hi, can u help me installing suse

hi,
im a total newbie to linux and want to start using linux. one of my friends suggested suse and im gonna get suse 10.1 x86_64 for myself. i would appreciate if someone could give me a detailed description of how to go about installing and using it.
i dont know any linux commands or how to use it at all, but i know to use winxp comfortably.

first of all here is my sys config
Proc : AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice E6
Mobo : Asus A8N-VM CSM with NVidia Geforce6150 + NForce430. (i know that this board has some issues with linux, but i flashed the BIOS to the latest one, 1001, so i guess that solves the problem)
RAM : 896Mb Physical + 128Mb shared video ram
HDD : 1. 160GB seagate sata
2. 40GB samsung IDE
Optical : 1. sony dru 810A dual DVD RW
2. samsung 248x CD RW
Printer : 1. HP deskjet 610C
2. Samsung MFP SCX4100

i need to use winxp 32 bit so i guess i'll have to dual boot the system. i wish to use the following partitioning config with a fresh format.

HDD 1 (seagate 160 SATA)

Part1(32gb) : winxp32 ntfs
part2(25gb) : data ntfs
part3(25gb) : data ntfs
part4(50gb) : data ntfs

part5(+whatever needed)(20gb) : suse whats the best FS?

HDD 2 (samsung 40 IDE)
part1(40gb) : data FAT32

now im gonna put all my data on the 40gb ide drive and remove it during installation to keep my data safe. then the 160 can be clean fresh formatted.

which os should i install first? winxp i guess

if winxp, then i'll have to make 4 partitions that are ntfs, then should i make a 5th partition RAW before installing suse? or should i leave 20gb as unpartitioned?

i've heard linux needs 3 partitions so how do i go about with dividing that 20gb between these 3 parts?

ok once i understand all this partitioning stuff, how to go abt installing? and which FS to use for suse?

whats better Gnome or KDE?i dont mind learning a new UI so i'm not hung up with an xp look alike.

when install done how to load device drivers?
should i download the linux drivers for geforce and nforce and keep them ready on a CD for that?
what about printer drivers?
what abt network and sound drivers?
i have heard that my board has some issues here. if i encounter them then how to go about solving these?

since i have never used linux b4 i'd really appreciate if ur answers are detailed and dont expect me to know how to go abt linux procedures.

thanks a lot.

standard for fs are ext3 and reiserfs.
Reiserfs is better performance for small files.

advantage of ext3: While in some contexts the lack of modern filesystem features such as dynamic inode allocation and tree-based data structures could be considered a disadvantage, in terms of recoverability this gives ext3 a significant advantage over filesystems with those features. The filesystem metadata is all in fixed, well-known locations, and there is some redundancy inherent in the data structures that allow ext2 and ext3 to be recoverable in the face of significant data corruption, where tree-based filesystems may not be recoverable.

Reiserfs can give problem with grub sometimes.

If you install linux first and after it winxp (xp has an aggressive install for MBR), your grub-bootloader will not start and you will not be able to boot in linux mode.

Keep the space where you want to install as unpartitioned.

The linux installation will normally ask how you want to create the partitions and will give recommended settings.
But you dont need 3, 2 of them is enough but standard they usually create 3.
1 for boot and apps, one for homedirs, one swap-partition.

I think KDE has the most functionality and whistles and bells. >Gnome is less fancy. Both is good.

Normally the devices will be recognized automatically but sometimes can give troubles. So it could be handy having the drivers on a cd. But is not necessary if you have winxp installed on your machine(you can still download it afterwords).

I didnt answered on all of your questions, but I hope you have some good information with this.

Greeets