Best way to partition drive without installing Linux yet?

From: Noozer (postmaster_at_127.0.0.1)
Date: 05/29/04 

Date: Sat, 29 May 2004 02:21:21 GMT

My two drives are currently partitioned as follows:

Drive1
  - 41gig NFTS Windows XP on a Primary partion
  - 1gig as an empty Extended partition

Drive2
  - 40gig unpartitioned

What I want to do is partition my drives in preparation for installing Linux
(possibly Mandrake 10, Suse 9.1 or Fedora). I'm hoping for the following
configuration, but I'm not sure what should be on primary partitions or
logical drives:

- Drive 1
  - 41gig existing Win XP
  - 1gig Linux swap (Logical drive on extended partition OK?)

- Drive 2 (is the order of these partitions OK?)
  - 10gig FAT32 to share data between Win XP and Linux
  - 100meg Linux /boot (Primary or Logical?)
  - Remainder as Linux / (root) (Primary or Logical?)

I will be using the XP bootloader to choose between XP and Linux. I will
also have GRUB installed on the Linux /boot or / partitions - but DEFINATELY
NOT ON DRIVE 1.

Should I just make all the partitions on the second drive logical in a
single extended partition or does GRUB and/or /boot need to be on a primary
partition?

Thanks!

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