Looking for advice on dual boot / partition setup.

I just bought an 80gb Maxtor HD for $39.99 after rebate. (Gotta love those after-Thanksgiving Day sales )

I've never had this much space to work with. I want to set it up so I can install at least 3 distros - one as 'main', a second for testing, and a 3rd (possibly 4th also) just for playing around/trying new stuff. All Linux, of course.

What would be a sensible way to cut up this drive? I like to keep /home separate, and I guess swap separate also. How many primary / extended / logical partitions would be best for 3 or 4 distros to multi-boot from?

Im no expert, but if i were you....

i would have 1 swap partiton, probably 500 megs
the general rule is Swap == Ram (multiplied by) 2

then one boot partiton (of cource) (100 megs)

then 3 or 4 main partitons to install linux on. maybe give the main linux install partiton 40 megs, and split remaing space between the playing and testing installs.
then you can configure grub to boot each one.

oops, forgot that there are going to be 3 or 4 kernels in the boot partiton....
better make the boot partiton 150 megs just to be on the safe side....

I always do this:

/boot - 100MB
/var - 400MB (so my log files don't fill up my HD and crash stuff)
swap - double my RAM
/ - everything else

So I always have 4 partitions.

yeah, but for multi-boot, you gonna need a few 'everything else"'s