Repartitioning for linux

[froth]

I want to install slackware. I've downloaded the isos and burned them, and gotten to the part of setup where I have to repartition my hard drive with fdisk.

I can't figure out how to reduce the size of the primary partition to make an extended one. Windows XP is on the primary, and it has about 5 gigs free... how many cylinders is that and how can I make sure that I reassign only free, empty space to the linux partition?

A link to an old trial of partitionmagic will do too

Also, I was wondering how much space /home requires (I want to make that partition separate and as small as possible) and how much space I should format into a linux swap partition. I have 128 megs of ram an plan on using kde if that makes any difference.

[puntmuts]

I want to install slackware. I've downloaded the isos and burned them, and gotten to the part of setup where I have to repartition my hard drive with fdisk.

cfdisk will provide a more friendly interface. However (c)fdisk is not able to resize existing partitions without complete loss of data. A tool like pm is the answer.

Also, I was wondering how much space /home requires (I want to make that partition separate and as small as possible) and how much space I should format into a linux swap partition. I have 128 megs of ram an plan on using kde if that makes any difference.

/home requires not much but it depends on how you use it. I use it for downloads and mail, so I have a huge home dir. But if you keep it clean the size could be small, or do not use a seperate partition at all.
Swap: in your case 256-512 MB should be more then enough. For use with KDE a bit more RAM would improve the speed but if you minimize the needless bells and whistles it can be done. But a less resources consuming DE like XFCE could improve the speed even more.

[variant]

you could download a knoppix cd and resize the partition with qtparted which is included with knoppix.