Please advise the best way to separate the data storage, programs and operating system.

My friend had said something about creating a separate partition for /home dir????

I also don't know the best advised sizes to make each one.100Gb HDD

If I connect a "New" uninitialized drive will the suse 10.1 beta8 install initalize and partition it correctly or should I initialize it first then install suse??

Thanks for any help

Welcome to LQ.

Please use the Search function to retrieve existing threads that cover partitioning. It's a very, very common question and there are numerous existing threads that offer tons of advice.

In brief, a default Linux installation needs only two partitions, swap and root. "Root" is the very top level directory, and all other directories exist beneath it (including /home). If this is your first experience with Linux, I'd suggest creating 3 partitions - a small swap space (perhaps 256Mg or 512Mg), the root partition (maybe 15G or 20G), and everything else to /home. (Your friend gave you good advice.) /home is where all your own data lives, and it should be kept separate from the Linux system files. Again, searching will return many threads that cover this topic in detail.

As for when to partition, personally I'd recommend making it a separate task prior to starting the Linux installation, rather than as a step within the Linux installation process. For me, that makes it easier, but in truth it's six of one, half dozen of another. Good luck with it