I would like to try BeOS on my old laptop (Toshiba Tecra 730 XCDT) but can't find a web site with BeOS info for the clueless. Can BeOS be set up as a standalone OS. I am looking at installing Linux on this laptop but want to give BeOS a try first, at least until I am sure which flavour of Linux to install. I know I can use the BeOS 5 personal edition to launch into BeOS from Linux but is there a version that can run as a pure BeOS build? If so where can I download it does anyone know?
In parting, I am a newbie on any OS other than Windows and Unix I am looking at MS substitute O/S'es out of curiosity and this requires a huge learning curve, if anyone has any good web learning URL's I could look at I would appreciate the info.

In general, BeOS *is* a free-standing, independent operating system. To my knowledge, the ONLY officially released version of BeOS that was designed to exist within another operating system's filesystem or to be launched directly from another operating system is the free BeOS Personal Edition (and even that can be installed as a free-standing, independent version, although this procedure is probably not for beginners).

Just get BeOS Professional 5.0 (not Personal Edition) and install it.

Incidentally, I have heard some reports of a few brave souls who HAVE gotten BeOS to work on some laptops. Good luck!

If your a newbie to alternate OS's and wanna try a Linux OS, i "Highly" suggest you start with SuSe Linux.

Installing BeOS Personal Edition onto it's own partition is easier than it sounds. First you have to install PE within Windows. Then create an empty partition. Use the Install application within PE to re-install BeOS onto the empty partition. That's about it; you can remove BeOS PE from windows at this point.

Or there are for-fee versions of BeOS as the post above indicates. BeOS is no longer being developed so it might not be a great investment.

Check out the BeOS tip server for better instructions and additional install options.

Best Wishes,
Bob

BeOS is being developed, but not by Be Inc. Fortunately, there are some independent groups who continue to develop BeOS. Even OpenBeOS team has released an update (patch) for Beos. Here are the two BeOS clones:
http://open-beos.sourceforge.net/news.php
http://blueos.free.fr/

To install BeOS onto its own partition is very easy as Bob told. There is two way of it. You must have two partition and a working windows or linux OS (which you can get rid of them later if you want).If you want BeOS the only OS, within linux or windows install the BeOS onto second partition of your hard disk. Before continue the next step create a boot disk for BeOS within windows or linux. Name yor C drive "mybeos". Then boot into BeOS. Run the installer within tracker. Then select install onto "mybeos". Then select initialize "mybeos" ,so installation will start. When it is installed, it asks whether to install "bootman". Choose yes. That's all.
If you don't want to erase the other OS, you must have two hard disk. Otherwise you have to boot from floppy all the time you want to start BeOS. Install beos first on drive C from windows or linux. Then boot into BeOS.But this time install BeOS within tracker onto the second hard disk. The later operations are the same. Install BeOS talented boot maneger "bootman". It will give you options to boot windows, linux or BeOS at startups. If you have nt,2000 or Xp don't install bootman. otherwise you won't be able to boot into them. Use their own boot maneger to boot BeOS. Adding BeOS to this managers menu is easy. Use the file "addbeos.exe" (you can find it from ftp sites or just search from altavista or google, originally it is on BeOS pro cd). Run this file within xp, nt etc. It will add BeOS to the startup menu for you to boot into BeOS easily.

As an update to my earlier post; BeOS's talented boot manager "bootman is able to boot into XP with no problem. So must be the same with 2000 although I did not tried.

hi, i am installed beos5pe under win98 to partition d:. then in a dos-box i used an arj/zip utility to pack this 500mb directory named BEOS. the packed file is 40mb sized.

then i split another 1.2gb hdd as 700mb C:, and 512mb D:. i copied this packed file on C: partition of this disk. i unpack the file onto 512mb D: partition.

at last i formatted and install dos 6 to C: partition to boot this old pentium 166 with 32 mb machine.

just add these lines to autoexec.bat
d:
cd\beos
loadbeos.com

good work!!

I just installed BeOS Pro on a desktop (not a laptop, I know) last night and it was a new hard drive. The Pro version can be had from Gobe,(http://www.gobe.com/storebeos.html) but it looks as though they are out of CDs right now. Anyway, the install went very well with the exception that I couldn't create a partition over 50GB. I just used the CD in Windows98 to create a boot floppy which contains a limited version of Power Quest's Partition Magic. Magic created a BeOS partition, then I booted to the CD and started the install. From there you select the tab for additional choices and enlarge the original partition and create additional (up to 4) partitions and initalize them. After that it only takes a few minutes and then you are booting to BeOS off the hard drive. Then set up your NIC and video and you are done. (Or at least I was.) It was a suprising change from Windows! I'm hooked!

(I hope that helps.)