"First off can the two share a swap partition?"
Yes.
"If so does it really need to be 2X 384? that seems kinda huge to me."
Setting swap space to twice memory size is simply conventional wisdom. To figure how much swap space you will actually use is so complicated that nobody can answer the question with anything more than a rough guess. My rough guess is that you could set it to 512M and never have anything to worry about.
"Should the swap partition(s) be the entire 535 MB HD to make easier access time?"
With 384M you have enough memory that you will swap very little if at all. So optimizing swap performance is a waste of effort for you.
"(i hear XP is nasty if u mess with the MBR)."
Yes. So the usual way around this problem is to install XP first and let it think it has the MBR to itself. Then install a Linux distribution and tell the Linux installer to dual boot Linux and XP and it will set up the bootloader chain so that XP works OK. I suggest that you install XP first. Then install SuSE and tell SuSE to dual boot. Then install Red Penguin and tell Red Penguin not to install any bootloader. Then boot into SuSE and change the SuSE bootloader from dual boot to triple boot.
" what is a good opensource free defragger to lessen the chance of loosing NTFS XP data? is the windows defrag good enough? or does SuSe do it for u?"
Somebody else will have to answer this question. My Windows experience ended with Windows 95.
"should i use the SuSe boot loader or the Red Penguin? (i am installing SuSe first remember)."
SuSE
"Am i right with the swap parition?"
535M is fine.
" is this all the partitions I need?"
I suggest that you also create a vfat partition. Linux will not write to a NTFS partition so you could use a vfat partition to hold data that you want to share between XP and Linux.
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Be prepared. Create a LifeBoat CD.
http://users.rcn.com/srstites/LifeBo...home.page.html
Steve Stites