existing partition of a specific type is then assigned the second configuration file declaring the same
type, and so on. After this iterative assigning is complete any left-over existing partitions that have
no matching configuration file are considered "foreign" and left as they are. And any configuration
- files for which no partition currently exists are understood as a request to create such a
- partition.</para></listitem>
-
- <listitem><para>Taking the size constraints and weights declared in the configuration files into
- account, all partitions that shall be created are now allocated to the disk, taking up all free space,
- always respecting the size and padding requests. Similarly, existing partitions that should be grown
- are grown. New partitions are always appended to the end of the partition table, taking the first
- partition table slot whose index is greater than the indexes of all existing partitions. Partition
- table slots are never reordered and thus partition numbers are ensured to remain stable. Note that this
+ files for which no partition currently exists are understood as a request to create such a partition.
+ </para></listitem>
+
+ <listitem><para>Partitions that shall be created are now allocated on the disk, taking the size
+ constraints and weights declared in the configuration files into account. Free space is used within the
+ limits set by size and padding requests. In addition, existing partitions that should be grown are
+ grown. New partitions are always appended to the end of the partition table, taking the first partition
+ table slot whose index is greater than the indexes of all existing partitions. Partitions are never
+ reordered and thus partition numbers remain stable. When partitions are created, they are placed in the
+ smallest area of free space that is large enough to satisfy the size and padding limits. This means
+ that partitions might have different order on disk than in the parition table. Note that this
allocation happens in memory only, the partition table on disk is not updated yet.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>All existing partitions for which configuration files exist and which currently have no