I'm about to partition my main HD and install Linux Mandrake 9.1. What should the file system type be?

NTFS
Linux Ex2
Linux Ex3
Linux Swap

Thanks!

You probably want some swap. The amount you need is dependent on your RAM and what you are doing with your system. Given the other choices, for the most part you want ext3, though I tend to keep my /root and /boot partitions as ext3 because it provides a generally simpler boot process. You certainly do not want NTFS.

Use ext3 as your native linux paritions and create one swap partition.

NTFS is Windows only format, you can't install Linux on an NTFS filesystem, better yet you can't even write to an NTFS filesystem.

So I can make the ext3 partition around 40,000MB and how big should I make the swap partition?

True, I'm no expert, but I like using the following:

/boot - ext2 (or ext3) 16mb
swap - 1.0 - 1.5 times the amount of RAM
/ - ReiserFS (or ext3) remainder of HDD

After the install I mark all of /boot to read only, this will prevent corruption of the boot partition and keep things more stable.

Not sure why I like ReiserFS, I'm sure if I went with ext3 I prolly wouldn't notice the difference. As long as you use a journaling file system you'll be fine.

Again, just the ramblings of a novice user.

I'd make the boot around 100MB, you have plenty of room. I make the swap 2x RAM. ext3 for the rest.

Creating a seperate partition for /home is a good idea IMHO. It makes it easier to keep all of your data and custom desktop settings for kde, gnome, evolution, licq, or what have you. You can reinstall to / without overwriting your home directory. If you are going to use 40gb's, maybe set it up with like 15gb's for / and 25 for /home.

Whatever you like. I am using seperate partitions for /boot, /etc, /, and /home. /etc is where you system config files are located.

So which partition should I install Mandrake 9.2 on? The biggest? I don't understand the boot or swap situation...

Why would you need that much space? Usually the only thing that is fairly large in size is the kernel which is usually no bigger than 1mb.

I'd suggest 16mb instead really, unless your just going to have tons of kernels compiled and to choose from.

Swap, well, if your using this as a desktop and you have more than 256 megs of RAM, then I'd suggest no more than 200mb for swap.

/boot = 16mb
swap = 125mb
/ = The rest for everything else should work and make things simple.

MrJBot, Mandrake will then install to the / partition.

Think of swap as virtual memory in Windows, its just some hard drive space the system will use during memory usage.

The /boot partition is where the MBR (Master Boot Record) will be held and I advised 16mb because mine about 4mb. During an install of Gentoo the documentation explained keeping it as a small partition and setting it to read only to prevent corruption. Since there aren't many files and there small in nature, you won't see the advantages of a journaled file system so ext2 will work fine. As far as swap, I always set to 1.5 times actual memory from my Windows days (that is what MS suggests as ideal). But tricky is correct, in should be smaller. But I could have sworn reading that it should equal to actual memory. Anywho, you've got 40GB to play with, enjoy.

Hope that helps clear the water a little.

The /boot partition is where you keep stuff like kernels, initrds, and the bootloaders. Basically just booting stuff, which shouldn't take up alot of space. ~20mb should be enough. Having it seperate is useful if you plan to use another Linux distrobution with Mandrake. You can also set it as read-only like gdiersing said, so you don't accidentally mess up things. The MBR is just the first sector of the hard disk (not on any partition).

I just like plenty of room on the boot partition. I just checked and it is currently at 25MB, with four kernel versions. I do like to try things and compile my own kernels, doesn't everyone?

As for the swap, I guess I'm stuck on windows mentality, hard to change that sometimes. It gets to be automatic after a while.

Sure but actually in my case it doesn't affect me since my kernels reside on my / partition...
My boot partition info and space taken up:
Cheers...