ideal partitionning for a workstation user

[STYMA, ROBERT E (ROBERT)]

> 20MB may be too small for boot -- kernel updates can accumulate.
> 
> I recommend making /home on a separate partition -- that way, 
> if you want to
> reinstall, upgrade in a very clean way, or even switch 
> distros, you can blow
> away the system partition and leave your user data alone. 
> (Generally, this
> means a / of 4-8GB and the rest as /home.)
> 
I agree with this recommendation, although, if I have a decent
sized disk, I use a 12 gig / partition so that there is lots
of room in /tmp and /var.  

Some people recommend a separate partition for /boot and one
for /var and one for /tmp.  There are pros and cons for this
arrangement. Cons include external fragmentation.  I could be
out of space on some partitions while others lie empty.  Pro's
include the fact that if /tmp, /var, and / all share the same
partition, you could fill up /tmp and stop the system.

In either case, keeping your data separate from the system data
is always a good idea.  If you back up /home and /etc, you can
rebuild from a disk crash in pretty short order.  A backup of
etc is handy for referece unless you have memorized what goes
in all the obscure files under /etc.  I suppose memorization is
a form of backup. :-)

Robert Styma