For new users, personal Debian boxes, home systems, and other single-user setups, a single / partition (plus swap) is probably the easiest, simplest way to go. The recommended partition type is ext4.

Para sistemas multiusuario, o bien, con una gran cantidad de espacio libre disponible, lo mejor es que /var, /tmp y /home sean particiones separadas de la partición /.

You might need a separate /usr/local partition if you plan to install many programs that are not part of the Debian distribution. If your machine will be a mail server, you might need to make /var/mail a separate partition. If you are setting up a server with lots of user accounts, it's generally good to have a separate, large /home partition. In general, the partitioning situation varies from computer to computer depending on its uses.

Para sistemas muy complejos, debe leer el CÓMO de multidiscos. Éste contiene información bastante profundizada, sobre todo de interés para ISPs, y de la gente que desea instalar un servidor.

With respect to the issue of swap partition size, there are many views. One rule of thumb which works well is to use as much swap as you have system memory. It also shouldn't be smaller than 512MB, in most cases. Of course, there are exceptions to these rules.

As an example, an older home machine might have 512MB of RAM and a 20GB SATA drive on /dev/sda. There might be a 8GB partition for another operating system on /dev/sda1, a 512MB swap partition on /dev/sda3 and about 11.4GB on /dev/sda2 as the Linux partition.

Para tener una idea de cuánto ocupa cada tarea que instale, puede que le interese agregarlas después de completar su instalación. Por favor revise Sección D.2, “Espacio en disco requerido para las tareas” para mayor información.