Hello dear @csgraves,
As you wrote about parted (GNU partition editor) and Gparted ( Gnome partition editor) programs you should not do something in a wrong way basically upon by chosing any of them.
I mean if you would have use a low-level tool like fdisk or gdisk it would matter, as
fdisk is generally used to manage partitions on DOS partitioned disks (legacy way : max 4 primary partittions or 1-3 primary and N number of logical partittions until free space on disk and/or drive letters (on DOS/Windows) are out 
)
gdisk is used to manage partitions on new GPT partitioned disks ( uuid usage way : N number of partittions – which are equal (no primary or logical types) – until free space on disk are out )
So these case program does matter.
In your case chosen program just matters in case of user interface
parted - start in terminal as command line or interactive
gparted - start in graphical shell so use interactively via graphical interface
albeit you should also have to know to answer for questions what @PeterW asked
as those matters if you know the machine firmware of your Dell laptop.
-
is it BIOS ?
-
is it UEFI with Legacy BIOS option ?
-
is it UEFI only ?
I did use Gparted or graphical partition editors only during linux installations generally, but I assume there is an option nowadays to select GPT or maybe that is the default.
In parted you must add which type of partition (so the type of partition table or disklabel) you would like to create - before you create the first partition on it.
One and one another thing still you must select well -
where to put a boot loader
and
which partition is active (or bootable)
if there are/would be more than one OS on the disk. Basically this can be wrong as a user can be done during partitioning which can cause major problems.
Chose a proper or optimal size for a partittion can be problematic later, but generally not installation blocker - except some extreme situations.
SOME HOURS LATER just as started to write this post :
I left my post here without sending it …
Just now I see you figured out this EFI stuff.
Anyway I leave it as it is :
Happy XMAS for everyone !!
{ OFF topic}
I am going to burn R1/ Beta4 image to a rewritable DVD as finally I could get it in Auchan.here …
I thought I have to order it as it was not in another store any rewritable DVD.
It’c not really good a write once disc to use for install media - that’s my opinion - this way I can reuse to write again a better version on it.
For nightlies I also get some rewritable CDs as well !..
I want to test it on my Fujitsu Siemens Amilo … the final release … the TC0 version failed even from DVD, but at least boot splash appeared and half of icons were colored . I hope finally there will be investigated why I cannot boot from USB disk if I can provide some logs about this laptop machine for my ticket ( #18076 )
{END off topic}
