Can I run BeIA on regular intel hardware?

The answer is a big "Yes", with large caveats. I have successfully booted into BeIA R1.0RC using the tools I posess and which I know to be readily avaliable on the internet and via BeShare. You simply have to know *how* to configure your system!! Here is a short run through

(1) You need a generic set-up, but must have a well supported motherboard and a non-P4/Athlon based board/processor set-up. Basically, if you can boot R5, you're half way there! If you can boot R5 and you have no mobo or onboard hardware issues, you're in a better position.

(2) Preparing your setup. Don't attempt to use a machine which does not have a fairly similar setup to this:

• IDE master HDD with BeOS R5.03 installed
• Spare HDD Master drive (any size, really doesn't matter) for BeIA. This should be on your secondary IDE stream and your BIOS should allow booting from it in the absense of the main drive.
• CD ROM drive is optional, but useful.

Your machine should have at least 32MB of ram to be usable. The second drive should be viewed as volatile - do not use a drive with anything at all usefull on it, you'll be reformatting it at a later stage. At this point you'll need to install the BeIA Dev kit 2.5. I have seen this on BeShare. ~53MB download. Install this. There'll be 3 BeIA builds, we'll be using the desktop build, which is installed to /boot/home/builds/Desktop/*.

Jumping in, right at the deep end...

open Terminal and type:

SIZE=32MB create_disk_image /boot/home/builds/Desktop my_beia.img

This will build a 32MB BeIA image. You then write this to your other blank drive. If you are not sure of it's logical location, use DriveSetup to figure it out!! The next line assumes it's the secondary master:

dd if=./my_beia.img of=/dev/disk/ide/ata/1/master/raw

when this has finished, reboot. When you hit BIOS, enter and disable the primary hard drive... we need to cleanly boot from the BeIA drive - no bootman will not suffice!!

You will see "Stinger booting......." and then the R4.5 boot screen (don't be put off by this, it is BeIA, just using the Desktop builds default boot screen.)... If you make it to Wagner, you will know... otherwise you'll need to mess about with kernel debugging (i.e. you're on your own!)

Troubleshooting

I Have no sound!!! - again use a BeOS driver. It might work. I've used the SB16 driver successfully!.

I have no net!!! This one is more complex. Assuming your net card is supported... try copying the /boot/home/config/settings/network file from your working R5 partition. Also, look at the other Geode builds. One has some "BEIA_" prefixed files. One is to do with networking. I moved this file to my BeIA install, edited this and copied my network settings and all works for me now.

My graphics supported, but are always 640x480!! First try adding the VESA file to the /boot/home/config/settings/kernel/drivers .. this works with some cards (and, no you don't end up in VESA mode..) The setting overrides the settings stored by the app_server. It's the same as entering the boot menu and selecting a screen res from there. However, some cards don't allow this.

For example, Matrox cards seem to have a problem with this. I found that the only way not to resort to using a non VESA mode (which you can control, obviously) is to copy the /boot/home/config/settings/app_server_settings file to the BeIA from a working BeOS install. All you have to do prior to copying is set the correct graphics mode/bitdepth on Workspace 1. This, it seems, is what actually controls the resolution under BeOS. I got 32bit 800x600 from my Matrox millennium 2 using this method!!!

More to come later ;-)

I have a Netier, which is a discontinued Thin Client from Wyse. It cost a whole $30 US. It is (Warning: Damn American doesn't know metric!) 8.5 x 9.5 x 2 inches with an external power supply. It has an IDT Winchip at 266MHz, with 2 DIMM slots, 2 IDE and 1 floppy headers, sound, USB, NIC, and TVout. I do not have the TVout working yet, only tested once though, but do have both BeIA and BeOS running on it. I loaded the DOC (disk on chip) which had an early Windows based client on it with BeIA, and BeOS is running off a 2.5 HDD from a laptop. I'm currently working on ribbon cable adapters to add a floppy and DVD-CDR from a laptop. This small case actually provides room for all 3 to go inside! All drives have been tested and run, I just need to rework what I have here for cable adapters so that I can close the case.

I'm currently testing every small thin client or other device I can get my hands on that looks like it "might" work. Thanks to memson and a couple of others, I hope we can get a list of low cost devices that anyone can afford that want to explore possible uses for BeOS, BeIA, or an OpenBeOS equivilent. I can think of many uses by combining it with a camera, stereo, or just using it as a stand- alone device. I hope someone more knowledgable than I can find uses that will eventually open the path to more embeded uses.

Cale aka DLazlo

I'm researching the ability to install something other than CE.NET (BeIA!) on a set of Winterm 3350SE's i've gotten. If anybody has any ideas on this, I would love it if you would contact me. dykstraz [at] dwx [dot] com.

Reply - dunno if Cale has picked this one up, but post some more specs (processor, chipset etc..) Be aware that BeIA is still restricted to IA32 (aka x86, Pentium class) devices....

chuffy

******************************************************************** I tryed with: make_disk_image.... and got: command not found If i try: SIZE=32MB create_disk_image /boot/home/builds/Desktop my_beia.img then i got: using main partition size 32MB Creating source image -- this will take some time! -- Contents of my_beia.img/beos/system: -- End contents could not open boot file my_beia.img/beos/system/zbeos, No such file or directory Source dir did not fit

I have under /beos/system a file called "zbeos" 77.05 kB.

Now i have made with "flshit" a 32MB Image file. My second HDD is on secondory master. But it does not work. I can not write to the disk:

dd if=/boot/home/BeIA_Aqua.img of=/dev/disk/ide/ata/1/master/raw /bin/dd: /dev/disk/ide/ata/1/master/raw: Invalid argument 1+0 records in 0+0 records out

What wend wrong?

Reply - Well, the zbeos from R5 is no good. It does not know how to boot CFS. You need the zbeos that comes with the BeIA dev kit's Desktop build. That will be installed with the Devkit to /boot/home/builds/Desktop/beos/system/zbeos iirc. This should all work, but you may have a tool missing or may have a broken installation. Try reinstalling.

The second part could be my memory. The path to the disk could be wrong - don't take it litterally, please chack it's correct in drivesetup.

Make sure you have the devkit installed - Dano may have bits of the kit included, but you need the *full* kit to do the build. Look on beshare, search for the word 'beia' and it should be about 50MB.

I have just recieved some new soft resources to work with. To whon it may concern- Thanks 8^) Also have just aquired a Virgen WebPlayer and a ThinkNIC or NIC (New Internet Computer, Larry Elison of Oracle's idea to discomfort Bill G.) and checking them out.

The NIC is a good idea- almost, It boots and runs off a CD with a cut-down Linux. What I'd like to see is something cheap that would boot off a Haiku CD or Haiku-IA image on a DOC as a base package, with some of the onboard IDE headers and other options many of these IA's and thinclients have. You could then later slide in a 2.5 HDD and do a hard drive install for more functionallity, while keeping the CD or DOC as a fallback boot system for disaster recovery. It would be an ideal 'cheap' intro device for introducing Haiku to a wider market, as it would not require an expensive replacement the first time or two someone wanted to upgrade because they've decided they like it and want to stay with using Haiku. It could also be used in a MIDI or A/V device that is Haiku-based to add-on capabilities.

The Wyse 3350SE has the small square BIOS, and I can only assume it is an XpressROM. I'm very open to hacking this thing like crazy, i'd really like to get it up and running with some OS other than WINCE.

Hello, I'm trying to build XP embedded for one of these...wondering if you've had any success at PXE network boot? Was hoping to remote boot a decent Explorer shell onto it as I have 64mb of RAM installed on it.