i've noticed SuSE likes ResiserFS, and during install SuSE it always wants to have two paritions:

/dev/hda1 = swap
/dev/hda2 = / (ResiserFS)

what do you suggest is the best paritioning scheme and file systems? take into account I have a 40GB hdd.

thanks equinox.

As far as I know, it's personal preference. If works as help, my HD is partitioned like this (all partitions are ext2):

/dev/hda1: (primary) / (root FS)
/dev/hda2: (extended)
/dev/hda5: (logical) /home
/dev/hda6: (logical) /usr

No swap, because I have 1GB of RAM memory.

I have something like:

/dev/hda1 /boot (c.32mb
/dev/hda2 swap (c.512mb)
/dev/hda3 /root (30gig though much less is actually being used)
/dev/hda4 /home (30gig)

I'd always recomend having /home seperate from /root incase you decide to install another Linux / upgrade / reinstall or whatever so you get to keep any files in /home (lke desktop settings, cookies for example )

/root & /home are reiserfs and /boot is /ext2

Like elmafiacs above, it's personal preference. I prefer all primary partitions because I know I don't want more than 4 partitions (having recently been using 6) and I like my numbers to be to go from 1-4 without skipping (ie personaly preference)

My main machine (WinXP Home and Mandrake 9.2):

/dev/hda1 - primary /mnt/winXP NTFS c. 52GB
/dev/hda2 - primary /boot ext2 c.32MB
/dev/hda3 - primary swap swap c. 512MB (w 1GB of RAM)
/dev/hda4 - extended
/dev/hda5 - logical root ext3 c. 12GB
/dev/hda6 - logical /home ext3 c. 12GB

well i've done this:

/dev/hda1 = / (reiserfs)
/dev/hda2 = swap
/dev/hda5 = /usr (reiserfs)
/dev/hda6 = /home (reiserfs)

Well , linux needs atleast 2 partitions
a) / (root)
b) swap

I dont think it matters much abt how it is partioned as u have a single harddisk.
anyway, mine is:
/dev/hdb1 = / (reiserfs)
/dev/hdb7 = /home
/dev/hda9 = swap