Well I have only fooled around with knoppix but i like what I see so I want to install linux onto this computer. Problem is, ive only got 1 hdd but I know how to partition it so that's ok. I just want to know how to partition it, i.e. what partitions to make and stuff like that. i originally was just going to go the KISS route and make a 1gig swap and a 5gig / , but then i started hearing about /boot and stuff so i got confused. i need to dual boot XP, and I'm looking at installing slackware because it's supposedly no nonsense and i think i have enough technical experience and plus a lot of people here said that it's really just common sense, except that a CLI scares people.

10GB / = root
1GB Swap
?GB /home = for personal files.
That is all you need for Slackware.

so no /boot required? I am wanting to dual boot with XP, and I am hearing things about a /boot being necessary for daul booting, or rather, in a tutorial on this site someone was saying that they didn't need /boot because they weren't dual booting. and do i really need 10gb for root? because I am on a budget with disk space here and I only freed up ~6 gb for slack from my windows partition. I was thinking something along the lines of this:
Windows partitions: 68.77 (I can steal more from this if necessary)
3g /
512m swap
rest for /home
if this is too small please tell me.
and it should be of type ext3, right? except for swap of course.

You can make a 20MB /boot partition as well, forgot that.
For slackware 10GB is recommended, but I'm sure you can get by with 6GB, if you don't install to much unnecessary stuff.

I'm currently quadruple-booting Windows XP and three Linux distros, and I have no separate boot partition.

You don't need 10 GB for root. It all depends on how many programs you plan to install. Hell, Damn Small Linux fits the entire operating system and all its programs into 50 MB. You don't actually even need a separate /home partition. People just do that so they can reinstall or try other distros without affecting settings/preferences/files.

ok, so i'm going with a 4 gig root, 512 swap, and 1 gig home just to start out with. i don't plan on installing much. hopefully tomorrow i can post from slack, but then school also starts tomorrow.

What's going to live in /home besides your preferences and settings? Are you going to put a bunch of files in there, too? Otherwise, your /home partition doesn't need to be that big. Also, generally swap is supposed to be twice your RAM (if you use swap at all--some people don't even use it). What's your RAM?

my ram is 512, i was thinking i shouldnt need more than a gig right now. i thought software went in /home, oops. so maybe 4.5 root and .5 home and swap?

No, software would install in the / partition. Preferences go /home/username in a bunch of hidden folders. For example, preferences for Firefox are stored in the /home/username/.mozilla folder. And, if you have 512 MB of RAM, you don't really need a swap partition. If you set one up, you will never use it--trust me. I have 512 MB of RAM on my computer, too.

ah well, it's partitioned sufficiently and i dont want to mess with it. can anyone give me a rough estimate of how long the slackware installer takes? I burned the first 2 cds which should be all i need.