BeTips.net

In some configurations, WON and CIFS may cause conflicts with your existing DNS lookups. For example, if your BeOS machine is your home gateway WON will trying to use your provider’s DNS to lookup other CIFS hosts ( possible security flaw?). This will also cause shared printer paths to be invalid.
You can get around this problem by using cifsmount to mount shared volumes by IP address, including printers.

cifsmount -I 192.168.xxx.xxx -W WORKGROUP \\HOST\SHARE user pass /mnt

Make /mnt a real directory (I use /boot/prnt), and mount the shared printer to /boot/prnt. Next, create a printer of the same type as the one you’ve just mounted, but set it to print to file. When the print process gets to the point of saving the file, point it at the /boot/prnt directory. Once finished, you’ll have to delete the file from /boot/prnt and close the window. Now it will print. My shared printer is postscript, and I can save postscript files to it directly (through /boot/prnt). I’ve only tested this with an HP 6MP.

If you launch the MediaPlayer from a Terminal with the --help option, you’ll discover that you can control a whole bunch of parameters from the command line. You can specify the volume of the audio, the three different display modes, whether or not to loop, etc. The parameters passed from the command line will override any attributes stored in the movie or sound file by MediaPlayer the last time the file was played.
Note that you can even specify the location in the file from which to start playing — something you can’t control when launching a movie or sound by double-clicking in the Tracker. For example, the following command will cause Animation1 to be launched full-screen and to loop endlessly through the first one second of video:

MediaPlayer -loop on -inpoint 0 -outpoint 1000000 -full Animation1

These options may come in especially handy for creating self-running demo scripts!

As you know, BeOS automatically save all queries to /boot/home/queries, and all queries self-destruct automatically in seven days unless you tell them not to.
As of R4.5, the Find panel gets a built-in query icon. After constructing your query, drag this icon to the Desktop or elsewhere in the Tracker so you don’t have to go digging around for it later.

As of R4.5, BeOS includes the first appearance of a CIFS (Common Internet File System) client and server package. CIFS is not fully supported in R4.5 and appears in the /optional/experimental/WON directory (where WON stands for „World O‘ Networking, the BeOS equivalent of Windows‘ Network Neighborhood). In a future release, WON should be built into the Network preferences panel.
Basic WON usage is pretty simple, and documenation is included in the accompanying readme file. However, some networks, especially NT networks, include tighter security and may prove troublesome. The best documentation on using WON services in BeOS is Oliver Thylmann’s coverage in the BeNews Extra that accompanied the release of R4.5.
Additional WON tips that are not covered there will appear here as they roll in.

If you need to create PostScript files under BeOS for use with the Ghostscript viewer or for viewing in another operating system, learn to use a2ps. While a version of a2ps is included with every copy of BeOS (take a look in /bin), Kristan Slack has created a version that’s much more complete and capable.
a2ps stands for „anything to postscript.“ Its role is rather obvious – it takes anything you give it, such as plain text, C++ code, or HTML, and produces a postscript output file. But a2ps is much more powerful than it first appears. a2ps can recognise many programming languages and format them with bold and italic text styles, making the final output file nice to read.
a2ps can also use „virtual pages“ to reduce your final printout size – by tiling more than one „real“ page on a postscript page – you can reduce the number of total pages dramatically.

A simple example

Say, for example, you’ve just written the obligatory foo.c and foo.h, and want a2ps to output a postscript file containing these. Simple:

a2ps -4 foo.c foo.h -o foo.ps

a2ps goes about it’s work, recognising these files are written in C and formatting them appropriately, tiling 4 virtual pages per actual page.

Extras

a2ps can also receive pipes from the bash shell, accept multiple files as input, change font and tab sizes, etcetera. a2ps is a powerful programmer’s tool for creating reports. For further information, a2ps has detailed help. Just type :

a2ps --help

While R4.5 still does not support CHAP connections (which are used instead of PAP by some of the big major ISPs such as Earthlink), some ISPs may offer dynamic switching between CHAP and PAP. Many R4.5 users are finding that they can now make the connection by changing „Standard PPP“ to „Unknown Type 1“ in the Dial-Up Networking preferences panel.
Additionally, at least one user has discovered that you can edit /boot/beos/etc/servers.ppp as follows:

Unix_login T
 erid:s du assword? dw
 IV>s dppp
S

Then select Unix_login in the Dial-up Networking preferences to get an Earthlink connection working.

In addition, Ken writes:
Set the connection type in the DUN preferences panel to Manual, and enter your DNS server addresses.
Upon connecting, you’ll get username / password prompt. Earthlink accounts require a username format of („ELN/“ + Username).
Note that the backspace key will not work on the login screen, so if you mistype you’ll have to start over.

If you have an AWARD BIOS 4.51G, you can replace the standard green EPA logo with a BeOS logo, to be displayed at boot time.
Warning: While many users have reported success with this technique, it is not supported, and may crash your computer. If you have never flashed your BIOS or are afraid to, just don’t do it! In particular, we’ve had one report that a user with an Asus P2B-DS toasted his BIOS. That user was able to get back into fail-safe mode by removing one processor temporarily and using fail-safe mode. This indicates that problems may crop up with dual-CPU machines. Proceed with extreme caution, at your own risk.
First, you need to download the logo image file. Next, you’ll need to grab the utility cbrom.exe. You’ll also need the right BIOS flasher for your motherboard.
Alternatively, you can grab the logo and cbrom utility here:
http://www.solid.cc/belogo/be.epa
http://www.solid.cc/belogo/cbrom.ex e
Boot into DOS and run:

cbrom yourbios.bin /epa BeOS.epa

and you can reflash your BIOS using your flash.exe, pflash.exe or awdflash.exe (check at your motherboard manufacturer’s Web site for the latest BIOS and flasher).
I’ve tested this with an Asus P2L97 with various BIOS versions (1.03 to 1005), and also with 4 or 5 version (including LH) on an Abit BH6. At least one user has reported success with an Asus P5-A.
Note: If something goes wrong during flash, the new Award BIOS handles a special boot block that enables only drive A: and a PCI VGA board, so you can boot from a floppy disk in an emergency. BEFORE flashing your BIOS, create a system disk (format a: /s) and put your original BIOS on it with your awdflash.exe and create an autoexec.bat with

awdflash yourbios.bin /py /sn /cc /cp

This tip is also available in French.

Note: For the latest hardware-compatibility lists, be sure to check the Hardware section of thebesite.
Be’s hardware compatibility pages include some rather stern warnings about laptop support in R4.5. But while Be does not officially support laptops just yet, hundreds (maybe thousands) of users are successfully running R4.5 on laptops of all kinds, and have found the installation just as easy as with desktop machines. Some PCMCIA support is present, and battery life isn’t too shabby either (I’ve gotten 2.75 hours from a 3-hour battery with my Sony Vaio PCG-F150).
You’ll find a preliminary list of notebooks that support both audio and video below. You may also want to have a look at the NotePC Compatibility page.
The biggest difficulty with installing BeOS onto a notebook/laptop arises when the CD-ROM drive is not available or not supported. To work around this current limitation, ITO Takayuki has written a utility called BeWrite. This tool runs from within Windows, and writes the Be file system to a prepared blank partition, thus bypassing the need for BeOS to see a funky, outboard CD-ROM drive. Note that BeWrite is unsupported and should be used with caution. Read the documentation carefully before proceeding. A preliminary version for R4.5 can be downloaded here.
You may find additional helpful information at this b500 page, covering installation onto the Sony Vaio PCX line (far more difficult than installing onto the PCG line).
It appears that external floppy drives and touchpad pointing devices work in the vast majority of situations. If you have the ESS audio chipset in your laptop (this is found in NEC and probably many more machines) download the driver here.
Note: You may also find the Linux on Laptops page useful for general information.

The information provided below was gathered by Chris Herborth (arcanedragon at home dot com) with the desire to find laptops that have supported video and sound. Laptops that have supported video (especially the NeoMagic 128, 128XD and 256AV chipsets) are much easier to find.
ATI Rage LT Pro notebooks (best supported laptop video chipset, IMHO); info in parenthesis after the model name is the sound chip, if known (on this list, only the Compaq Presario 1685 is known to have supported sound under BeOS R4.5):

Compaq
 - Presario 1600s (?)
 - Presario 1685 (ESS Solo-1)
 - Presario 1687 (?)
 - Presario 1688 (?)
 - Presario 1690 (?)
 - Presario 1800 (?)
 - Presario 1800T (?)
 - Presario 1825 (?)
Dell
 - Inspiron 7000 (ESS-Maestro 2 slightly modified)
Fujitsu
 - FMV-6266NA8/X (?)
 - LifeBook 990Tx2 (?)
Gateway
 - Solo 9150 (?)
HP
 - OmniBook 7100 (?) - out of production
 - OmniBook 7150 (?) - out of production
Note: The HP OmniBook 7150 is the same exact machine
as the Dell Inspiron 7000; both are made by Compaq.
NEC
 - Ready Notebook 440T ("Advanced 3D PCI Sound System")
 - Versa LX VL3H0A20-0000A0 ("SoundBlaster Pro compatible", "Maestro-2E")
 - Versa LX VL4H0A20-0000A0 ("SoundBlaster Pro compatible", "Maestro-2E")
 - Versa LX VL4J0A60-0000A0 ("SoundBlaster Pro compatible", "Maestro-2E")
 - Versa LX VL4J0A6C-A100A0 ("SoundBlaster Pro compatible", "Maestro-2E")
 - Versa LX VL4K0A20-0000A0 ("SoundBlaster Pro compatible", "Maestro-2E")