I plan to install Ubuntu 13.04 alongside Windows 8, and I'm looking for a CLEAR answer on how to conduct partitioning appropriately.

I'm very new to all of this so a thorough explanation with minimal jargon would be great. I have an Acer Aspire M5 x64 with 6G RAM. I think I already figured out how to deal with the fast startup, UEFI and SecureBoot issues (I disabled fast startup and disabled Secure Boot). I am able to boot into Ubuntu from a LiveUSB, and I think I am ready to install Ubuntu. Note - despite some advice found here, I do have to disable SecureBoot to boot 13.04 from my LiveUSB.

From what I have read here, it seems that I should (at least at first) create the partitions from WITHIN Windows 8, not from the LiveUSB, to avoid reported problems. I have run compmgmt.msc and I see the existing partitions. I see the following:

Disk 0: 400 MB Recovery; 300 MB EFI System; Acer (C:) 444.95 GB (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition); 20 GB Recovery

Disk 1: 3.74 GB Primary Partition; 14.90 GB Primary Partition

I gather I need to create a mounting point '/' Partition (??), a swap partition, and a home partition. Please explain what these are, how big they should be, how I create them from Windows Disk Management, and anything else I need to know.

Eventually, I plan to fully replace Windows 8 with Ubuntu, but for now I want to run alongside Windows 8 and not screw things up. I don't have any critical files saved on this computer yet.

Thanks.