[BiPolar_Nut]

Depends if you want read access or read/write. I use Suse 9.3 because at the time I installed it, that was the latest version that VMWare officially supported. If you just need read access, then don't worry, SuSe can read NTFS just fine. Figure out how much space you need on the doze side and use the rest for 'nix. I really don't know what SuSe sets for default 'nix partitions, but I generally (for any 'nix distro, linux or *BSD) make separate partitions/slices for /, /home, /var, /tmp, /usr, and sometimes split farther for /usr/local and /bin/local depending on the use of the machine. In Linux, those are all separate partitions. In *BSD they're slices (subdivisions of a partition).

Without a doubt, use NTFS on your doze install. If you need to save file from 'nix that doze car read, make a FAT32 partition or use a USB keydrive to swap files from nix to doze. XP on FAT32 is just lame...no file ownership nor permissions.

Disclaimer I haven't checked out SuSe beyond version 9.3. If it has read/write NTFS drivers then you don't need a separate partition nor need to swap to keydrive files to get stuff to doze...just use NTFS on doze and read/write to your heart's content from 'nix. I don't dual boot (have plenty of machines here) so I'm not quite up to date on the status of NTFS 'nix drivers. Any file swapping I do is over the network.

GL!