Newbie: Partitioning help--size, mount, and label

I'm a confused. I'm upgrading from SuSE 9.2, which I haven't used
much, to SuSE v10 by installing fresh. I thought I'd change the
partitions and filesystem types while I'm at it. First, a bunch of
questions. Details of the existing setup and proposed follow.

1) I've got three SCSI HD: sda (Windows 2000) and sdb (Linux) are both
17.1 GB. sdc (4 GB) mostly contains Windows pagefile, plus browsers
caches, and other caches. I thought I'd use part of sdc as a Linux
swap.
Dumb question, but I haven't found it addressed anywhere: May a
swap partition be on a drive *other* than the one with /, /home, /usr,
etc?
Wouldn't a swap file on separate HD speeds things up, hardly
noticeable as it might be?

2) I thought each partition needed a mount point? (See also next two
questions.)

3) Is there supposed to be some correspondence between mounts and
labels?
v10 installation is keeping the labels I had, but it's suggesting
different mounts, eliminating two entirely (sdb2 was /usr and sdb6 was
/home).

4) I thought I needed at the very least mounts for root (/), /usr, and
/home. Guess not, huh? Why not? v10 is suggesting just root and swap.
What happens to /usr and /home?

5) I assume I should take advantage of reformatting to reiserfs where
possible, namely where Linux native (ext3) exists, except for /boot
(sdb1; leave that as is; if it ain't broke...).
The disadvantage to formatting to reiserfs: Can't use PM 8 on
Linux drives. (But I can use Yast on the Linux side; PM on the W2K
side.)

6) I like different partitions for different categories of software: a
partition each for OS and apps, for currently used data files, for
long-term storage (rarely used data files and downloaded stuff), and
for a separate working area (such as for editing audio or visual
stuff). The swap, again, seems to me to be better on a third HD.

In addition to the current boot partition, should I:

a) Assuming I may keep swap on sdbc2...

b) Resize partitions sdb2, sdb3, sdb5, and sdb6 for directories root,
/opt, /usr, and /home -- say around 5, 2, 5, 5 GB, and then resize
those partitions/directories later as I become familiar with space
reqirements?

c) During v10 installation, make the mount points for those four
partitions: root, /opt, /usr, and /home? (This depends partially on
question 2.)

d) Reformat those four partitions to reiserfs.

e) And what about the labels? Should I mimic the mount points?

f) Bonus questions: Does the order of the directories matter? Does it
matter which directory is in or out of the extended partition?

I thank you for your patience in explaining this to me, and for
your suggestions. I hope to return the favor -- to Linux newbies
(versus Windoze newbies)!

Sincerely,
Larry

========================
Partitions -- Existing

Device Size Type Mount Label
(GB)

/dev/sda: 17.1 GB

sda1 14.4 Extended
sda2 2.7 Win95 FAT32 [C: OS]
sda5 3.2 HPFS/NTFS [D: Apps]
sda6 2.6 HPFS/NTFS [E: Data]
sda7 8.5 HPFS/NTFS [F: Archive
and working
space]
/dev/sdb: 17.1 GB

sdb1 101.9 MB Linux native /boot
sdb2 6.8 Linux native /usr /
sdb3 1.0 Linux swap swap
sdb4 9.1 Extended
sdb5 7.1 Linux native /
sdb6 2.0 Linux native /home /home

/dev/sdc: 3.9 GB

sdc1 2.5 Win95 FAT32 [pagefile]
sdc2 1.4 Linux swap swap

========================

dev/sdb partition (17.1 GB) proposed by SuSE v10

sdb1 101.9 MB Linux native /boot
sdb2 6.8 Linux native /
sdb3 1.0 Linux swap swap
sdb4 9.1 Extended
sdb5 7.1 Linux native (Reiser) /
sdb6 2.0 Linux native

========================

dev/sdb partition (17.1 GB) -- a better approach?

sdb1 101.9 MB Linux native /boot
sdb2 5.8 Linux Reiser / /
sdb3 2.0 Linux Reiser /opt /opt
sdb4 9.1 Extended
sdb5 5.1 Linux Reiser /home /home
sdb6 4.0 Linux Reiser /usr /usr


.

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