The Be Lives!

An anonymous reader submits: "As reported on the OS News: BeOS 5 PE Max Edition is based on the original BeOS 5 PE with an additional number of drivers, add-ons, AthlonXP/Pentium4 patches and more software. It includes new development tools from the OpenBeOS team but you will also be able to select the old tools. This is an ideal way to install BeOS 5 off a bootable CD image, for all those who wanted to try out BeOS but they were unable to do so because of the bugs/drivers and patches BeOS 5 PE needs to have applied into it before it successfully run on or support most modern PCs. BeBits has an overview of the files included in the package, and downloads for the Be Max in parts or as a whole (all 213MB). Enjoy!"

Comments

Is it still crippleware?

[Hythlodaeus]

The "personal edition" of BeOS was essentially crippleware designed to encourage you to buy the "professional edition." It had to be installed under Windows and booted from a disk image limited to 512 MB. If there were a free version of Be without such limitations, THAT would be news. It's too late for my money to help Be, Inc.

Re:Is it still crippleware?

[n.wegner]

The differences between PE and pro are about the same as the differences between Windows XP home and Windows XP Pro - basically PE is "good enough", and pro is just a little better.

If you want to install PE on a partition, you just load your windows-based PE installation, format the partition, run the installer, intall the bootmanager, then reboot. Full details can be found using google. If you want to install it under linux -
http://www.bebits.com/app/2680
has the disk image and the image for the floppy bootloader.

If you want to make a bootable cd, search for bootable be cd at bebits.com (which contains an el-torito cd track image of the above floppy bootloader) and follow the instructions found there.

Re:Corrections:

[subuni]

b) Where was it reported on OSNews? Can't find the article anywhere

http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=2212

Re:RADEON

[questionlp]

According to http://www.bebits.com/app/3148, in the first half of the "Graphics" section:

Graphics Driver for ATI Radeon (updated in Max Edition V2.1)

Re:Tying two stories together...

[Anonymous Coward]

Palm has their paws on the source. But they didn't make the changes. The changes were made either by editing the binaries (adding support for Athlons), producing new code (development tools), or editing what little source was released by Be, Inc. (the GUI file manager).

Palm is planning on using Be-style technology in an upcoming update to PalmOS, according to The Register. I believe a lot of Be's old workers work for Palm now.