When I try out a distro, I generally add a /home partition as well so that if I install another distro, or my current distro dies, at least my personal data files can be saved through a reinstall by not formating (initailizing) the /home partition during the reinstall.
Yes, some recommend /boot as well. I personally have not seen a good reason to do this, but I am usually using linux as a home machine and not in a server environment. I'm sure there will be those that will disagree with me on this.
/var again is probably more again for server usage since web server and other server information is stored there.
Hope this helps you. Linux is a bit more work up front, but very rewarding to use in the long term.
RRP Lian Liming wrote:
Hi all,This is a question from a linux newbie. I am quite confused with linux hard disk partition. Someone tell me that i just need three partitions: /boot, swap and /. Some others tell me to separate /home from /. There is some another suggestion that i should separate /var form /.........So is there a common rule to partition the hard disk? Thank you for any suggestions.