Originally Posted by
JDNSW
I would ext3. It is similar to ext2 but with journalling, so there is less chance of a corrupted disc if the power goes off. Both are native to Linux.
FAT32 is the Windows 95/98 format, useful if you want the partition to be read by your Windows system, but not otherwise.
XFS is a Silicon Graphics FS, supposedly better for very large files - I would not use it.
Reiser file systems have a question mark over support as the single author of them (apparently a programming genius) is doing a long stretch of imprisonment for murder. They are very good, but there are arguments as to how they compare to the ext family.
Not mentioned is the latest "designed especially for Linux" fs - ext4. This is the default for the latest kernel versions, but may still have teething troubles. It is supposed to be faster than ext3, but this depends on exactly what you are doing. As I understand it the speed gain is by only storing changes when you save a file and then rewriting the new version when you close the file.
John