GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide by Graham Williams
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Partitions

Partitioning of hard drive(s) can be tricky for the new user. For a new installation you will want to erase the entire disk, which is usually the default option. The Debian Installer provides options to partition your disk in a number of ways. It recommends a simple, single partition, which is a good choice to start with, but choose an option that matches your situation. Another good choice is to create two partitions, one of say 10GB for / and the remainder for /home. This way you can wipe out / and reinstall GNU/Linux and still retain your /home files. Unless you know what you are doing, stay with one of these simpler schemes, although a fuller discussion of Disk Partitioning is included in Chapter 72.