Partition

Hi, for basic/easy installation you cannot have two /home directory and this would be hard to do this properly without generating problems.
What I suggest you do is this:

1. HDD (500 GB/1000 GB)
1. / - 30 GB
2. SWAP - 6666 MB (I have 3 GB RAM)
3. / Home - the rest.....

2. HDD (500 GB/1000 GB)
1. regular (ext3) partition - ALL 500 GB

And then when you go into linux, you can use the "regular (ext3) partition" as a storage disk. You could even, for example, make a symbolic link from /home/USER/Documents/Other Documents/ that redirects to your second HDD. That's how I do it with my 3 HDDs.
The only thing you need is to have your second HDD mounted at boot time. We can help you with that too.

I prefer the second drive as data storage but using ntfs instead of ext3. This means that Windows and Ubuntu can both use the drive.

Also i prefer to keep Windows even though i never use it.

1st Hard-drive
1 Windows 50Gb
2 linux-swap 4Gb
3 Ubuntu ext3 on only about 26Gb (8Gb minimum, 26Gb is probably plenty)
4 Extended Partition 420Gb (approx)
  5 Media1 ntfs 390Gb
  6 /home ext3 on only perhaps 30Gb

2nd hard-drive
1 data ntfs 480Gb
2 experimental space, ext3 20Gb

Note that an Extended Partition is like a bucket containing the partitions 5 & 6

I am sure many other people will suggest many other ways. Arnaud has a good way, my way means you can keep Windows (if that's still possible). Most of us keep a working Windows because some games and things sometimes work a bit better in Windows. Also it means you can take your time to move to Ubuntu slowly and learn at your own pace. Note that Ubuntu can read data held on a windows drive but Windows can't see Ubuntu at all. For this reason i often keep movies, torrents, documents and similar things all on an ntfs partition so that Windows can use the same data.

I would set-up the partitions using GPartEd. Boot up with the Ubuntu Cd in the Cd/Dvd drive and choose "Try Ubuntu without installing anything". You should get a working desktop, similar to but also different from a Windows desktop image. Go up to the top taskbar and click on

System - Administration - Partition Editor

use this to resize (shrink) your Media1 and the Extended Partition it's in. Then click on "Apply". It will take ages to complete this step. Then "Add" or "Create" al the other partitions. This guide should then help with installing Ubuntu
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot#Manual%20partitioning

Note that linux is great because it offers so much variety in the way you choose to do things. Whichever way you choose will be good and may have some disadvantages too but the main thing is that your choice is good, whatever it is :)
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Oh i forgot to include an Faq about linux-swap. Also there are some other helpful places to look things up in. Don't read all the way through all of these. Just read parts that look interesting or that might help you solve a problem.

I included an "experimental space" on you second drive because linux has many different distros, Ubuntu is just one of them. You might like to use a space like this to try other linux distros in for a while, they will all be able to use the same linu-swap you already have on your main hard-drive.

Really your swap should be slightly more than Ram size but less than 2xRam. Any more than that is a waste of space but it doesn't really hurt i think.

Your linux-swap is unlikely to get used much on an advanced machine like yours. Ubuntu will mainly use it when you use sleep/hibernate. Ubuntu copies the contents of Ram onto the linux-swap partition when using sleep or hibernate. Normally though, the linux-swap is the linux equivalent of "pagefile.sys" in Windows.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwapFaq

Here are some other reference guides to look things up in while you are moving away from using Windows but ask a new question in launchpad anytime you you like
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwitchingToUbuntu/FromWindows
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FreeSoftwareAlternatives

http://winehq.org/
Ubuntu includes Wine in the standard install i think so don't bother getting it from that link
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InstallingSoftware
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SynapticHowto

Sorry, i've written too much and none of it was needed.
Good luck and have fun exploring linux
Regards from
Tom :)