Resizing "/" partition and creating data partiton?

[haiku]

Hi Guys!

I currently have a single partition for my Mint 10RC setup on a 300g hard drive (well, plus the swap partition):
sda1 /ext4, mounted on / (290G)
sda2/ extended
sda5/ swap (6GiB)

I'd like to "shrink" the main partition, and create a partition to store data - the ultimate goal is being able to keep said data when installing another distro

So - I guess I'll use Gparted from the live CD

My questions:
I will be able to resize the sda1 partition, right?
What is a recommended size? I guess 50 G would be ok?

When creating the new data partition:
what Filesystem to use? I'll only use it on a Linux platform, so I guess ext4 is OK?
where to mount it? Can I create a /home partition?

Thanks!!

PS - It's a fresh install, so I don't have sensitive data yet I can't afford to lose if I screw up (I got an external HD but it's getting full....)

[oobetimer]

I would shrink partition sda1 from 290 GB to 20 GB and expand extented partition. For /home -partition ...hmmm ... big enough ( 10 to 270 GB )

How to move home to the separate partition

[linuxviolin]

For / 20 GB maximum should be sufficient. For /home or /data, if you prefer, use the rest of your disk. For Swap 1 or 2 GB should be enough, how much have you as RAM?

About the file system, I would use XFS or JFS...