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Fdisk shows multiple partition types. What is the difference between choosing 83) Linux and 8e) Linux LVM?

Choosing 83) Linux also works fine for using LVM, even creating a physical volume on /dev/sdb without a partition table works.

Does picking a partition type in fdisk really matter? What is the difference in picking Linux or Linux LVM as partition type?

[root@tst-01 ~]# fdisk /dev/sdb

         sectors (command 'u').

Command (m for help): l

 0  Empty           24  NEC DOS         81  Minix / old Lin bf  Solaris
 9  AIX bootable    50  OnTrack DM      93  Amoeba          e1  DOS access
 e  W95 FAT16 (LBA) 54  OnTrackDM6      a5  FreeBSD         ee  GPT
11  Hidden FAT12    5c  Priam Edisk     a8  Darwin UFS      f1  SpeedStor
12  Compaq diagnost 61  SpeedStor       a9  NetBSD          f4  SpeedStor
18  AST SmartSleep  70  DiskSecure Mult b8  BSDI swap       fd  Linux raid auto
1c  Hidden W95 FAT3 80  Old Minix       be  Solaris boot    ff  BBT
1e  Hidden W95 FAT1

Command (m for help):
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1 Answer 1

up vote 5 down vote accepted

The partition type byte is just that, a single byte in the MBR that holds a value that should relate to the partition layout inside the associated partition. It's really just a hint of what to methods to try when reading the partition. If you didn't have this the system would need to try to read the partition using a number of types - and obviously could get this wrong.

An analogy would be that if I read a phone number and it started with 001 or 044 I could start the conversion in English with a good chance of being understood from the start - it could be wrong but there's a good chance it would be ok. If it said 033 then I could assume that starting in French would be a good idea, 039 and I could try Italian first - and so on. Basically it's a strong-indicator, but only that - it can be wrong, of the underlying partition's type.

As to what the actual difference is between those two options - well that could go on to be a very long answer but essentially LVM deals with extents and has multiple additional layers of abstraction that clearly need to be considered during boot - whereas the standard Linux PT should be a lot more starightforward than LVM. Either way the booting kernel would benefit from knowing what to try first.

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Nice analogy - I'll remember that one! –  MadHatter Jul 2 '13 at 9:30

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