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I recently got an Intel Compute Stick with Ubuntu 14.04 pre-installed. From the factory, it has 4 partitions:

  1. FAT16 boot 47.x MB
  2. FAT32 microsoft data 1.x MB
  3. ext4 Ubuntu 14.04 5.x MB
  4. swap

Using sudo fdisk -l and sudo parted -l, I confirmed that it is GPT/EFI. I am confused why the partitions would be arranged like this. I have just started reading about partitions and installations, not knowing anything about it previously. However, from what I read, it seems like it should be a FAT32 boot partition of minimum 100 MB, with ideal of 512MB. Also, I don't understand why there is a "Microsoft data" partition, whatever that is.

Is there some advantage to having a FAT16 partition for boot? Is there ever an advantage to FAT16 over FAT32?

Giacomo1968
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ChrisM
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1 Answers1

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FAT16 has a theoretical upper size limit of 2GB for a sector size of 512, more than enough for a 48 MB partition. The two advantages of having a FAT16 boot partition are:

  • Most operating systems can use it, including Windows 95/98/NT/2000.

  • It is efficient, both in speed and storage, on volumes smaller than 256 MB. This gives the Intel Compute Stick a shorter boot time.

The Microsoft data partition in an Intel Compute Stick with Lubuntu 20.04 installed on it wouldn't be used except if a Windows operating system is subsequently installed on a separate partition. The swap partition wouldn't be used by a fresh installation of Lubuntu 20.04 either because a fresh installation of Lubuntu 20.04 creates a swap file by default instead of a swap partition.

karel
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  • Hmmm...so, I installed Lubuntu 20.04 on the device and changed the boot partition to 100MB FAT32. But you''re saying I should have kept it as FAT16 for faster boot time, huh? 50MB FAT16 boot partition would have been better than 100MB FAT32 partition for this small device? – ChrisM May 02 '20 at 02:36
  • FAT32 is the default file system for Ubuntu boot partitions. If anything bad happens to the boot partition you can easily repair it with [Boot-Repair](https://sourceforge.net/projects/boot-repair-cd/). Since you already have a 100MB FAT32 partition that works I recommend that you keep the existing 100MB FAT32 partition. – karel May 02 '20 at 03:41
  • Curious though, doesn't this increase the chances of boot failure due to using unjournalled disks? – aggregate1166877 Aug 27 '20 at 11:29
  • Partition 2 on the ICS is the restore image for the original 14.04 system. So it's not needed for any other system, and the space may be incorporated into your root. – ubfan1 Sep 07 '20 at 22:51