This page is a wiki. Please login or create an account to begin editing.
Architecture: PPC
BeOS Developer Release 8.2 for Power Mac
This is Developer Release 8.2 of the Be Operating System.
This is a very early preview of Be's OS that runs on a small handful of PCI-based Power Macs. According to Low End Mac, only 9 models of Mac, with either a 603/603e or 604/604e PPC CPU are supported:
* Power Mac 8600 and 9600: Supported below 250 MHz, some 250 MHz models are compatible and some are not, 300 MHz and faster models are not compatible.
* Power Mac 9600 MP
* Power Mac 8500 and 9500, including 9500 MP
* Power Mac 7300 and 7600
* Power Mac 4400 (7220 in some markets)
* Performa/Power Mac 6400
To install, open the "Installing the BeOS" document in SimpleText and follow the instructions.
CompatibilityArchitecture: PPC
Power Macs with PCI supported; does NOT run on G3 or higher Macs.
Comments
It's more than just the Install Tools. Apple's Open Firmware implementation can only boot from HFS(+) volumes, so that any other file system (UFS, BFS) requires a helper HFS+ partition so that a rudimentary installation of MacOS can load a filesystem driver and search for the bootloader.
If you want to install BeOS on any of the supported hardware, do it with the 60x PPC processor in situ and switch only to an upgrade G3 processor once you have everything up and running. I did this on a 9600 with a Tsunami logic board.
One of the pitfalls, apart from topping out at BeOS 5.x is that there are much fewer drivers and apps compiled for PPC and since BeBits bit the dust, they are a bit scattered over various repos and mirrors that cater mainly for Intel.
@LambdaCalculus379 Is that a reply addressed to someone, or is it simply a passing comment? I don't see anyone with that question...
The Mac OS system compatibility is primarily for the install tools. BeOS itself does not run from within Mac OS, and requires a partition of its own to work.
If only the successor, Haiku, wasn't Intel-only (in practice). Then BeOS could have some interesting comeback in Talos and POWER9. (And the legendary POWER10 will soon be out.)
Hmmm, now that I think about it, I do have a Sonnet G3 upgrade sitting in my Performace 6116 CD...
Worth pointing out that BeOS will run on a G3 if that G3 is an upgrade processor to one of the above 6xx series PowerMacs.