The Perpetual BeOS

[alakhiyar]

I am venturing more and more into BeOS. So, i thought a topic about my experiences could be worth a read just in case someone else tried. I am running BeOS 5.03 Pro (Gobe Edition)

I am running it on a dual 800Mhz Pentium III with 768MB of memory and a Matrox G100 PCI card (ancient) that works quite well. I am having some sound problems, but i am starting to think it is something else but the soundcards that i am trying.

Its nice to feel that an old system like that starts in 8 seconds (usable desktop with a network connection) and where everything is blazing fast again.
App support is still tricky, especially the browing part although there are several mozilla projects underway.
If you would like, i can write a short intro into how it works. Perhaps Mystic could elaborate how to run it in VM mode for those who do not have a spare machine around.

I will continue to post my findings in here, both positive and negative stuff.

Oh, and if you do have something around, you will need at least a Pentium 90Mhz with 32MB of memory and 500 megabytes of space.

[alakhiyar]

If you are really interested, here is a short little hardware guide as to what works best:

Pentium 90 (does not boot on anything less) Its still snappy.
i recommend 64MB at the least system memory
Graphics - Old 3dfX Voodoo or Banshee, Nvidia TNT/TNT2, GF2, Matrox
Sound - Some Cmedia, most Soundblaster work with an added driver.
Network - Most NE2000 compatible cards work, same with most 3com cards, There are some network drivers to be found at www.bebits.com.
If you got a spare Mac around (Pre iMac) they work too. If you need the PPC image, i will gladly host it. The BeOS CD's have both versions on them.
If you are unsure about the hardware, let me know- I got most things memorized these days.