via the "sudo parted -l" command), you must also add a
BIOS-Boot or an EFI partition depending on the boot mode of your BIOS.
Name
Size
BIOS-boot or EF
I

see below

swap

size of RAM

the rest of the disk

On some computers, a separate /boot partition may also be required.

See paragraphs below.

Root partition (always required)

Mount point: /
Type: Linux type (generally EXT4)
Description: the root partition contains by default all your system files, program settings
and documents.
Size: minimum is 8 GB. It is recommended to make it at least 15 GB. Warning: your
system will be blocked if the root partition is full.

Swap (very recommended)

Mount point: none
Type: SWAP

Description: see SwapFaq.

Size: size of your RAM.

Separate /boot (sometimes required)

Some computers can't see boot files (/boot) if located far (>100GB) from the start of the disk. This is
why it is sometimes necessary to create a separate /boot partition at the start of the disk. Remark:
don't use the same /boot for several Linux distributions, as it may mix up their kernels. See this
tutorial if you want to create a separate /boot after installing Ubuntu.
Nam
Size
e
/boot 250MB ~ 1GB
swap

at least size of RAM

minimum 8 GB, at least 15 GB

recommended

BIOS-Boot or EFI partition (required on GPT disks)

If you want to install Ubuntu on a GPT disk (you can check it via the 'sudo parted -l' command), you
will need either an EFI partition (if your BIOS is set up in EFI mode) or a BIOS-Boot partition (if your
BIOS is set up in Legacy mode).
BIOS-Boot partition:
Mount point: none
Type: no filesystem
Description: the BIOS-boot partition contains GRUB 2's core. It is necessary if you install
Ubuntu on a GPT disk, and if the firmware (BIOS) is set up in Legacy (not EFI) mode. It
must be located at the start of a GPT disk, and have a "bios_grub" flag.
Size: 1MB.
EFI partition:
Mount point: /boot/efi (no need to set up this mount point as the installer will do it
automatically)
Type: FAT (generally FAT32)
Description: the EFI partition (also called ESP) contains some boot files. It is necessary if
the firmware (BIOS) is set up to boot the HDD in EFI mode (which is default on more and
more modern, > year 2011 computers). It must be located at the start of a GPT disk, and
have a "boot" flag.
Size: 100~250MB

Optional partitions
Optionally, some other partitions can be created for specific usages. Be careful, these partitions
reduce the flexibility of your disk space, they must be considered only if you are sure not to fill
completely your root partition (which would block your system).

Partition for sharing data with Windows, MacOS...

(optional)
Mount point: /media/thenameyouwish
Type: to share data with Windows, choose NTFS. To share data with MacOS, choose HFS+.
To share data with another Linux system, choose EXT4.
Description: other operating systems (Windows, MacOS..) cannot read nor write in the
Ubuntu partitions, but Ubuntu can read and write in any partition. If you want to share
files between Ubuntu and the other systems, it is recommended to create a data partition.
It is not recommended to share files directly into the Windows system partition (eg files
may be overwritten by hibernation).
Size: as you wish

Separate /home (optional)

Mount point: /home
Type: Linux type (generally EXT4)

Description: see HomeFolder. When your hard disk is big enough, a

separate /home allows to separate your settings (and also your data if you don't use a
data partition, see previous paragraph) from the rest of the system. A
separate /home does not allow to share data with Windows nor MacOS (see previous
paragraph).
Size: as you wish

More Complex Schemes

For more information on what various directories are used for, see The Linux Filesystem
Hierarchy.
More complex schemes could involve creating a separate partition for any number of the default
folders used by Ubuntu. System critical folders are important to protect, and since drives, and / or
partitions do fail, it is often useful to have your file system broken down into as many small parts as
possible. This can be over done however. Installing every core directory to its own partition could
cause a noticeable degradation of performance.
Bearing that in mind, the following directories should NEVER be placed in their own separate
partitions:
Nam
Description
e
This directory stores the system wide executables that are accessible by most
/bin

users.

This directory holds the executables used for core system functions, and used by
/sbin the system administrator
to maintain the system. See Note Below
This is a system use directory containing process information. Almost never
/proc
/dev

accessed by a user.
This directory contains system created links to your installed hardware, and
like /proc is almost never accessed directly.

Note about /sbin

It can be argued, and reasonably so, that moving this directory to its own partition is a wise choice. If
any of your partitions or drives should fail, then this directory / partition will be the one that most
likely contains the tools you will need to repair it. So while moving this would decrease performance
marginally, it could also be considered a wise move.

Sizes For Alternative Schemes

On a six month old installation of Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS the disk usage could resemble something like
this: (examples taken from my own system with many extra packages installed)
Actual
Name

Size

Recommended Partition Size

/home

179.5 GB

Everything not used elsewhere, or separate drive.

/usr

7.6 GB

10 GB

/var

988.2 MB

2 GB

/lib

599.9 MB

5 GB

/boot

137.1 MB

250 MB

/opt

95.3 MB

500 MB to 5 GB This directory is not used by mainline software

packages, but mostly from packages coming from
theuniverse repositories. If you do not use
the universe repositories often, you probably will not need much
space here.

/etc

18.8 MB

250 MB

/sbin

7.8 MB

250 MB

/bin

6.5 MB

250 MB

/dev

876.0 KB

DO NOT PARTITION
Unless you plan on installing web served data here, or are using a
Server version of Ubuntu, this will not often need to be larger than

/srv

200 KB

100 MB. If you are running a server, or plan to expand it yourself,

plan ahead when sizing this.
This can get fairly large, but not larger than your swap space as a
rule, so size this to match /swap

/tmp

88 KB
8 kB (do
not
partition)

This is just an empty directory that serves as a mount point for

/mnt
/
media

8 kB (do
not
partition)

This contains subdirectories that are mount points for removable

temporary file systems, e.g. a rarely used network filesystem.

media like CDs and USB flash drives.

The above recommendations assume you are using large modern hard drives and can afford the
space.

Space Requirements
This information was taken from forum/installation/DiskSpace. The original article was last
edited on 2006-05-28, thus it is probably out of date and should be verified.

Absolute Requirements
The required disk space for an out-of-the-box Ubuntu installation is said to be 15 GB. However, that
does not take into account the space needed for a file-system or a swap partition.
It is more realistic to give yourself a little bit more than 15 GB of space. Give yourself 15-25 GB to
have some space left for actually doing things. If your file-system is full to the brim, you will feel
some performance loss.
A certain percentage of an ext3 file-system is dedicated to root, as a way of preventing a rogue
process from filling the disk to the point that the system is unusable. This dedicated portion is 5% by
default. Also, the anti-fragmentation strategies used by Linux file-systems require that the disk is
not close to full. A rule of thumb is to keep them less than 90% full.

Installation on a small disk

(This section is out-of-date & may need research for sizes) During a normal install, the installer copies
the packages from the CD to the hard drive (in addition to actually installing them). If you are short
on disk space before you install, you can tell the installer not to use extra disk space. The packages
take up about xxx Mb. You will be able to install a full Ubuntu system with less than xx GB of hard
drive space.
At the installation prompt (just after you boot from CD) type:
linux archive-copier/copy=false