Hi,

I'm taking a programming class in university and they have offered to give me at no charge Windows XP, Visual Studio .Net, along with some other Micro$oft software.

I have been completely off Windows for about a year and have been enjoying Linux. But this free (well, I'm sure my tuition payed for it) offer has me wondering whether its worth maybe putting Windows on a separate hard drive.

I have a few questions. First, I wouldn't mind just using Visual Studio under wine so as not to contaminate my computer with Windows. Does anyone know if wine could handle something like Visual Studio? I have a feeling it would be hard to get working.

Next, my second hard drive is pretty old and is only 13GB. Does anyone know how much space I would need to run Windows XP with Visual Studio and not much else?

Thanks,

Chris

Windows XP can run safely on 2 gigs w/ extras IIRC - and I believe you need about 3 gigs for Visual Studios .Net.

Never tried VS.Net in wine, I always prefer to do Windows development in Windows. I feel safer debugging programs in their native environment

You'll be sitting comfortably with just a 13 gigger.