A good setup would be to create three partitions totalling 40 GBs. The swap
aprtition would equal (but not exceed) double your RAM up to a max of 3 - 4
GB, root partition would be about 15 GBs, the home partion would be the
remainder. The mount point for root is / and for home it is /home. The
format could be ext3 or 4 with 4 being better but 3 being more compatible
with other OSes being able to read them. You won't likely fill up the 15 GBs
of root but if you do it can cause problems. If you are ripping a DVD or
accessing lots of multimedia the tmp directory can fill up quicker than you
would want. Basically Linux does not need defragmentation, but if you fill
partitions past 80% capacity then this can occur and there are no good
defragmenters since it is not usually a problem. So don't do it.

You won't require much space for the apps which are installed to root. I
have everything possible installed and I use just over 11 GBs. Most of the
space is used for tmp files and caches.

You can go with a single partition which is simpler up front but more time
consuming in the end. If you need to re-install then having a separate home
partition is a big time and nerve saver because you can do it while
preserving your data and settings. If you go with one partition then you
need to back up home each time.

To get more than one partition then you need to do a manual installation.

Create any partitions for Linux after Windows and you are less likely to
mess up Windows. You will need to use the partition manager or editor to do
this. First you need to make sure partions are unmounted. Then re-size
Windows smaller by 40 GBs. Create your partitions in the unused space freed
up by resizing. It is easier than it sounds.

Then right click on the partition that you want to install root on and
choose to edit it. Then choose to use it and choose the format (ext3 or
ext4) and mount point (/). Do the same for home but set the mount point as
/home. The first time you do this you will choose to format it but on
re-installtions you choose to use, but NEVER format it. Swap space is just
selected and choose to use it as swap/

When you choose your user name you will use the same user name every time
you re-install and it will re-use your home directory and preserve data and
settings.

Need some clarification of few things.
What is /shared? How is this different from /home?


Also I ran into a fat 32 type. What is that? It is associated with the /shared.

When making mounting points is it proper to put "/mnt/shared" OR
just "/shared" ??

I may have more questions after this but I will be attempting to do this today.

You need a /root partition and a small /swap partition to install Linux.
It's a good practice to create a separate /home partition when installing as
then you can keep all your settings and data when you upgrade. The Linux
operating system can read your Windows files, but Windows doesn't know
anything about the Linux filesystems, so if you want to use data with both
put it in the Windows partition.
Settings? Use the default ext4 Linux file system, maybe 10 GB for /root and
as much as you can spare for /home. You may be able to enlarge either or
both later with gparted if necessary, but only when you are booted from a CD
or other linux op. system.
Ask some more questions if that isn't clear or complete enough.

Windows "C" drive: 60 GB (primary partition)
Linux swap: 2 GB (primary partition)
Linux root: 12 GB (/) (Extended partition)
Linux home: the rest (/home) (the same extended partition)

If you will be downloading music or videos in Windows, give Linux home 40 GB,
and give Windows the additional space, perhaps as a "D" drive.

After your positive comments I did
a manual partition of my hard drive with deleting, editing, resizing,and adding
and installed Ubuntu and it is working great. It also loaded the boot loader
which I was able to choose between WindowsXP and Linux which I did not have
during the 9.04 installation.

I would like to know how to improve my screen resolution. Everything is very
small and need to enlarge what I am looking at and not been able to find it so
far. I am running Mozilla FireFox.

Also during the rebooting after the installation there were about 60 entrees of
I/O errors which I would like to know if this is something to be concerned
about. Here is what one of them looks like:

3706.5063971 end_request: I/O error,dev sr0,sector 505488

sr0 should be a CD drive. Do you have a CD in the drive at boot time?

during installation cd was in the drive. It could be due to that. Prior to the
reboot the drive door opened, cd taken out, and it rebooted with no problems.

in firefox,
Ctrl-MiddleMouseWheel is great for zooming.