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Step 3 Partition and format the CF card

To skip this step: create primary partition 1 as an 8MB, bootable MSDOS (type 4) partition, and primary partition 2 as non-bootable Linux (type 83) taking up the rest of the card

For this step you will require admin privileges on the Linux machine. The easiest way to do this is type su and the root password, but if you're overly concerned or don't have root access you can type sudo for the important commands and give your user password.

Type fdisk /dev/XXX where XXX is the device identifier we found earlier. From now on I will refer to it as XXX.

Type p to print the partition table- if an entry such as this appears, type d to delete it. Type p to check there are no remaining partitions- if there are, type d again to remove any remaining ones. See image 1

Now type n for a new partition, p for primary, 1 for partition 1, 1 to start it at the beginning of the disk, 8M to make it 8MB in size
a then 1 to make it bootable
t then 4 to make it a type 4 (DOS) partition. Type p again to check your current partition table. See image 2

Now type n for a new partition, p for primary, 2 for partition 2, 9 (or the lowest number available) to start it after the end of the DOS partition, 1023 (or the highest number available) to make it fill the remaining space
t then 83 to make it type 83 (Linux)
p again to make sure your partition table looks like picture ####.

w to write your changes to the card, then q to quit.

Now if you type ls /dev/XXX* again you should see XXX for the CF card, XXX1 for the DOS partition and XXX2 for the Linux partition. If this happens- congratulations, you've done the most difficult part of this Instructable. Drink deeply from your flask of weak lemon drink to congratulate yourself on your victory of the machine.