How is it possible for my multi-distro system to have more than 4 primary partitions?

Question

I have a multi distro laptop (Ubuntu MATE / Mint Cinnamon / Debian) (32-bit Inspiron 6400 2Gb ram 320GB WD HDD) that ignores the alleged limit of 4 primary partitions. I have 15 and counting.

I'm new to modern Linux and am having a play. I last had a play back in the 90s with GNU Slackware I also have an old Acer 64-bit desktop which will only allow 4 primary partitions. I might try loading another 2 distros on to see if the 5th one boosts. Any ideas why this one machine allows over 4 primary partitions and the other does not?

https://askubuntu.com/questions/629470/gpt-vs-mbr-why-not-mbr/629819 — Rinzwind, May 24 '19 at 07:07
Possible duplicate of Where can I install ubuntu if I have 4 primary partitions? Rod Smith's answer. — karel, May 24 '19 at 08:30
In summary, either the drive is GPT (no limit) or if MBR you have extended (logical) partitions. — , May 24 '19 at 17:20

score 3 · Answer 1 · edited May 24 '19 at 08:19

3

You're probably on GPT partition scheme as are all modern Linux. This ignores the partition limit the old MBR partition scheme set. GPT will also allow you to make bigger partitions than MBR.

https://www.howtogeek.com/193669/whats-the-difference-between-gpt-and-mbr-when-partitioning-a-drive/

(depending on the language or your os) to verify this you can run :

LANG=C && sudo fdisk -l | grep Disklabel

in a terminal.

you'll get:

Disklabel type: gpt
Disklabel type: gpt

edited May 24 '19 at 08:19

Zanna

70,465

answered May 24 '19 at 06:36

tatsu

3,107

2

You could add using sudo fdisk -l | grep Disklabel to be sure. – DK Bose May 24 '19 at 06:44
2

Have a look here on how to change the output of a single command "temporairement" ;-) – Fabby May 24 '19 at 07:38
1

that's very useful @Fabby ! – tatsu May 24 '19 at 08:00
1

And on a system that has French installed but has as a default English, use LANGUAGE=fr sudo fdisk --list – Fabby May 24 '19 at 08:23

How is it possible for my multi-distro system to have more than 4 primary partitions?

1 Answers1