Hey guys I am running a windows 2000 professional machine with a 60 GB HD. I am going to put BeOS on there. How much room (partition size) should I give. I know nothing about BeOS except that it is an operating system. 5 GB? Any thoughts?

My BeOS partition is 5 GB, but it's only 20% full, even after installing many of the BeOS Freeware programs. So for me, two or three GB would have been fine. Of course it all depends on your needs. If you use BeOS to play the available arcade games and a little office work, 2-3 GB would be fine. If you plan on working with media files and storing them on the hard drive, you may need much more than 5 GB. Hope this gives you at least a vague idea. Best Wishes, Bob

Bob, Thanks for the greatful reply. I just have one other question. Do you use BeOS personal edition or professional? I did send this same message to you through the message thing here on computing.net. But, I wanted to reply to this message anyway. Thanks in advance, Mike

- BeOS PE. Once installed onto it's own partition it's nearly identical to Pro. And installing onto a dedicated partition takes about two minutes - couldn't be easier! I just upgraded the graphics card from an Nvidia GeForce256 to a Nvidia MX440. The old card worked with the Unified Nvidia Driver; the new one doesn't. I'm going to have to resort to VESA Accepted to have colors displayed. My slight irritation would be pissed-off-ness if I had paid money for BeOS :-) -Bob

Thanks for the information Bob. I guess I will start off with the personal edition and see how it goes. Once again thanks for the information. mmetzger

Bob, I was reading about BeOS personal edition today and someone on web site said that BeOS personal edition partition size can only be 512 MB. You said yours is 5 GB. Can you set me straight on this record? mmetzger

Sure... BeOS PE was meant to be a demo and installs within a 512MB folder on the Windows drive. If you re-install it (using the included Installer program) onto a dedicated BeOS partition, that partition can be any size. More tidbits: *Once installed onto a dedicated partition, you can then remove the Windows Demo install. *When it re-installs, it will copy all of the software you added, settings, and user-files to the new partition. *There is even a way to keep it as a Demo, but increase the Windows folder size past the 512MB limit. See betips for info. Although the Pro version can still be found for sale, I wouldn't waste the money. It is hopelessly outdated and Be Inc. is no longer in business - so you get no support and your money won't be going to future development. There's one thing to investigate, since you're not using Win98. You may or may not be able to install PE in Win2000. Instead, you'll need a bootable BeOS disk so you can install directly onto a BeOS partition. BeOs Max is a free customized PE distribution that can be installed directly onto a BeOS partition. Max also contains drivers and patches that will have to add anyway if you have a newer machine. Zeta is an upcoming commercial effort that will have updated software. Get downloading BeOS now!