Whenever I install a Linux distribution I create a separate /home partition. This gives me the advantage of installing any distribution and I still have all my own files and whatnots saved on this partion. I create the following structure
Partition 1 /boot 50 -100M depending on how many updates you expect for your kernel.
Partition 2 / my root partition usually about 20G for expansion etc. (10G is ok).
Partition 3 swap my swap space ( twice the size of your RAM)
Partition 4 /home this where all the home directories go and uses the rest of the drive.

There is a catch with the /home patition and changing distro's. Different distro's start the user ID's with different values ie. FC4 starts at 500, Slackware starts at 1000. To fix this you issue the following command as root after you have created the new user with the same name.
chown <username>:<usergroup> -R /home/<userdirectory>
This will change the uid and the gid for that directory and all the sub-directories and files

Why don't you just specify the UID when you create the user

I like this thread, so I'm repyling so I can find it again.

And you do realize you can subscribe to threads without having to reply? Subscribe at the bottom of each post..