partitioning revisited

[Keith O'Connell <keith_oconnell@bigfoot.com>]

Hi,

I have just build a machine, and am ready to start putting the "stable"
on it. This is the first time I have built one from scratch, and it has
made me think in detail about what I am doing as I put it all together.
Now as I am newish to Linux I thought you might indulge me her. On two
other boxes I have here I have "potato" running fine, but as I think
about it there may be a better set-up. To help me get to the enlightened
approach could I pick the panel brains on the following?

1: I recently read that logical partitions were better than primary
because of the size limits on the directories. I didn't quit understand
this. On this laptop I have 4 primary partitions, with the 4th holding 4
logical. Is this unwise? Should I just have one big logical partition?

2: In my other machines I have 128 Mb memory, so I have had a 128 Mb
swap file. In my new machine I have taken advantage of the low price and
put 512 Mb in it. This set me thinking, and I cannot reconcile the
following I have been told or read;

	a: "With 512 Mb ram you don't need a swap file"
	b: "You must have a swap file 2x ram"
	c: "Over 128 Mb ram you must have a swap file of there same size"
	d: "A swap file cannot be over 128 Mb"
	e: "A swap file cannot be over 256 Mb"
	f: "A swap file cannot be over 512 Mb"
	g: "Swap files must be in multiple of 128 Mb"
	h: "Swap files are an irrelevance on modern machines"

My questions are not from a lack of research, rather I have found out
too much which is contradictory. I would like some guidance in sorting
the what from the chaff here

Keith

-- 
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Keith O'Connell                  |     "That which does not kill     |
| Maidstone, Kent (UK)             |      us, usually still hurts.     |
| keith_oconnell@bigfoot.com       |   That's just life, I'm afraid"   |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+