I am going to install mandrake 10 official tomorrow.
I have a 10gb Fat32 partition available on my hardrive, should I let mandrake install itself the way it wants on the 10gb or create a smaller partition?

you could use less than 10gigs if you'd want. it would install fine on as little as 4gigs, but you'd be really crammed for space. if you want some breathing room on there, i'd use the whole 10gigs, choose expert install which will let you size & format your MDK partitions to your liking & also choose the file system you want to use. if it were me (& this is just me, but it's what i used to run MDK9.1 on my old computer on a 10 gig partition) i'd make /=2gigs /usr=5gigs /swap=600-800meg /home=remainder, all reiserfs (ecept for /swap, of course). if yer gonna be storing alot of large files in /home (mp3's, downloads of various types, etc.) then maybe give a little more room to /home & shave a little off of /usr & /. just remember, all apps you install will be installed to /usr so if you go app crazy, you can fill that up before you know it.

otis

/-5g sw(depends on ram - I have 256 and have 400mb sw) /home-rest. Or, if you back up your fun files a lot, you can / and sw.

I have 512 RAM upgrade to 1 GB in a near future

You'll likely be fine with ~300-600mb swap, unless you're a graphic artist and intend on having a big project open all the time.