I had installed debian with only two partition
512MB for swap, the remaining space for /, I am going to setup a server using debian, is the setting ok?

Also, if i want to make /usr, /home, /tmp...etc

can i make it without reinstalling the debian again?

thanks

and this has to with laptops and handhelds?

but yes u can do that, you'll have to create the partitions, mount them to where you want them and then you'll have edit /etc/fstab

I assume you're looking for opinions and advice, so I'll offer mine. IF you are using the system only for personal use, then a single swap partition and a single root (/) file system is fine. But if you are intending to create a server for the purposes of creating an Email, Web, FTP, or print server (or any other kind of server) that you intend to be sharing with the public, consider starting over and creating partitions with somewhat intelligent choices for size and location. For instance, you may consider spreading the workload across more than one disk and do performance load sharing. You also want to isolate /tmp, /var, and /usr, and /home from / if you are building a production system. Backups will be much easier, as will moves and upgrades.

Using GNU Parted, cfdisk, and judiciously modifying the file system table (/etc/fstab, and sometimes /etc/mtab) it is possible to do this on the fly, one file system at a time. The way to do it is to use GNU Parted to reduce the size of the existing partitions to make room for new partitions. Then you temporarily create a directory and a mount point and use a two way pipe with the tar command to copy from one location to another. Then once things are copied, you check them out at the temporary mount point, and if they are correct, you remove the data from the former location, unmount the temporary mount point and create a new mount point for the directory.

Example:

mkdir /mnt/home

mount /dev/hda7 /mnt/home
(cd /home; tar cvpf - . ) | (cd /mnt/home; tar xvpf - )

umount /mnt/home

Add /dev/hda7 /home entry to /etc/fstab
mount -a