Arch Linux

Sm0uy

Member

Registered: 2024-10-26

Posts: 1

partitioning with doal booting

Hi,

I'm corrently try to install dual boot arch linux with windows11 and I run into some issues with the partition of the disks. On windows I seted up some free space (400GB) where I want to set up Linux.

# fdisk /dev/nvme0n1

>"m" (for help) > "F" (for list free unpartitioned space) > "g" (for create a new emty GPT partition table > "n" (for add new partition)

After I saw the free space with "F" I thought I'm in the free space where I can add a partition. With it i nearly over writed windows.

I couldn't find the solution to make the partition as huge as the free space on the arch linux documentation for dual boot (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Dual_boot_with_Windows (2.1.2)).
But I know it would work with

# cfdisk /dev/nvme0n1

I'm just curriens if I can also make the partitions with the other way.

And do I need to create ab additonal boot partitionon or can I use one EFI systen partition for windows and linux?

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 24,088

Re: partitioning with doal booting

It's not clear what "couldn't find a solution" means exactly. Using n for creating a new partition will default to the earliest partitionless sector for the beginning and default to the last possible sector for the end, so you should've just been able to pick the defaults - compare https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Fdisk# … ast_sector . But it ultimately doesn't matter which tool you use for creating partitions so if you're more familiar with cfdisk's interface just use cfdisk.

You can - and in fact should - be reusing the EFI system partition for linux. If you're using the default as generated by Windows chances are it's insufficiently sized to be a /boot partition that also contains kernel images. But if you opt for a bootloader like GRUB or refind which can read kernels from a "standard" linux filesystem you can keep /boot on your main partition and just mount the ESP on demand to e.g. /efi or so.