The Haiku/BeOS Tip Server » Warnings

Don’t overwrite existing folders

shacker — Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000

Windows and BeOS have very different behaviors when copying a folder to a location that already contains a folder of the same name. Both systems will offer a “Replace?” dialog, but saying yes to this dialog in Windows will cause all new files to be added to the existing folder, while BeOS will overwrite the entire folder.

For example, if you drag a folder called “config” into your home folder and say yes to the “Replace?” dialog, you will wipe out your entire ~/config directory, which would be bad. R5 will allegedly include a number of more sophisticated options for handling this scenario.

Storing BeOS files on other file systems

shacker — Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000

As you know, attributes associated with files are very important to many BeOS applications and functions. Without attributes, your e-mail messages have no subject or sender, your bookmarks have nothing at all, your people files are empty, and so on. If you need to move files from your BeOS partition to another filesystem, such as FAT, HFS, or EXT2FS, be sure and pack them up with an archiving system that supports BeOS attributes before you do. Right now, that means using zip. Full instructions on using zip for creating backups and archives can be found in this tip.

Don’t put apps in /boot/beos/

shacker — Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000

Be has reserved the /boot/beos/ directory (and its subdirectories) for its own applications, and strongly recommends against either putting other applications there or moving its contents around. If you want icons in that space for your own organizational reasons, drop symlinks into the directory, not actual applications.

While you’ll find that things will probably still work if you mess with this directory, don’t be surprised if changes you’ve made to this directory are overwritten the next time you install or upgrade the OS.

/boot/home/ and subdirectories are the recommended location for 3rd-party applications, though you’ll probabably want to create /boot/home/apps/

Beware of HFS+

shacker — Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000

HFS+, is not supported in BeOS. This means that if you intend to access Macintosh volumes from within BeOS, you should keep a standard Mac partition on your hard drive containing the files you plan to access from BeOS. Either that, or don’t use HFS+ at all.

Apple DID release HFS+ specifications as a Tech Note, but Be doesn’t put much energy into development on the PowerPC side these days…

Don’t remove /boot/home

shacker — Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000

Even though the contents of /boot/home are yours and aren’t touched by BeOS during installation, it’s important that you don’t remove this folder entirely. For instance, if you have BeOS installed on multiple volumes and just want to keep your home folder on one of them, you might be tempted to replace the main one with a link to the folder on the other volume. Don’t do this. BeOS will boot strangely, your desktop will be empty, and lots of things will go screwy.

Don’t hit Alt+PrntScrn

shacker — Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000

Update: In BeOS 5, Alt+PrintScrn no longer drops you into the debugger, so this tip isn’t much of a warning anymore. If you do want to drop into the debugger, hit Alt+PrntScrn+D.

If you’re coming from the Windows world, you may be accustomed to using the Alt+PrintScreen key to limit your screenshots to the active object. Don’t try this in BeOS! This key combination drops you into the kernel debugger (the PrintScreen key doubles as the SysReq key). However, if you don’t have serial debugging enabled and aren’t watching the output on another screen, it will appear that your system has just locked up. For all intents and purposes, it has.

So: A) this is a feature, not a bug. Don’t bother reporting it. B) Don’t try it unless you’ve saved all your work and you’re ready to lock up your system.

Don’t lose attributes when moving files from Terminal

shacker — Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000

As of release 3.2, if you use the mv command to move a file or batch of files from one directory to another, everything works hunky dory. But if you move those files to another partition on your system, they’ll lose all their attributes! This could be disasterous if, for example, you wanted to move an overstuffed mail folder to a dedicated data volume. This can be avoided by simply using Tracker rather than Terminal to do your file moving, or by zipping your file(s) first.

Command-line queries include the Trash

shacker — Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000

If you run BeOS queries from the command line, be aware that they will include the Trash. The GUI query applet does not do this unless you specifically tell it to, but it can be a problem from the command line, and there’s no way to turn it off. You may want to filter your query results to make sure you’re not working with Trashed items, like this: query "((name=="filename")&&(BEOS:TYPE=="text/plain"))" | sed /Trash/d See Queries from the Terminal for basics.

Don’t link to Windows ATM fonts

shacker — Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000

The tip about sharing a single collection of fonts between Windows and BeOS is great, unless you’re using Adobe Type Manager 4 Deluxe in Windows. This software creates shortcuts in the C:windowsfonts directory which BeOS (R3.2) can not not deal with — the system hangs after boot. If you get burned by this, see the tip Disaster Recovery.

Don’t bother with WinModems

shacker — Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000

Update: BeOS 5 now supports some software modems, specifically those based on the PCTel and Lucent softmodem chipsets. You should be able to get these working without difficulty. Other softmodems probably won’t work. The old contents of the tip follow for users of R4.5.2 and prior.

Some modems shipped with some machines are known as “WinModems” because they utilize specific aspects of Microsoft Windows, and use your machine’s CPU (P133 or above) to handle much of their workload, rather than using their own on-board DSPs. In general this means poor performance on a slow Pentium running Windows, and tends to cause a lot of performance and reliability problems.

Even worse, these modems will not work with BeOS (or any other operating system besides Windows). If you have one of these, you have no choice but to replace it if you want to get online in BeOS.

If you’re shopping for a modem, take care not to buy one. They’re a classic example of the hardware industry bending over to please Microsoft.

If you’re not sure whether you’ve got a WinModem, look in the Windows Modem control panel for “HSP,” which stands for Host Signal Processing. Additionally,

if it says anything about PCI or HCF, it’s a WinModem. Check the Windows modem diagnostics panel and see the ATI3 field. Look for mention of HCF, or a version number along the lines of 2.1.2.122 or 2.1.2.135 etc. If you find these, you’ve probably got a Rockwell HCF WinModem. “Normal” Rockwell modems usually report version numbers along the lines of 2.210 and above.

WinModems come in both PCI and ISA form factors.

Note: You may also find the Winmodems are not Modems page useful.

If you’re stuck with a WinModem for a while, remember that BeOS can always mount your Windows partition, so you can download stuff in Windows and copy it over to your BeOS partition later.