Notice that Linux usually uses not one but several partitions (=filesystems). Installing all in one partition is possible but in the long run not a very good idea, IMHO.

The partition layout i found most satisfying over time is like the following, but i have to admit i don't have any Windoze-partitions on any of my systems.

Code:

/boot    128MB
/        10G
/home    5G
swap     =RAM

I usually put the "/home", "/" and "swap" in a LVM volume group leaving the remainder of the disk free, so that i can add space to any filesystem which might need it later.

"/" only contains system files and usually 10G is sufficient. Most of my installations take initially about 2GB, which will grow later as updates run in, but 10G should work for some time.

"/boot" only holds the kernel image and some GRUB-configuration files. 128M will be all you ever need. Habitually i put this partition at the beginning of my disks, because many years ago Linux was not able to boot from a disk cylinder >=1024. These times are long gone, but habits die hard. It needs to be on a separate partition because Linux cannot boot from an LVM partition.

"swap" equal the size of your RAM is a good starting point. If the usage pattern of your system is not completely far out of the normal average it will be OK. Once your system starts paging heavily on a regular basis you should consider upgrading your RAM anyway.

How much you need in "/home" depends on you. You will probably have to fine-tune this. If you use an LVM you can dynamically make the FS bigger. I have usually several Linux/Unix-distributions on my laptop, so i share the LVM partitions and make sure every distro uses the same UID for my user. This way i can share my HOME directory in different distributions.

When installing several distributions in a multi-boot system i give every distribution its own "/" filesystem, but they share the swap and the "/home". They all start from the same "/boot".

I hope this helps.

bakunin