Partitioning with void-installer

[Void Linux]

void-installer

This is a great & powerful script similar to archinstall.
However, if you want encryption, this script is completely unable to do that.

So head on over to Void's documentation guide on Full Disk Encryption if that's what you want.

Before you jump right into void-installer, I would recommend doing lsblk if you don't already know the name of your main drive for some reason, and then do wipefs -a /dev/sdX (it'd wipe everything btw) especially if your last installation was encrypted.

Then just proceed with void-installer and do all the self-explanatory steps up until..

Bootloader

Because in case that isn't so self-explanatory, it's where you want to install GRUB. Now, obviously, you want to install it wherever you also want/have to install Void on, so select that.

You'll get prompted if you want a Graphical Terminal,
choose Yes for a nicer scaled boot menu that supports proper resolutions & you've probably seen as the default on other distros, called gfxterm.

Or No for a retro text-only layout.

Partition

Here select your disk, and pick cfdisk because if you knew how to use fdisk you wouldn't be here.
And pick GPT when asked for a label type.

Inside cfdisk, create exactly two partitions:

The boot partition

Select New -> Size: 1G -> Type -> EFI System.

And fyi EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) is basically like the smart middleman between your PC's motherboard firmware and your OS. It natively understands files and folders, allowing it to look inside a specific partition to launch GRUB.

The root partition

Select the remaining free space, New --> keep the default size.

Select Write, type yes, and then Quit.

Filesystems

You will see the two partitions you just made so configure them exactly like this:

Select the 1GB partition (/dev/sdX1):

  • Type: vfat

    VFAT (Virtual File Allocation Table) is just the Linux kernel's terminology for the FAT32 filesystem.

    Motherboard manufacturers agreed that EFI firmware should natively read FAT32 and since your motherboard needs to read your bootloader files before any Linux drivers are loaded, that 1GB /boot/efi partition must be formatted as vfat.

  • Mount point: /boot/efi
  • "Do you want to create a new filesystem?": Yes

Then select the big partition (/dev/sdX2):

  • Type: ext4
    (unless you know what you're doing with the other filesystems,
    and I genuinely do not recommend btrfs)
  • Mount point: /
  • "Do you want to create a new filesystem?": Yes

Now do < Done > and then Install.

There you go, now you're performative.