What is the difference between the Linux and Linux LVM partition type?

Solution 1:

The partition type byte is just that, a single byte in the Partition Table that holds a value that should relate to the file system inside the associated partition. It's really just a hint of what methods the OS should try when attempting to read/mount 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 it 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 file system'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 Partition Type should be a lot more straightforward than LVM for the OS to deal with. Either way the booting kernel would benefit from knowing what to try first.