I am getting ready to load SuSE 9.2. It will be a dual boot system, I have two Maxtor 80 Gig HDDs with one of then (hda) set up with Win 2000 on one partition with NTFS and another partition set up as FAT 32. I want to load SuSE on the second HDD, hdb. I was thinking of setting it up with a 2 GIG swap partition, a 20 GIG / partition, and the rest as a HOME partition. This will be a home desk top computer, no server duties, no gaming. Does this partition scheme seem about right? What about other partitions such as USR, etc?

Also, which file system? Reiser or EXT3?

Swap sounds a little over-sized. How much RAM do you have? I am using 512 MB swap at 512 MB RAM.
The amount you need for / could also be a little smaller unless you want to install everything I have installed a lot and still do not have more than 9GB. I don't think a partition for /usr is required.

I've just got three. /root /swap and /usr (the largest of them all). I don't think you really need more than that.

And, your swap should be the same size, or smaller than the amount of RAM you have.

Why /root? Or do you mean '/' (root)?

yes... I mean "/" (root)

... 80Gb FAT32 .... what a waste of space

better do both windoze partitions on one disk and SuSE's /boot too like that :

/dev/hda1 /boot EXT2 100Mb * active
/dev/hda2 c:\ NTFS 20Gb
/dev/hda3 d:\ FAT32 ~60Gb (the rest of space

now, on the second disc I sugest you this :

/dev/hdb1 swap 1Gb
/dev/hdb2 / ReiserFS 20Gb
/dev/hdb3 /personaldata ReiserFS ~60Gb

/personaldata use it as your d:\ in windows, /home will be in / partition (like c:\documents and settings\your_user_name)

ReiserFS for everything except :
/boot EXT2 - where is the case (for safety reasons)
swap - it has the swap filesystem

On the first HDD I have it set up as C: 25 GIG NTFS, and D: as 55 Gigabyte FAT32, so I am real close to what you recommend there.

Do I have to manually set up a boot partition on hda, or will it do it for me?

Thanks all for the help.

the boot partiton on hda must be done manually.

you have two options :

1. the DANGEROUS one : installing LILO/GRUB on MBR (dangerous : you'll never know when your windows will erase the MBR and rewrite it and then you have to restore your LILO/GRUB - never done that because I never install the boot loader on MBR only if there is only Linux on that machine)

2. the safest one, resize your /dev/hda1 NTFS to gain arround 100Mb of free space at the begining of the disc (I used Acronis Disc Director 9 to do that flawlessly), /dev/hda1 becames /dev/hda2 and so on ... and create on the free space the /dev/hda1 of 100Mb as EXT2 which you'll mount it as /boot, make it active and intall the boot loader LILO or GRUB on it and the rest of Linux's partitons on the second disc

now you can proceed to install your SuSE

good lock

PS : when resizing there's allways a chance to loose your data, it never happened to me with Acronis Disc Director ... but I have firends the had that with PQ Magic

piratu:
I don't understand why a /boot partition is required or desired. Could you please explain?

the /boot partition is not required nor desired, is optional, a suggestion! this is my 2 cents tip when multibooting to avoid the installation of linux's boot loader on MBR!

if you choose not to create a /boot you'll find it on your / root partition and you'll have to install the Linux's boot loader there, ofcourse you have to be sure that's a primay partition and in the boundaries of the first 1024 cylinders (for safety reasons, on old systems)

for more informations read the fantastic manual

I see! How do you do that?