[ale] new to linux, question about partitioning

[joh6nn]

as others have already said, the conventional wisdom is to have a /root
partition, a /home partition, and a /swap partition.  i recommend a
/data partition, separate from /home.

i've found that this makes life much simpler, especially in the face of
multiple distros on one machine.  as Jeff Hubbs mentioned, different
versions of apps, from different distros, and compete for dominance in
your /home directory.  my solution to this has been to create one
account for each distro in my /home directory (ie. /home/ubuntu,
/home/fedora, etc), to be stringent about only using that account for
that distro, and to restrict /home to be only for settings, and never
for data.  since adopting this setup, i have greatly minimized the
confusion and trouble that i previously had when using multiple OSes and
distros

a /boot partition can be handy, but isn't necessary, and the same goes
for /var.  you likely won't need either of those for your home machine,
but since you already have /boot, there's no need to delete it.

to me, 20GB for /root seems awfully large.  i've never set it above 5GB,
and i've never run out of space, even when installing everything i can
think to install.  10GB should be more than enough for any given /root
install, i'd think.

repartitioning is something that should definitely be taken care of
before you get to settled in.  you should be able to safely resize most
partitions, but i always back up my data anyway.