I am wondering IF it's possible to have 1 Extended Partition that will have other partitions within it of different types, and whether or not it is the most efficient way to do it...?
Also, can I make any of the partitions bootable or what?

Specs=HP Pavillion a810n 1GB RAM, 160GB HD,AMD Athlon64 3300+ Processor, 128mb SIS 760 IGC.
SDA 1= 149GB Extended Primary
SDA 2= 40GB EXT3 Primary (Ubuntu 8.04.02)
SDA 3= 20GB EXT3 Primary (Slackware 12,2-full)
SDA 4= 20GB EXT3 Primary (GoblinX-2.7)
SDA 5= 10GB EXT3 Primary (Slitaz)
SDA 6= 2.5GB Swap
SDA 7= 56GB FAT32 Logical (File Storage)

This is my actual layout Now-
SDA 1= 33GB EXT3 (Slackware 12.2)
SDA 2= 10.5GB EXT3 (Ubuntu 8.04)
SDA 3= 54GB EXT3 (Ubuntu 8.10)
SDA 4= Extended 52GB
SDA 5= Linux Swap 2.5GB
SDA 6= File Storage 49GB FAT32

I just want to get around the 4 primary limit and wondering how to do it-Any Suggestions??
Thanks!

You can create lots of logical partitions on extended partition and make them bootable,actually all of my Linux partitions are on the extended logical partitions.

In that example, there would be no sda2, sda3 or sda4.
sda2 would be sda5, sda3 would be sda6 and so on.
sda1 would be the only primary partition, every other partition would be a logical drive.

With up to 4 partitions, use all primary partitions. With more than 4, use 3 primary, make the fourth extended and put any logical partitions inside it, exactly the way your current setup is.

reordered example:
SDA 1= 40GB EXT3 Primary (Ubuntu 8.04.02)
SDA 2= 20GB EXT3 Primary (Slackware 12,2-full)
SDA 3= 20GB EXT3 Primary (GoblinX-2.7)
SDA 4= 68.5GB Extended Primary
SDA 5= 10GB EXT3 Logical (Slitaz)
SDA 6= 2.5GB Swap Logical
SDA 7= 56GB FAT32 Logical (File Storage)

OK-so Linux can boot and run from a logical partition?
I didn't know that....
Will I have any problems booting or whatever with the extended partition?

You will not have any problems booting Linux from extended logical partitions.Actually,if you have Windows it's better if you put Linux distros on the logical partitions because Windows likes to be on the primary partition.So whenever you add a new Linux distro to extended logical partition you just have to install bootloader of that distro on the root partition of that distro and add an entry in the default Linux distro bootloader menu,meaning the distro which have bootloader installed on the MBR,so that you can boot into other Linux distros and Windows.

Great! Thanks for the advice. Actually, I destroyed my XP OS playing with Unetbootin-before I knew what I was doing!Then, to compound problems, I just wiped the disk and installed Ubuntu-I could've saved XP by booting thru Ubuntu-but didn't know.
Who needs Windows anyway?!
Now, without Windows, I am trying to learn basic programming-I want to learn something easy at first-any suggestions?

I haven't posted with this username yet, so sorry for the double post.. The next one really will be informative (IE, it has links, which you can't post until you've posted at least once).

That question has been asked quite a bit and it isn't really an easy one to answer, not to mention there are a million and one educated opinions on what language to start with and how.
Personally, I would suggest Python since it really is (relatively) quite simple for a beginner to pick up, and it is an interpreted language so you can use a python commandline to try things out instead of having to constantly compile your programs (like C, C++, etc.)
For that, I would take a look at Richard Baldwin's tutorials or Alan Gauld's tutorials.
If you'd like to try C++, I would recommend How to Think Like a Computer Scientist C++ Version. This book helped me out a lot. He also has a version for Java, but I've never read it.
Hope this helps a bit.

My advice would be to start with the bash programing ( scripting ).When I started to learn about bash I was really impressed.Trust me,bash is amazing.There is so many things that you can do with it and the thing is that you will learn so many wonderful commands,how to mix commands in a script and lots of other things which you can use later in your daily work and if you like to use command line or even if you don't,you will see how much easier is to achive something if you're good with bash.So you can start from here then go here and finally here and here.
Remember,you'll need a good knowlege of Linux and bash commands,so learn to use as many as you can.
Good luck!

Hello, if you want to try many distro and go for a complex partition layout, I would recommend you have a look at logical volume management LVM2 since it allows you to make mistakes and change your partition sizes on the fly. Also note that, if you go for multiple distros, you can share /home on all of them and thus keep your preferences. I know that for me, 4GB are enough for a Debian or an Ubuntu, then, 50-100% of whatever remains goes to /home.

For the programming language, I would also go for Python. It is used a lot in Linux nowadays so you are probably using python programs on your machine already and you can dissect them if you like. Ruby seems to be pretty hot, too. C++ is a real pain. C is old. Also, before learning any language, you should learn programming first or else, there is a very big risk that you just take very bad habits. A starting point.

I don't see why anyone would still want to constantly reboot a computer when you have virtualbox available that allows you boot different OS's or distributions at the same time and still work on your platform of choice.

While VirtualBox and other virtual solutions work pretty good most of the time, they still aren't 100% like booting into that operating system.

For instance, I've installed WinXP Pro on a VirtualBox and wasn't able to get a game to work at all. Installing that same game on that same OS running natively on the machine works just fine.

So virtual is good, but it's not the be-all, end-all solution. VMware doesn't even solve ALL the virtualization problems (last time I checked, anyway).

The gaming issue is probable because of the lack of directX support in most virtualization products. vmware does have directX support, however, but it may still be in an experimental stage (it still was six months ago, don't know about right now). On the whole, performance can vary a lot depending on the type of OS you wan to install. Vmware manages XP very well but I cannot say the same about FreeBSD.
Anyway, I think that for home users that whole virtualization thing is overrated. Because I don't play games, I can do everything I want without ever needing to boot into XP. The last time I actually booted windows was when I heard there was a new service pack. Kind of cool, keeping an OS just for the updates.

Cool-you guy's rock! I have heard of lvm2, but apprehensive about what the pro's and con's are vs. Extended w/multiple partitions?
Can all Linux Distro's work with the lvm2?
Also, I tried the /home thing where they all have the same folder before and had problems with the distro's recognizing it...?
As for the virtual game-i love that too-Qemu & Qemu-launcher are what I use-tried both VMware and Virtualbox-but Qemu is my fav.
Anybody know how much memory one should give Qemu for running distro's?
I have been giving it 256mb RAM, as I have a Gig, but I'm running Gnome-also my fav, and The fans start running-but hell XP really had the fans going-so no problem.
OK-I do have one gripe with Linux-and you guy's are answering my dumb questions so tell me this....When I had XP, my fav game was Glest(I only have the original SIS 760 Integrated Graphics-128mb!), and it ran great!
I had all the factions fighting on the big 256x256 maps, and surfing the web, and playing some heavy metal on WMP-and it still ran fast and error free!
Now, I can't even get Glest to play on any damn linux distro! The superubuntu I'm on now is the best so far, but it doesn't even play fast enough for me to play! It's like it's stuck in slow motion!
Westnoth plays fine-but it isn't Glest.
Anyone know how I can get Glest to work right??
I've tried almost everythiing-but I can't find the folder with the configuration settings-as that's probably where my problem is-anyone know how to find the configuration settings?
S0-these things would be helpful to me...
1-LVM2-pro's and con's-and how-to
2-Glest!-why won't it run-please don't tell me it's the graphics 'cause as I already said-I was running glest, surfing the web w/firefox3, and cranking the heavy metal-and XP didn't skip a beat-except it cost's alot more than Linux-and I'm not buying!
Specs for my PC are HP Pavillion AMD Athlon64 3300+ processor (32bit-I think), 1GB RAM, 160GB HD, and SIS-760 suckass 128mb integrated graphics. I would go get a graphics card-but this pc was used and abused when I got from a buddy for $20(ha!)-so noway.
3-Can low-level programming be done within Qemu-like Java, or Python?
Thanks for the help peeps!

It is not recommended to use the same home partition for several distro. The config files they use are not exactly alike and that can cause problems. Also if different version of applications are used they may be incompatible.

I keep /home on the / partition and put my work on a common access partition. The actual saved files are more likely to be readable by different versions of applications.