Wheezy Installer Auto-Partition Oddity

[Patrick Bartek <bartek047@yahoo.com>]

In preparation of a clean install of Wheezy, I did a test install in VirtualBox 3.1.8 running under  Fedora 12 64-bit.  To save time, I used the installer's default partitioning scheme.  Normally I custom partition.  Anyway, I noticed an oddity:  There are gaps between the partitions.  Sizable ones.  Plus, sda1 starts at 2048, not 1.  I don't know if this is due to the installer partitioner or a quirk in VirtualBox.  I noticed this on a VB install of Debian 6, too, on the same system.  Anybody got any ideas on the why?  Wasn't able to find anything applicable on net searches.

Here's the output for fdisk -l on the Wheezy virtual hard drive.

Disk /dev/sda: 8589 MB, 8589934592 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1044 cylinders, total 16777216 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000d6c53

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048    15988735     7993344   83  Linux
/dev/sda2        15990782    16775167      392193    5  Extended
/dev/sda5        15990784    16775167      392192   82  Linux swap / Solaris


Thanks.

B