disk size

I'm currently running mac os 10.4 (probably won't upgrade to leopard anytime soon) and I would like to try t2, a linux distro, but I'm not sure about partitioning. I read some documentation on using diskutil resizeVolume command, which sounds easy enough, but I don't know how stable it is. Otherwise I'll just have to wipe the whole thing, which I don't want to do because backing up will be a pain, but I can. So my first question: 1) can I trust diskutil for this? 2) what filesytem should I use for my /home partition so that I can access it from both t2 and mac osx or is that not possible? 3) how much free space should I retain on my partition with mac osx to keep it running smoothly. I've got an 80 gb hard drive, using 30 gb at the moment. Also, I'll migrate at least 5 gb of that to /home if I can access the partition from both os's.

if anybody could answer at least one of these questions I'd appreciate it

... so I've been doing some research and mac osx can read a partition formatted with an ext2 filesystem, which should help me determine the size of my partitions, but I still need to know about how much free space I need. I'm thinking about 10 gb free on my partition with mac osx would be enough. Is that right?

Diskutil is pretty much stable. I have used it quite a lot of times without any errors. If you're not comfortable with that you can use Bootcamp to make partition.

About the filesystem, my experience has been different with different distros. For example Mandriva can RW to MAC partition whereas Fedora can mount it RO. For the Linux side partition format, you need to choose ext2/3 for root partition atleast. FAT32 is a format all OSs can RW. So you can consider it for your home partition.

thanks. I appreciate the help. I was starting to think I wasn't going to get a response.