New Disk: On to LVM?

[David Baron <d_baron@012.net.il>]

I have Debian Sid (with KDE4) in various partitions, shared with three vfats 
for Win98, Shared data and audio files, on two 40gig disks. I have had to make 
a lot of partitions to expand and shoe-horn in as the linux needs expanded. So 
one of these 40gigers, a maxtor which has been giving problems, may be 
replaced with an 80gig disk. So I must decide on a sane partition scheme. Part 
of it will be for the audio, but most, 60-70gig will be for Debian, neto.

1. I want to replace the numerous partitions I have evolved into a reasonable 
number of partitions. Recommendations?

2. To avoid such problems in the future, is LVM the way to go? Step by step on 
how to set it up?