With even modest disks providing huge amounts of storage space, linux is rarely pushed for space. For my Windows systems, I have tended to occasionally reinstall (automatically) and preserve any "source" etc. files on a separate partiton(s) - Mainly to get rid of accumulated Winjunk! :-) Clearly with linux, this is much less of a problem, but it might be a useful facility? I'm thinking e.g. of creating some additional partitions. It's my feeling the best immediate candidate would be /opt. I could put e.g. mozilla, java, Open Office (maybe), tomcat etc. on this. As an aside: Are there any other worthwhile candidates e.g. /usr? ... I'm less bothered about e.g. /var, since I'm only running a home system for my entertainment <G> I'm running SuSE 7.2 and will presumably(!) upgrade sometime. Perhaps the most important question(s) are: I already have a partition for /home. If I don't explicitly specify that it be formatted, will SuSE leave my files alone, if I reinstall? I think/hope so? I may(!) introduce a partition for e.g. /opt. If I don't explicitly specify that it be formatted, will SuSE just OVERWRITE it's own stuff and leave any ADDITIONAL files/packages I may have added alone, if I reinstall??? Finally, my knowledge of linux is not vast, but I suspect SOME installations do more complex things like "registering" stuff (? :-) I guess this means one need be a little selective over what one needs to reinstall and what one doesn't even if e.g. the files are apparently preserved intact on /opt etc.??? Thanks, Chris