knoppix-installer just dont want to co-operate with me; I keep getting the same error message,, something about cannot make ext3 mkfs? So i went and got Acronis (a partition maker) and I assume (forgive my assumptions) that the partitiions should look something like this,

hda1 /boot 40megs ext3 (made bootable)
hda2 /swap 1gig swap (I have a 400 meg AMD with 320 meg RAM)
hda3 /root rest of drive ext3

from here I've been able to use the cheatcodes to copy the cd in compressed form to hda3 without the use of lilo, so i use the live cd to boot.
however, I'm more interested in makeing a full uncompressed install.
I think I read somewhere to use the du command?
Is the partition size I have good?
any changes you can suggest or will amunition be required?

the goal of this install is to have a full knoppix install (standard GNU/LINUX) and to learn as much about the installation process and running linux as possible, so needless to say, the computer I have has no value to me outside of learning linux aka nothing mission criticle, and I'm just here to learn.