Unofficial BeOS5 (PE) FAQ / HowTo for beginners
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Version 2.08 (latest update 18.05.2000)
-Added link to experimental Canon driver
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Read this first:
You use these instructions at your own risk! If something happens when you directly or
indirectly follow these instructions you are on your own. I am not responsible for any possible or impossible
damages caused by using these instructions.
If you want to link to this FAQ, please link to my page not to this file. This file may
not be copied to any other site without permission from author (Jaakko Leikas alias Garjala).
If you find errors, outdated information or you have something to add to this FAQ, please send me e-mail to
garjala@iobox.com.
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Where to find Free BeOS
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All official download sites can be found from free.be.com.
There are also lots of unofficial places available.
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500MB (virtual) harddisk is too small
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If you have extra partition in your harddrive, you can install BeOS onto it. Use DriveSetup (can be dangerous,
be careful!) to initialize that partition to Be File System (BFS). Then just run Installer and when it appears,
choose partition you just initialized. Program installs BeOS and you can use it from that partition.
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After installing BeOS5-DevTools.zip documentation does not work (bookmarks do not work)
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For some reason directory called "Be Book" is in /boot/beos/documentation when it is supposed to be in
/boot/beos/documentation/CVT/HTML. Just create those directories and copy directory "Be Book" there.
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Application crashed or freezed
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Press CTRL + ALT + DEL and Team Monitor should appear. Choose frozen program from list and click KILL. Do not
kill programs that are written in blue color (unless you really know what you are doing). After you have KILLed
misbehaving program you can launch it immediately again, there is no need for rebooting.
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Application installed, but no icon in Desktop
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Go to directory where you installed your program . You can launch that program with double-click or you can create
link. If you want to create a link to program, just right click program file and from menu choose: Create Link ->
Desktop and icon appears to desktop.
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Automounting disk during boot
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Right click on desktop and choose Mount -> Setting from menu and you can choose what disks you want to mount
automatically.
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BeOS behaves erratically and crashes from time to time
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See "BeOS freezes on boot". If this does not help it is possible that there is IRQ conflict in you system. Go
to Devices and check if there are resource conflicts. Also check if two or more devices are using same IRQ. If
there are more than one device using particular IRQ (especially if other device is display adapter) try to change
IRQs (if possible) so, that they are no more used by other devices. It is also known that some network cards do
not like to be in certain slots in motherboard (usually slot 1). DO NOT DO ANYTHING INSIDE YOUR COMPUTER IF
YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! If you know what you are doing, try to swap network
or soundcard to other slot and try if BeOS stable after that. WARNING: swapping cards may force you to install
Windows drivers once again!
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BeOS boots up and Tracker crashes immediately
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You may have mis-behaving replicant in your Desktop. For example application named MiniPulse in very prone to
crash Tracker if used as replicant (works fine in normal state). To correct this situation do this:
When BeOS boots up and you get error message DO NOT close error message, instead open Terminal and navigate to
/boot/home/config/settings/Tracker. Delete file named tracker_shelf. This file contains information about
replicants and will be created again in next boot. Reboot BeOS. If problem was caused be replicants, it should
be fixed by now.
WARNING: If you do this, ALL replicants will be removed.
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BeOS boots up and immediately crashes leaving you to kernel debugging land
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Check if you have set "mount all disks" in bootup option from mount settings. Sometimes BeOS cannot mount Windows
partitions and crashes sending you to kernel debugging land. This is rare situation. You can safely mount those
partitions after boot. Just set that option to "mount all BeOS disks" in bootup and everything should be fine.
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BeOS boots up with grayscale picture
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Your display adapter is probably not supported by BeOS and it uses fail-safe driver. If your display adapter
supports VESA 2.0 you can try this:
Go to /boot/home/config/setting/kernel/drivers/sample. There is a file named vesa. Open it and add one of the
following two rows (not both of them):
mode 800 600 16
mode 1024 768 16
Save file. Copy vesa file to /boot/home/config/settings/kernel/drivers and boot BeOS. If you are lucky you get
colors using VESA modes.
There is also a program Vesa Accepted, which can make same
modification. It can be found from BeBits.
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BeOS does not show my backgroud picture
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Background picture must be in BeOS boot volume. BeOS loads background picture before
mounting anything, so you cannot load background picture from other disks.
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BeOS freezes on boot, some device does not work even if it should or BeOS behaves oddly
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Many of those problems disappear when you boot directly to BeOS with bootdisk. If you launch BeOS from Windows,
it can leave devices to states which BeOS cannot detect properly. If you have unused space in your harddrive you
can also try to install BeOS to its own partition. Instructions to create bootdisk can be found from readme file
which came with BeOS5 Personal Edition.
Other things can be UltraDMA66 or overclocking. BeOS does not support UltraDMA66 and it is known to crash if it
is in use. There is third party driver for HighPoint HPT366
UltraDMA66 controller, but other controllers are unsupported at a moment.
BeOS can also be sensitive to overclocking, so remove overclocking if you encouter crashes or odd behaviour.
You can also go to bios settings and set "PnP OS" to "No". This is known to help in some situations.
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Booting to safe mode
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When BeOS starts loading, immediately press space bar to get a menu. From that menu you can choose safe mode and
booting options.
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CDDA-fs does not work or it locks copying prosess when copying wav files from CD
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It is possible that BeOS did not detect properly your CD-ROM features or digital extraction is not supported
in your CD-ROM. If you are sure that your CD-ROM drive is capable of digital extraction (to copy wavs from CD)
you can try this:
Go to /boot/home/config/settings/kernel/drivers/sample. There is a file named atapi. Open it and uncomment last
11 rows from that file (remove # from the beginning of each row). Save file and copy it to /boot/home/config/settings/kernel/drivers.
Boot BeOS and try if you can copy those files now.
Easy way to test if CDDA-fs works in your system is to try to save a track from CD-Player. If save freezes,
CDDA-fs does not work.
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CDDA-fs does not seem to have support for CDDB
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Go to BeBits and download CDDA-fs from there. This zip-file includes file named
"cddblinkd". This file is needed for CDDB lookups. DO NOT INSTALL ANY OTHER FILES FROM THAT ZIP FILE! Copy
cddblinkd to /boot/home/config/bin and add line to userbootscript:
/boot/home/config/bin/cddblinkd &
After that reboot BeOS and CDDB lookups should work.
Update: cddblinkd has been improved and released as a separate file, so you should download it instead of
whole outdated CDDA-fs zip file.
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Easter Egg
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Press CTRL + ALT + SHIFT and keep these buttons pressed down. Now click BeOS button and
there is new choice: Window Decor. It can for example make BeOS to look like MacOS 8.
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Expander seems to support only zip,tar and some other filestypes. More support, please
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At least RAR and LHA are available from BeBits. These programs
come with installation instructions.
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How to hide windows
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Answer can be found from documentation, but since no-one reads it, I add it here:
Double click somewhere in title bar (do not click the buttons).
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Installation of applications
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If application is a normal zip-file, double clicking it launches Expander which can be used to extract all files
to specified location.
If application is in .pkg file, double clicking it launches Software Valet which can make installation.
If program need some special installation, it comes with instructions. Otherwise it just needs to be extracted to
somewhere.
Do not install anything to /boot/beos/apps or /boot/apps. Much better place is make for example directory
/boot/home/apps and then use it as an installation place. Generally install your application to some directory
under /boot/home.
NOTE: If Software Valet says that package is corrupted, then you should use different browser to download it
again. At least some versions of Netscape seem to corrupt nearly all Software Valet package downloads (*.pkg)
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MidiPlayer says "Could not load instrument file: /boot/beos/etc/synth/big_synth.sy"
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There are two choices:
1. Go to that directory. There are three files. Rename middle sized to big_synth.sy
2. Find someone with BeOS 4.5 CD and copy file from there (works, but #1 is better)
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Moving BeOS button to other location
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If you look carefully next to that button, you see small area, which looks like it is full of dots. Click it
and if you keep mouse button down, you can drag it where ever you want.
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OpenGL applications run with very low frame rates
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BeOS does not support hardware OpenGL acceleration yet. Be Inc. is writing hardware accelerated OpenGL API,
but it will be released later this year.
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Opening or saving GIF,PCX or some other picture type is not possible
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You may not have right translator (small file that can read/write pictures) in your BeOS.
For example ShowImage cannot show or save GIF pictures unless you download translator for it. Translator(s)
can be found from http://www.bebits.com. Easy way to install a
translator is to extract zip file to somewhere on your BeOS partition and drag-and-drop translator file to
DataTranslations. Close and open program you are using and you can use new translator.
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Screen capture
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Screen capture can be taken by pressing "Print Screen" button. Capture will be saved to your home directory as
screenX.tga in which X is some number.
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Sharing files with Windows system
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Be Inc. is writing a new much improved network system called BONE. BONE will replace current network system later
this year and most probably contains WON, which is needed to share or see files from Windows systems. Previously
WON was in experimental folder, but Be removed it from BeOS5 Personal Edition (it is not included even in devtools)
possibly because BONE will be released sooner or later this year.
At a moment BONE is in closed beta-test.
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Uninstallation of applications
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Simple, delete folder application is located in. Most applications also save their setting to /boot/home/settings.
There is also available uninstall script for SoftwareValet packages from BeBits.
Do not remove applications that came with BeOS5 Personal Edition.
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Updates
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Updates can be found from free.be.com
There are also updates to Tracker and Deskbar available at www.opentracker.org
These are beta versions, but seem to be stable according to my own experiences. Opentracker includes lots of new features and bug fixes.
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Video playback is not smooth or sound is bad
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Sometimes it gets better if you enable real-time audio / real-time video from Media preferences.
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Window is impossible to close
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That window is probably replicant. You can close it easily. Choose Show Replicants from start menu (under BeOS
button). Small mark should appear to one of window corners. Right-click that mark and choose Delete.
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