* A disk is divided up into **partitions** which are subsections of the overall disk. The kernel presents each partition as a [block device](./Devices.md#Devices.md) as it would with an entire disk.
* The disk dedicates a small part of its contents to a **partition table**: this defines the different partitions that comprise the total disk space.
* The **filesystem** is a database of files and directories: this comprises the bulk of the partition and is what you interact with in [user space](./User_Space.md) when reading and writing data.
Whenever you install a Linux distribution on a real or virtual machine, you must partition the drive. There are three main tools to choose from: `parted`, `g(raphical)parted`, `fdisk`.
The two tools disclose that the main harddrive is `/dev/nvme0n1` (equivalent to `sda` on older machines running Linux) and it has the standard three partitions:
* This takes up the smallest amount of space and exists in order to bootstrap the operating system: to load the kernel into memory when the machine starts. This is where your bootloader is stored and that will be accessed by the BIOS. In Linux this will be GRUB.
* This is the domain of the [superuser](./User_Space.md#root-user-superuser). The part of the filesystem that you need sudo priveleges to access and where you manage users
