Partition Structure/Printer/Thunderbird

[Preston & Betti Ann Smith]

Good morning all!

I am an absolute newby with Linux so please be patient with me

The install only had one hitch.  I first created the Kubuntu CD using 
the iso image using Nero at a speed of 8.  When attempting the install, 
it could not find the CD drive it was installing from and just generally 
got confused.  So I re burned the CS at speed 4 (the slowest speed on my 
burner) and the install went seamlessly - almost "hands off".

I just installed Kubuntu on my system which is dual boot with XP Home. 
The installer created two partitions - / and Swap on my 6.4 GB drive

Is this the recommended partition structure?  I am ready to make changes 
is necessary - I have read that perhaps there should be another 
partition where I would keep personal data that would not be deleted 
when I do a complete reinstall of Kubuntu or another variant.  Before I 
go too far I would like to make sure that i have the right foundation in 
place.

I also installed Thunderbird which is the email client I have been using 
in XP.  I would like to have a single profile which would be used by 
both OS's.  Can someone give me some advise of how to do this?  In fact 
I would like this profile to be accessible by my laptop (W98SE) which is 
also on my home network so that the desktop and laptop T'Bird profiles 
would automatically stay in sync - any ideas on how to do that?

I have a HP Photosmart 2610 as a network printer on home network.  It 
does not seem to be accessible.  How do i go about getting access to it 
from Kubuntu?

Sorry for the sort of dumb questions but I must start the learning 
process somewhere

Thanks
Preston