Ubuntu: How large should I make root, home, and swap partitions?

Ubuntu: How large should I make root, home, and swap partitions?

Question: I have a laptop with win7 installed. I have now made a 60gb partition which I
want to install ubuntu into. The question I have, before I do the installation,
is how large each of the root, swap, and home partition should be? I have read
some place that root could be as small as 8GB, but isn't that too small? Since
I guess beside ubuntu all the softwares installed will reside there as well?
And I think I'm going to set my swap to be 2GB large.
My main concern is how large should the root partition should be. I'm mainly
going to use ubuntu for programming and browse the web.

Solutions Sample (Please watch the whole video to see all solutions, in order of how many people found them helpful):

== This solution helped 10 people ==
I have always had a separate /home partition, root (/) partition and swap. It
means when I upgrade, I can do a clean install of the new OS with no risk to
the old one. I just mount the home partition in the new one. Also means if I go
back to the old OS, any files created in the new OS are still there.
I have used various sizes for my root partition. On one machine I have regular
Ubuntu and Ubuntu Studio, each installed in 10GB partitions. The regular ubuntu
has used 6.04Gib and studio has used 3.08Gib.
You can always change the partition size later anyway if you need more space.
Just need to boot from a live CD and use GParted to change the partitions.
As for Swap, twice the RAM or 1.5x the RAM is a good rule. Then you can
hibernate if you want to. But if you find you need more or less you can
repartition later.

== This solution helped 1 person ==
Partition : A H.D.D. can be divided into multiple pieces digitally. These
pieces are known as Partitions/Drives.
Mounting Point : In simple words it's a Flag/Name/Type assigned to a Partition.
FileSys. Type : Type of the Partition.In Linux mostly used are ExtX(X=1,2,3,4)
& NTFS.
Primary Partition : There can be maximum '4' Primary Partitions in an H.D.D. A
Primary Partition may contain one or more Logical Partitions.
Logical Partition : Virtual Partition under a Primary Partition.
SDA : The Storage Media such as H.D.D. or other Media as well. If you have more
Drives then it will be named SDA,SDB,SDC,++
Device for Boot Loader Installation :----
Boot Loader : As we know BootLoader is a Program that is loaded on the Media
which is run by the B.I.O.S. after conducting P.O.S.T..BootLoader further loads
an Operating System or provides a menu if more than one O.S. is installed in
the Media.
Choosing Device : When you have a previously installed O.S. that means it has
it's own BootLoader Program.Which is installed in the M.B.R.(master Boot
Loader) of H.D.D.Now when you are installing Linux then it will ask you where
to install the G.R.U.B.(Grand Unified Boot Loader) or Linux BootLoader.It gives
you options to install it into the M.B.R. which will over write the existing
BootLoader or install it into any of the Partitions,that will add this Linux
entry point in the existing BootLoader.Now the choice is yours.
----
You need at least '3' Partitions in order to install any Linux Distro..
It just takes a 100 G.B. of Drive/Partition to install Linux decently.
Partition 1 : Root(/) : For Linux Core Files : 20 G.B. (Minimum 15 G.B.)
Partition 2 : Home(/home) : Drive for User Data : 70 G.B. (Minimum 30 G.B.)
Partition 3 : Swap Area : Space that acts like extra R.A.M. : 2 x R.A.M. Size.
Note : Swap Space behaves like an extra R.A.M. when the R.A.M. is full.