A lot of what you are asking depends on what you want to achieve.
If, for example, you only have 1 switch to a desired location and loops are not likely then you would tirn on portfast for all ports except the port that would provide the link to the second switch (recommended to always leave Spanning-tree on a switch to switch link).
If you are new to this, then I would leave the ports on Auto. It will normally negotiate to the slowest speed and duplex anyway. You would only normally want to manually set these on 802.1q trunks.
Are you looking at creating VLAN's?
Are you after remote management?
There are so many different ways to set up switches. You will have to be a bit more specific.