[SOLVED] Installation document

Hi all,
I am about to help someone install 12.04 but as he lives in Canada and I am in Scotland timezones can be a problem so I thought i would just review some of the documents and came across this:
https://help.ubuntu.com/lts/installa...tallation.html

Well I have installed 12.04 on my own and my wife's laptops and I am sure I am confused because most of what the document says about
a minimal base system and extra packages is not my experience.

However I always do a manual partitioning with /, swap and /home so I am now thinking this may be the reason for the difference.

I was trying to find out specifically what partitioning the automatic install would choose as, if it's simply / and swap then I will talk him through doing it the way I usually do as i have done it that way since around 6.04. The reason I have done it that way is because although each time I try an upgrade it has messed up so I then just do it manually, choose the same user name and don't format /home

Also the document talks about setting the password for root But I don't think that's correct is it?
Can anyone enlighten me please?