I don't know if there's a "default" partitioning scheme but if you are new to linux I would suggest the following configuration:

A "/boot" partition with a size of approximately 4-6 MB
A "swap" partition with the double size of your RAM, e.g. 128 MB RAM <-> 256 MB SWAP
A "/" partition with the rest of the HDD's capacity

I think this is the best configuration for a beginner