How can I set up GPT and EFI for my new raw drive?

Solution 1:

There are two separate (but related) technological dichotomies that you seem to be conflating, at least a bit:

• BIOS vs. EFI/UEFI -- This is the type of firmware in the computer; it's software that's built in to chip(s) on the motherboard. Since the 1980s, PCs have used Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) firmware, but the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) was developed in the 1990s, lurked for over a decade as an obscure option on Itanium systems, was adopted by Apple for its Intel-based Macs, and has most recently been used as a BIOS replacement on the vast majority of PCs sold since mid-2011 or thereabouts. (EFI 2.x is known as the Unified EFI, or UEFI.) Although some PCs used EFI prior to 2011, chances are your 2009 laptop is not one of them, so you really can't use EFI on it. (You might be able to get a "software EFI" such as DUET or Clover to work on your system, but this is more trouble than it's worth for most people.)
• MBR vs. GPT -- PCs have historically used the Master Boot Record (MBR) partitioning system. This is just a set of standards for how to arrange data on the disk so that the OS can find the partitions. EFI includes a new partitioning system known as the GUID Partition Table (GPT), which eliminates many MBR kludges and limitations. Although GPT is defined as part of the EFI specification, it may be used even on older BIOS-based computers. GPTs biggest advantages are with disks over 2TiB in size, which MBR can't handle. On smaller disks, GPT has several minor advantages, but nothing compelling enough to make switching to it a necessity for most users. Note that some OSes, including Windows, cannot boot from GPT disks except in EFI mode -- and of course most older OSes, such as DOS and most versions of Windows prior to Vista SP1, can't boot in EFI mode or use GPT even for data disks.

The term "EFI partition" is somewhat ambiguous because that is not, AFAIK, an official moniker. In the paragraph you quoted, it seems to be referring to an EFI System Partition (ESP), which is a partition on which EFI boot loaders and similar EFI tools are stored. An ESP is 100% useless on a BIOS-based computer, so if your laptop is BIOS-based, as I suspect, there's no point in creating an ESP even if you use GPT. BIOS-based computers that have GPT disks and boot with GRUB instead use a BIOS Boot Partition, which is a small (typically 1MiB) partition that holds part of GRUB. The BIOS Boot Partition is identified in different ways depending on the partitioning tool you use. In parted, GParted, and other libparted-based tools, it has a bios_grub flag set. In gdisk and its siblings, it's identified by a type code of EF02.

If you pre-partition your disk and want to use GPT, create a BIOS Boot Partition and whatever other partitions you'd normally use. If you anticipate eventually moving the disk to a newer EFI-based computer, you might create an ESP, too, but that's almost certainly just a (small) waste of disk space at this time. (ESPs are typically 100-600MiB in size.)

Solution 2:

If your system comes pre-installed with UEFI firmware (which is a BIOS replacement) and you want the novelty and the experience, then keep it!

If your system doesn't come with UEFI: don't bother as UEFI was supposed to give us more freedom, but most vendors use it to lock you in and take your freedom away!

GPT is an entirely different question: Go for it! Finally more then 4 primary partitions per disk! The only disadvantage is that you'll have to give up on old trusty fdisk and use parted instead.

parted /dev/XdY

(where X and Y are very probably "s" and "a"). Then:

mklabel gpt

and hit Y

From the GUI, start gparted, menu device, partition table , GPT. :-)