BeTips.net

If you have a lot of RAM (>128MB), and find that your machine crashes fairly often, the following could be your problem:
„When accessing a filesystem where the blocks are 2 KB [or larger], such as a CD, the [disk] cache gets bigger. When you have 256MB of RAM [or greater], it gets so big that the kernel_heap collides with another part of the kernel called the vm_heap. When that happens, the kernel can no longer resize its heap, and that’s a fatal problem [the kernel panics, and you get thrown into KDL — read: your system crashes].“
The fix:
Copy the file /boot/home/config/settings/kernel/drivers/sample/kernel to /boot/home/config/settings/kernel/drivers.
Edit /boot/home/config/settings/kernel/drivers and uncomment the disk_cache_size line by removing the # sign.
Change 2048 to 16384.
Save your changes and reboot.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Quoted text taken from BeFAQs.com.

The following is official word from Be concerning ftp.be.com (there’s a reason why that isn’t hyperlinked). It is posted here for posterity’s sake.

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ftp.be.com is closed indefinitely. Instead, please use one of the mirror sites below:
ftp://be.dsi.unimi.it/pub/Be/
ftp://ftp.chg.ru/pub/BeOS/
ftp://ftp.gbnet.net/pub/be/
ftp://ftp.fsn.hu/pub/beos/
ftp://ftp.kddlabs.co.jp/Be/
ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/os/BeOS/
ftp://ftp.sunsite.org.uk/packages/
BeOS_stuff/
ftp://mirror.nucba.ac.jp/mirror/BeOS/

ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/BeOS/
ftp://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/beos/
ftp://mirror.qsi.net.nz/pub/BeOS/

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If you’re running an Epox 8KHA+ motherboard with an Athlon XP processor, and can’t get BeOS (R5) to boot, here’s a hint: check the Advanced Features section of your BIOS for an option that disables the Athlon XP’s SSE instructions. Disable it and the BeOS should boot fine. If said option isn’t present, make sure you have the very latest BIOS revision.

If you use an ATI Radeon video card, and find that your screen looks a bit too bright in BeOS, you aren’t alone. Fortunately, this problem is easily fixed:
First, if you haven’t already, rename /boot/home/config/boot/UserSetupEnvironment.sample to UserSetupEnvironment. Then add the following to said file: export APP_GAMMA=1.0
Save and reboot. If you wish, you can tweak the gamma value from there. The smaller the value, the darker the screen.

If you’re having trouble booting the BeOS, or if the BeOS isn’t running in a stable fashion on your system, several factors may be at fault. Above all else though, you should make certain that you’re using the most current (stable) BIOS revision for your motherboard.

You can find many types of files using the BeOS‘ built-in Find panel, but icon files are not one of those lucky many. To find icon files, you’re limited to just running a query on all types of files and folders, and it can be quite time consuming to scroll through the results.
Wait! Why not take advantage of the BeOS‘ powerful query system?
Hit Alt+F, choose by Formula, and type the following into the text field:
((name=="* *")&&(BEOS:TYPE=="application/x-vnd.Icon"))
Select the space between the two asterisks with your mouse (highlight it), click the upper- left arrow in the „Find“ panel, choose Save Query as template..., and give it a name like „Find Icon“.
In the future, whenever you want to find an icon, just use this template.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: You can easily apply this tip to any type of file that can’t be searched for with the Find panel, just by changing what File type signature your formula uses.
Also of note: This tip depends on your icons having the File type signature application/x-vnd.Icon. Make sure all of your icons use this File type signature, and if they don’t, change ‚em!

There’s been a lot of trouble over the years with installing drivers on the BeOS, most of it do to user and or developer error in using bundled install scripts.
Follow these steps to make sure your driver installs fine and dandy like cotton candy:
– Unzip the install archive in BeOS, and BeOS only.
– Read the install notes first.
– If in doubt after reading the install notes, open up a Terminal, cd to the archive directory (i.e. cd /boot/home/Downloads/driver_x) and run the install script (i.e. ./install.sh).
– Reboot.

As with other browsers on other platforms, you can drag a NetPositive bookmark onto the Desktop or into a folder by accessing the site and dragging the small HTML file Icon at the left of the URL location bar. When you release the mouse the icon will turn into a bookmark.

I recently tried splitting up a 4.4 gigabyte file into 650MB portions for backup purposes using the ‚split ‚ command line app. When I came to restore the original file with the ‚cat‚ command line app, I ran into a problem.
The cluster size of 1024 on my main BeOS disk was inadequate for reforming the 4.4 gigabyte file. It gave me an error saying no space left on device, even though I had plenty of disk space. I persevered till I tried formatting another hard disk in my system, this time using the cluster size of 4096.
I redirected the output of the ‚cat‚ command to that disk and it worked!
This goes to show that the cluster size really does matter using large files. So, to summarize, if ‚cat‚ is giving you problems with large files, create a larger cluster sized bfs partition and it should work as expected.

SoundPlay can be controlled from your keyboard in several ways. Keys in the lower left keyboard row correspond one-to-one with the transport control buttons in the SoundPlay UI. By default (without the FF/FR buttons showing), the mapping is:
Z X C V B
With the FF/FR buttons showing (see Preferences | Window), the mapping is:
Z X C V B N M
Since the most common use of this is probably to start and stop SoundPlay when the phone rings, just remember that C stops and V starts (default) or that V stops and B starts (when FF/FR buttons are showing).
Of course, SoundPlay must have current focus for these keys to work. Therefore, Marco adds:
An even better way is to use the ’spctrl‘ application (included in the Extras/RemoteControl folder) together with SpicyKeys. By binding functionkeys to ’spctrl stop‘, ’spctrl play‘, ’spctrl next‘, etc, you get instant access to the most used functions, without the SoundPlay window having to be active.
For additional information on controlling SP remotely, see the IRMan add-on in the Extras/RemoteControl folder, or download Stephen von Egmond’s SoundPlay Scripting tutorial.