If you’ve changed your boot preference, and can’t get the BeOS to boot on your new preferred volume, grab one of the BeOS installation CDs and boot from it rather than from your hard disk — you can do this by inserting both the boot floppy and the CD at the same time, or by using the launcher program from your „other“ operating system, and hit the left shift key (for ppc) or the Spacebar (x86) when the Be logo pops up.
Select the CD and agree to the license, and then type „Control+Alt+Shift+D“ when the installer comes up to launch Drive Setup. Mount the hard drive that you have your erroneous Boot preference on, write down where it mounted the drive, and close DriveSetup.
Next, type „Control+Alt+Shift+T“ to get a Terminal window. Be warned, though, that since the CD is now your /boot volume, your hard drive will be mounted at /Drivename rather than /boot — you should have written it down, but it’s pretty easy to find it. Just go to the TOP of your directory structure – „cd /“ works well – and look for the name of your drive.
Change directory down into your BeOS drive, and look in /Drivename/home/config/settings/ for a file called „Boot settings“. Delete it.
Reboot, and your box should be working fine again.
ProcessController is a nifty little application which, when activated from the Terminal using „ProcessController -deskbar“, adds a replicant to the Deskbar shelf.
The replicant allows for quick access to several useful utilities, including quitting applications, killing or even changing the priority of threads, and their sub-threads. It even has a menu item for quick access to the Terminal.
Update: If you install BeOS Personal Edition from within Windows, you’ll find a Windows „Create Boot Floppy“ utility in the BeOS program group. Otherwise, use the notes below.
Note: If you don’t have a BeOS boot floppy already and can’t boot your system normally to create one, you can download the floppy image from ftp.be.com/pub/beos_updates/.
In R4.5, creating extra BeOS boot floppies becomes a lot easier than it was in the past. Insert a floppy, open a Terminal window, and type:
makebootfloppy -cd
This will create a boot floppy capable of booting either from your hard disk or from the BeOS CD. If you leave off the -cd flag, the floppy will be created much more quickly, but will only be capable of booting from hard disk. If you want to create a floppy that boots only from a specific partition, use the -base flag, e.g.:
makebootfloppy -base /gorgonzola
This floppy will attempt to boot from your /gorgonzola partition even if it’s not your main boot partition. You can also use the -preserve option to leave a copy of the boot image in /tmp (only valid when used with the -cd flag).
William Dell Wisner contributes this undocumented tidbit:
The standard
makebootfloppycommand tries to create the boot floppy image to/dev/disk/floppy/raw. If you want to write a boot image to some sort of removable media, such as a Zip or LS-120 drive, use the undocumented-imageflag. For example:makebootfloppy -cd -image /dev/disk/ide/atapi/0/slave/0/raw
Alternatively, if you want to create an image from an existing floppy rather than from the boot image on your hard drive, you can simply do:
cat /dev/disk/floppy/raw > image.img
and then write image.img to a new floppy with:
cat image.img > /dev/disk/floppy/raw
This is a good way to get around having to remember all of the dd commands shown below.
If you need to make the floppy from within Windows, insert the BeOS CD and a floppy and navigate to Win95/BeOS on the CD. Click Make.bat and sit back.
The following instructions are left over from versions of BeOS prior to R4.5.
It’s a good idea to make a backup copy of your BeOS boot floppy — you never know when you might need it. You can do this by creating a raw disk image either from the file /boot/beos/system/zbeos or from the original floppy itself (the zbeos method is easier). You can create boot floppies from within Windows, Linux, or BeOS. While you can’t boot a more recent version of BeOS with an older boot floppy, you can always use the latest boot floppy to boot older versions of BeOS.
From within BeOS, you can use the dd command. To create a copy of the image on the floppy from withIn BeOS, do the following.
– open a Terminal window
– insert the boot floppy
– type „dd if=/dev/disk/floppy/raw of=bootflop.img“
– wait for the copy to finish and remove the boot floppy
– insert a blank formatted disk
– type „dd if=bootflop.img of=/dev/disk/floppy/raw“
– wait for the copy to finish. You now have a copy of your bootfloppy.
To create a copy of the zbeos image from within BeOS, do this:
– open a Terminal window
– insert a floppy you don’t mind overwriting
– type „dd if=/system/zbeos of=/dev/disk/floppy/raw“
– wait for the copy to finish. You now have a copy of your bootfloppy.
The second method will also create a bootable floppy, without requiring
to read the bootfloppy first.
The same technique works from within Linux. To create a boot floppy from within Windows, search the net for a tool called rawrite.exe and run according to its included instructions. Alternatively, launch a DOS session and type DiskCopy a: b: (swap SOURCE and DESTINATION as needed).
See also: Creating BeOS boot floppies, pt. II.
Supergeeks who use formula queries frequently might like to be able to edit their formulas directly from the Tracker, rather than having to edit the queries first (see screenshot below).
To do this, you need to take the hidden attribute that stores the formula and make it visible. That hidden attribute is called _trk/qrystr. Open the FileTypes preferences panel and scroll to application/Be Query. In Extra Attributes, click Add. Give the new attribute the name „formula“ (without the quotes) and the Internal name _trk/qrystr. Make it of the type String, and select the Editable and Visible checkboxes. Give it a default display width of 200, click Done, close FileTypes, and close then re-open any Tracker windows displaying queries. You should now have a Query sub-type in the Tracker’s Attributes menu from which you can select „formula.“
By default, the AdamBrowser displays three organizational tabs: Mail Folders, Mail Queries, and Address Book. To change the order of these, close the Adam Browser and open ~/config/settings/Adamation/AdamBrowser in the Tracker. You’ll find one folder and two symlinks with the same names as your tabs, but with numbers 1, 2, and 3 in front of them. Rename these with different numbers, restart AdamBrowser, and your tabs will have been re-ordered.
Also, try these Adam plugins.
If you use Adam for your email needs and work with a lot of mail, you’ll appreciate the QuickFilter feature when you need to find a message or two in a hurry. Look for the small QuickFilter input box at the bottom of the message list view and type the first few letters of the name of someone whose messages you’re trying to find. Immediatey, your message list will be pared down to just the messages matching that string. You can do the same for subject lines.
To restore the original message list, just tap Backspace a couple of times to undo the QuickFilter.
Also, try these Adam plugins.
If you elected not to install the Japanese Input Method when you installed BeOS, and later decide you’d like to give it a try, you don’t have to install the OS again just to get the option. Look in /boot/beos/etc/install/_japanese_install_ on your BeOS CD. Then, taking care not to overwrite existing folders, copy the contents of these folders to corresponding folders on your hard drive. Reboot or see this tip and the Japanese Input Method will be enabled.
Tap Alt+Spacebar to switch into kanji input mode system-wide, or use the new replicant you’ll find in the Deskbar.
While you’ll probably almost never have occassion to do this, keep in mind that you can always restart the input_server by typing:
/system/servers/input_server -q
into the Terminal. This can come in handy if you install something like the Japanese Input Method , SpiceKeys, or another input method add-on and don’t want to ruin your uptime by rebooting.
If you use Zeid Derhally’s NetPenguin for your FTP needs, you can install a small penguin replicant in your Deskbar that will give you one-click access to your bookmarked FTP sites. Just add this line to your UserBootscript:
/boot/apps/net/NetPenguin/NetPenguin -deskbar
(substituting the actual path to your copy of NetPenguin, of course). From then on you’ll be able to click the little penguin in the Deskbar and select an FTP host to jump straight to a site.
The SoundBlaster 32 and AWE32 use different chipsets; if you have a standard 32, don’t expect support for it from the AWE32 driver in R4. (Functionally, the only difference between a 32 and an AWE32 is that the AWE32 has 512K of on-board memory).
Fortunately, the 32 is supported by the SB16 driver. Download the SB16 driver from BeWare and you’ll be all set — you’ll even get MIDI support (which the SB16 doesn’t do).