hey guys im new and ive been trying for ages to install linux but never actually had the guts to go ahead and do it, but now i hop im almost there!!
basically i have split my 60gb hard drive into two, 35 gb for my windows and 25gb for my linux installation. out of the 25gb for the linux installation i have also created a linux swap partition which is 1gb in size, an ext3 partition that is 5gb in size and another 19gb ext 3 partition. these were all created after following a video walkthrough on the web.
This was simple to do and took a matter of minutes.

I have mandriva on disc and run the liveCd and decided i wanted to install it so i clicked the live installation, i chose the current partitions option and it scans for partitions. it then gives me these two options with drop down menu's- SDA 2 (5gb,ext 3) and SDA 4 (19GB,ext 3).
Along side both of these options like i said is a drop down box that both contain the same info. in these drop down menus are the following options in this order, im usure which two to choose.
/
/boot
/home
/mnt/windows
/opt
/tmp
/usr
/usr/local
/var
/ftp
/var/www

im stumped as these mean nothing to me and ihave googled but i dont really know what im looking for.

does anyone know which options i should choose in both drop down menus?

i would really appreciate some help!!!ive been trying this all day!!

I have used Mandriva for several years now, so let me see if I can help you out.

Linux terminology is quite different that the way windoze does things. In short, I think you should set the 5 gb partition to /. The larger partition should be set to /home.

Here is why. The '/' represents the root, or the beginning of the file system. This should allow you to install the main system files to this partition. This will include the boot files, and all system files. Most of your programs will go to this partition as well.

/home is where your user directories go, for each user. All your user data files can go here as well. Things like pictures, music files, movies etc.

You are given many more choices, linux is all about choice.

This will give you a good disk layout to start with. When the install is done, you will find many directories have been created under /. For example, you will see a /boot, /bin , /mnt and the list goes on.

Here is what my root '/' looks like.

This probably seems confusing at first. Linux names things differently than windoze. In windoze you have a C drive and D drive etc. In linux the first disk is called hda ( hard drive a ) then hdb and then hdc etc. On a drive the partitons are numbered, hda1 hda5 hda6 etc. ( 3 partitions on hda.

The file system can be installed anywhere the user likes. So if you tell the installer to install to the 5 gb partiton labeled as /, and the user files go to /home.

Hope this helps.

but i believe that if you have say 2Gb assigned to / and create a /var partition then / can remain relatively static having applications stored in /var and user files in /home.
so:
/
/var
/home
and a swap space

im not entirely sure what the benefits of this are but i read it somewhere before and have done it ever since