Create GPT Partitions Manually: The screenshot below shows the number and type of partitions created by the installer using its automated mode on computers with UEFI firmware and UEFI enabled. Notice that there are only three partitions, one of type efi, a root partition, and a Swap partition. On UEFI systems, the efi partition takes the place of a traditional boot partition. For this exercise, I’ll show how to create an extra partition for home, to make a total of four GPT partitions.

Assuming that you have freed up enough space on the target hard drive, select it, then click on the Add button to open the partition editor.

Here’s the partition editor’s window. It’s the same one that you saw in the MBR section, so it needs no introduction. In order, we’ll be creating a boot EFI partition, a root partition, a partition for /home, and one for Swap.

For the EFI partition, the default size used by the installer is around 550 MB. So that should work here too. From the “Use as” menu, select EFI boot partition. OK.

For the root partition, set the mount point to /, the file system to Ext4 journaling file system, which is the default. For the size, 20 GB (20,000 MB) should be enough, considering that the minimum recommended is 9.2 GB. OK.

For the home partition, set the mount point to /home, the file system the same as that for root, and a suitable size for disk space. OK.

For the Swap partition, a size of 2 GB to 4 GB should do. Select swap area from the “Use as” menu, then click OK.

Back to the main partitioning window, all the newly created partitions should be listed. That’s all it takes to create a custom set of partitions for Linux Mint 17 KDE using a GPT partitioning scheme.

Creating LVM Partitions Manually: The installer can create encrypted and unencrypted LVM volumes in automated mode. However, that’s not the case with the Advanced Partitioning Tool. This screenshot shows the default partitions created by the installer when an automated LVM partition method is selected. Automatic LVM partitioning works great if Linux Mint 17 KDE is the only OS to be installed on the target hard drive, but not for a dual-boot setup.

But even for a standalone system, attempting to create manual partitions for an encrypted LVM system does not work. At least on my system it did not work. To create such a system, you would have to select physical volume for encryption from the partition editor’s “Use as” menu.

After that, the attempt failed with the error message shown in this screenshot.

Followed by this one, after I dismissed the previous window.

That ended my attempt to create encrypted LVM partitions manually on real hardware for Linux Mint 17 KDE.

This tutorial provides a handy, manual disk partitioning guide for the KDE edition of Linux Mint 17, which comes with an installer that has an interface that’s slightly different from that used on the Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce editions.
The installer has automatic and manual disk partitioning options, with support for UEFI systems, which means that the installer is able to create partitions based on an MBR or a GPT partitioning scheme. In the automated mode, there’s support for creating plain-vanilla (no encryption) LVM partitions, and also for encrypted LVM partitions.
If the 3-letter acronyms used so far are foreign to you, take a few moments and read Guide to disks and disk partitions in Linux and The Benefits of Using Linux Logical Volume Manager.
And while you are at it, you also need to download an installation image of Linux Mint 17 KDE, which is available here. After downloading it, you may burn it to a DVD or transfer it to a USB stick. Using a USB stick is recommended. See this forum post for how to get it done in Linux.
Whether the installer creates MBR- or GPT-based partitions depends on what form of the installer you boot into. You can see the (two) options by accessing the computer’s boot menu. When you reboot the computer with the installation media in the optical drive or in a USB port, press the F key that will bring up the computer’s boot menu. It’s usually one of the high F keys. On my computer, it’s the F11 key. Accessing the boot menu allows you to choose what form of the installer to boot into. If your computer’s boot menu is anything like mine, you should see two entries for the installation media. One should start with USB: …, while the other should start with UEFI: …. Booting into the former will allow you to create partitions based on an MBR scheme, even on a computer with UEFI firmware, while booting into the latter will allow you to create partitions based on a GPT partitioning scheme.

In this tutorial, I’ll offer, where possible, a step-by-step on how to create partitions manually based on the different schemes – MBR, GPT and LVM. This screenshot shows the installer’s disk partitioning types or methods. All the partitioning schemes work very well in the automated options shown in this screenshot. However, not all are supported when creating partitions manually. Manual disk partitioning is made possible by the installer’s Advanced Partition Tool.

To access the Advanced Partition Tool, you would select the Manual option as shown in this screenshot. The rest of this tutorial will show how to create partitions using the Advanced Partition Tool.

Create MBR Partitions Manually: Partitions of this type are created on older computers or on newer computers, that is, those with UEFI firmware, after booting into the non-UEFI form of the installer. This screenshot shows the list of partitions created by the installer’s automated mode. Just two partitions are created – one for the main (root) partition and another for Swap. When creating partitions manually, it might be necessary to create a separate partition for the boot program and its files, and also a separate one to house users’ home directories.

To create partitions manually, there has to be enough free space on the target hard drive. If there’s not going to be another operating system on the hard drive, delete any existing partitions to create the free space. If the Linux Mint 17 KDE installation is going to share the hard drive with another OS, like Windows 7 or Windows 8, you may have to shrink the Windows C drive to create enough free space. See How to resize or shrink a partition or the C drive in Windows 7.
Once the free space is ready for use, select it and click on the Add button.

That should open the partition editor, shown in this screenshot. To demonstrate how to create the partitions, four will be created here. One each for the boot partition, the main (root) partition, the home partition, and a Swap partition. In the partition editor’s window, you need to specify a size, file system (chosen from the “Use as” menu) and a mount point.
For the boot partition, which should be mounted at /boot, a size of 250 MB should be more than enough. From the “Use as” menu, select Ext2 file system. That, by the way, is the default. Click OK.

For the root partition, set the mount point to / and the file system to Ext4 journaling file system. For the size, 20 GB (20,000 MB) should be enough, considering that the minimum recommended is 9.2 GB. Click OK.

For the home partition, set the mount point to /home, the file system the same as that for root, and a suitable size for the disk space OK.

For the Swap partition, the trend in Linux distributions is to allocate anywhere from 2 GB to 4 GB. On older, 32-bit systems, 2 GB should do. Select swap area from the “Use as” menu, then click OK.

Back to the main partitioning window, all the newly created partitions should be listed. That’s all it takes to create a custom set of partitions for Linux Mint 17 KDE using an MBR partitioning scheme.

The third partition will be used for the root file system directory. About 6 GB should be more than enough for this partition, but more will be even better. For this installation, I have allocated 15 GB to it. File system is ext4, and I am creating it as a primary partition. Add. Note: A new installation of Linux Mint Debian takes up less than 3 GB of disk space.

The fourth and last partition will be used for /home, and will also be created as a primary partition, with ext4 as the file system type. Note: You do not have to create this as a primary partition. The disk space you allocate to this partition will be determined by several factors:

• If this installation will be the only OS on this disk, then you should allocate all available disk space to it – if you are creating it as the fourth primary partition. If it is an extended partition, you do not have to assign all available disk space to it.
• If you intend to dual-boot Linux Mint Debian with another distribution on a computer with a single disk (as in this example), then you should assign just the disk space you would like to use and leave the rest unallocated. The unallocated space will be detected by the other distribution’s installer as free, usable space. You avoid a situation where the other distribution’s installer will have to shrink the Linux Mint Debian partition to create room for itself.
• If you create this last partition as an extended partition, then you do not have to allocate all the available space, even if you do not want to dual-boot.

With all the partitions created, click on the check mark icon to apply the changes.

Then click on the GParted menu, and select Quit to exit GParted.

Back to the Linux Mint Debian installer, you will not see the new partitions until you click on the Refresh button.

Here they are! These are all the partitions created in GParted. The next and last task is to assign a mount point to each partition. To do that, double-click on each entry.

Double-clicking on the entry brings up this little window. Assign the appropriate mount point, and check Format. The Filesystem should be already set to what you assigned to it in GParted. OK.


When all the mount points have been assigned, click Forward to continue with the rest of the installation. Note: Do not mess with the swap partition. Do not format it. If you do, the installation will hang three steps ahead.

The next step after the disk partitioning step is where you create a user account and set the computer’s hostname. After that comes the boot loader settings step. The bootloader is GRUB and all you need to do at that step is accept the defaults. The last step is the summary page. The Linux Mint Debian installer will likely get an automatic disk partitioning feature down the road, but until then, this guide should help you with setting up a disk for installation.

Linux Mint Debian is the latest version of Linux Mint. Unlike other versions of Mint, it is not based on Ubuntu, but rather on Debian Testing, and comes with a brand new installer. Also, unlike the Ubuntu-based versions, the installer does not have an automatic disk partitioning feature – it requires manual disk partitioning with GParted.
This tutorial provides a detailed guide on how to partition a single disk for installing Linux Mint Debian, and begins at the step where the disk is detected. The three step prior to this, representing the language selection, timezone settings, and keyboard layout selection have been omitted.
All images used here were taken from an installation in a virtual environment, and is intended to mimic installation on a computer with a single disk with no other operating system on it.

The image below represents the first step in the disk partitioning process. The light-green empty space where the cursor is represents the disk space. There are no existing partition on the disk. To create partitions, click on the Edit partitions button.

The disk partitioning tool is GParted. Since this disk is a new disk, it has not been initialized, that is, it has no partition table or disk label. You will recognize an uninitialized disk by the presence of a warning or alert symbol as shown in the image below. You will have to initialize the disk before you can create partitions. To do so, click on Device > Create Partition Table…
If the disk you are trying to install to already has existing partitions, this step will not be necessary.

You will get this friendly warning. Click Apply.

With the disk initialized, time to create partitions. Notice that the alert sign has disappeared. Click on the New icon to create the first partition, or double-click on the free space and select New. For this tutorial, I am going to create four partitions for the following file system directories:

• /boot
• swap space
• /, the root file system
• /home

The first partition to create will be used for /boot. Note that at this step, you are only creating partitions. The mount points will be assigned after you exit GParted. So it is important to know what you are going to use the partition for since that will help you determine the amount of disk space to allocate to it. For the partition that will be used for /boot, 500 MB is recommended, and as the first partition, we are going to create it as a primary partition. The Label field is just to help you remember what this partition is for. You may leave it empty. Click Add when you are done.

With the first partition created, select the unallocated space and click to create the next one. Note: This step will have to be repeated for all other partitions you want to create.

This partition will be used for swap space. A size of 2 GB will do. For File system, make sure to select linux-swap. You may choose to create it as a primary or extended partition. Add.