Installing BeOS on laptops
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")
| Manufacturer | Model | Max Resolution | Audio ? |
| Compaq | Presario 1685 | 1024x768 | yes |
| Compaq | Presario 1690 | 1024x768* | yes |
| Dell | Lattitude CPi | 1024x768 | yes |
| Dell | Latitude XPi CD | 800x600 16bit and 8bit | no |
| Digital | HiNote 735 | 1024x768 | yes |
| HP | OmniBook 4100 | 1024x768 | yes |
| IBM | ThinkPad 380ED | 800x600 | yes |
| IBM | ThinkPad 380Z | 1024x768 | yes |
| IBM | ThinkPad 390E | 800x600, 1024x768 | yes |
| IBM | ThinkPad 535X | 800x600 | yes |
| IBM | ThinkPad 560E | 800x600 | yes |
| IBM | ThinkPad 560z | ? | yes |
| IBM | ThinkPad 570 | ? | yes |
| IBM | ThinkPad 600 | 1024x768 | yes |
| IBM | ThinkPad 600E | 1024x768 | yes |
| IBM | ThinkPad i1412 | ? | yes |
| IBM | ThinkPad i1450 | 1024x768 | yes |
| IBM | ThinkPad i1452 | ? | yes |
| IBM | ThinkPad i1417 | 800x600x16 | yes |
| Sony | VAIO 505G | 800x600 | yes |
| Sony | VAIO 505RX | 1024x768 | yes |
| Sony | VAIO 505TS | 800x600 | yes |
? for Max Resolution means I forgot to check before I left the store. The ThinkPad 390E has two Max Resolution entries because different models have different max resolutions.
* For Max Resolution means confirmed to work at 1024x768 in any bit depth.
Jesse Hall (jesse at xmission dot com) contributes the following list (modified with additions from miscellaneous contributors):
Some of these reports are several months old and were tested with R4, so a) these models may no longer be shipping, and b) R4.5 may have improved support for the marginal ones. Also, many of these come from someone taking a CD to a store with friendly (or sometimes even unfriendly) salespeople and seeing if the install booted, so details on sound support are pretty slim. Here goes:
| Make / model | Video | Sound | Contact | Comments |
| AMS Tech TP-257CXA | Y | N | (rmoser1 at san.rr dot com) |
|
| Compaq Presario 1210 | Y | N | (gurpal.x.hundal at mail.sprint dot com) | |
| Compaq Presario 1255 | Y | N | (rmoser1 at san.rr dot com) | |
| Compaq Presario 1260 | Y | N | (rmoser1 at san.rr dot com) | |
| Compaq Presario 1260 | Y | N | (gurpal.x.hundal at mail.sprint dot com) | |
| Compaq Presario 1640 | Y | N | (allen at driversoft dot com) |
|
| Compaq Presario 1690 | Y | Y | (earl dot malmrose at sierra dot com) |
APM supported; clean power down |
| CTX EzBook 893T-FK | Y | ? | (dsowsy at cs.uml dot edu) |
|
| CTX F Series | Y | Y | (jamescrockett at earthlink dot net) |
winmodem |
| Dell Inspiron 3500 | Y | N | (beos at birdhouse dot org) |
audio should be possible, but no working audio driver for NeoMagic 256AV yet. Have to boot in vesa mode, even though it runs fully accelerated (not vesa) |
| Dell Inspiron 7000 | Y | Y | (various) | Lots of good reports on this one; everything works well. |
| Fujitsu 520D | Y | ? | (gurpal.x.hundal at mail.sprint dot com) | generic video driver |
| Fujitsu C350 | Y | ? | (rmoser1 at san.rr dot com) |
|
| Fujitsu C353 | Y | ? | (rmoser1 at san.rr dot com) |
|
| Fujitsu E340 | Y | ? | (rmoser1 at san.rr dot com) |
|
| Gateway 5150 | Y | N | (oliver at benews dot com) |
|
| IBM ThinkPad 380ED | Y | Y | (etomlin at expersoft dot com) |
|
| IBM ThinkPad 600 | Y | Y | (peteru at null dot net) |
works really well |
| IBM ThinkPad 600E | Y | Y | (greg.r.smith at intel dot com) | works really well |
| IBM ThinkPad 770 | (VESA) | Y | (achitnis at cbconsulting dot com) | The entire install was done on a 2.5 hour flight from New Delhi to Bangalore - on battery power. Winmodem 🙂 |
| IBM ThinkPad 770ED | Y | Y | (blamb at mail dot cise dot ufl dot edu) |
video fine with VESA options set |
| IBM ThinkPad 1450i | Y | Y | (blunt at amazon dot com) |
have to install in safe mode |
| IBM ThinkPad 1451 | Y | ? | (rmoser1 at san.rr dot com) |
|
| Mitsubishi Pedion | Y | N | (allen at driversoft dot com) |
|
| Quantex I-1510 | Y | N | (koehler at mythrium dot com) |
|
| Sony VAIO 505FX | Y | N | (allen at driversoft dot com) |
|
| Sony VAIO PCG-F150 | Y | N | (shacker at birdhouse dot org) |
|
| Sony VAIO PCG-731 | Y | ? | (allen at driversoft dot com) |
|
| Sony VAIO PCG-808 | Y | ? | (allen at driversoft dot com) |
|
| Sony VAIO PCG-862 | Y | Y | (kisaka at pochi dot iijnet dot or dot jp) |
Audio requires ess1879 driver |
| Sony Viao N505VE | Y | Y | (allen at kindacool dot com) |
Audio requires ymf724 driver |
| Toshiba Portege 7010 | Y | Y | (donaldson at cisco dot com) | Docking station works |
| Toshiba Tecra 4025C?? | Y | ? | (rmoser1 at san.rr dot com) | VESA mode video |
UMAX, Toshiba, and AMS Tech systems mostly don't work, with exceptions above. VAIOs seem to use ESS sound chipsets (see below).
Allen said that every box he's tried (which is a lot) that has an Intel 440TX (or is it 430TX) MB and a Neomagic chip has worked. Unfortunately, I don't think the TX supports the P-IIs, so you may have trouble finding it.
ESS sound chips (1868 & 1869) weren't supported in R4, but are common. I don't know if that's changed for R4.5.
One more thing I forgot. I have no idea how DVD support is in R4.5, but with R4 the boot CD wouldn't be recognized if it was in a DVD-ROM driver. Many newer laptops just have DVD instead of a normal CD-ROM, so you may want to watch out for it.
Finally, many laptops freeze completely on restart. This seems to be related to APM (which BeOS doesn't support for reasons I can go into if you're interested). I'm in the habit of telling it to shut down (which doesn't power off) and hitting the reset button.
From everything I've seen, the IBM 600[E] may be your best bet. Both Greg R Smith and Peter Urbanec are very happy with them, and video and sound are known to work. Standard disclaimers apply, of course :-). [Editor's note: some claim that the 600E has a very slow screen redraw and that this machine sometimes freezes on boot, so it's questionable whether this machine is the "best bet."]