What is the recommended partitioning scheme for x86 and AMD64 systems?

Unless you have a reason for doing otherwise, we recommend that you create the following partitions for x86 and AMD64 systems:

• A swap partition (at least 256 MB) - swap partitions are used to support virtual memory. In other words, data is written to a swap partition when there is not enough RAM to store the data your system is processing. If you are unsure about what size swap partition to create, make it twice the amount of RAM on your machine, but no more than 2048 MB (or 2 GB). It must be of type swap. 
   
    For example, if you have 1 GB of RAM or less, your swap partition should be a t least equal to the amount of RAM on your system, up to two times the RAM. For more than 1 GB of RAM , 2 GB of swap is recommended. Creating a large swap space partition can be especially hel pful if you plan to upgrade your RAM at a later time. 
   
  Tip: If your partitioning scheme requires a swap partition that is larger than 2 GB, you should create an additional swap partition. For example, if you have 4 GB of RAM, you may want to create two 2 GB swap partitions. 
   
  
• A /boot/ partition (100 MB) - the partition moun ted on /boot/ contains the operating system kernel (which allows your system to boot Red Hat Enterprise Linux, along with fi les used during the bootstrap process. Due to the limitations of most PC BIOSes, creating a smal l partition to hold these files is a good idea. For most users, a 100 MB boot partition is sufficient. 
  Caution: If your hard drive is more than 1024 cylinders (and your system was manufactured more than two years ago), you may need to create a /boot/ partition if you want the / (root) partition to use all of the remaining space on your hard drive. 
   
  Caution: If you have a RAID card, be aware that some BIOSes do not support booting from the RAID card. In cases such as these, the /boot/ partition must be created on a partition outside of the RAID array, such as on a separate hard drive. 
   
  
• A root partition (350 MB - 5.0 GB) - this is where "/ " (the root directory) is located. In this setup, all files (except those stored in /boot ) are on the root partition. A 350 MB partition allows you to install a minimal installation, while a 5.0 GB root partition lets you perform a full installation, choosing all package groups.
  
• A /var/ partition (3.0 GB or larger) - the /var/ partition is where variable data files are written. This includes spool directories and files, administrative and logging data, and transient and temporary files. Updates that are applied to Red Hat Enterprise Linux are written to the /var/ partition.