Welcome to free.be.com - the place to download BeOS 5 Personal Edition free for personal, non-commercial use.
Check the BeOS Ready List for information on what hardware BeOS 5 supports. Find out what's new in BeOS 5 in the Latest Release Features.
Thanks to innovative new technology from Be, you can download BeOS 5 Personal Edition via a Web browser and store it as a file within Windows. No repartitioning is necessary, and launching BeOS 5 is as simple as double-clicking an icon on your desktop.
Before downloading and installing BeOS 5 Personal Edition, please read the Readme file for important information.
Download BeOS 5 Personal Edition from any of the following locations:
Americas/Japan:
http://www.zdnet.com/ - Ziff-Davis, North America
http://download.cnet.com/ - CNET/Download.com, California
TUCOWS.COM - Worldwide
http://www.pcworld.com/fileworld/ - PC World, North America
ftp://www.beforever.com/pub/beforever/freebe/ - BeForever, Omaha, NE
ftp://mirror.nucba.ac.jp/mirror/BeOS/beos - Ngoya Syouka University, Ngoya, Japan
ftp://ftp.kddlabs.co.jp/Be/beos - KDD R&D Labs, Saitama, Japan
http://www.xtserver.net/be - XTServer.Net, Kansas City, MO
ftp://ftp.be.com/pub/beos/ - Be, Inc. San Jose, CA
Europe/Australia:
http://ftp.planetmirror.com/pub/beos/beos/ PlanetMirror - Brisbane, Australia
ftp://ftp.planetmirror.com/pub/beos/beos/ PlanetMirror - Brisbane, Australia
ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/BeOS/beos - Vienna University of Technology, Austria
http://sunsite.org.uk/packages/BeOS_stuff/beos/ - SUNSite, London, England
ftp://ftp.ph-freiburg.de/pub/mirrors/ftp.be.com/beos - P.H. Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany
http://www.computerchannel.de/download/beos/ - ComputerChannel, Hamburg, Germany
ftp://ftp.xtserver.com/beos/ - XTServer, Duesseldorf, Germany
http://www.beosonline.de - BeOSOnline.De, Frankfurt, Germany
ftp://be.dsi.unimi.it/pub/Be/beos/ - Univ. of Milan, Milan, Italy
ftp://dl.xs4all.nl/pub/mirror/Beos - XS4All, Amsterdam, Netherlands
http://www.kentelek.com/beos/ - Kentelek, Burgos, Spain
ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/os/BeOS/ - SUNET, Uppsala, Sweden
BeOS Personal Edition on CD
As an alternative to downloading BeOS 5 Personal Edition, some third parties are making it available on CD. Included with BeOS 5 Personal Edition are demos, third-party applications and other goodies (contents will vary from CD to CD - check the website of the third party offering the CD for a list of exact contents and pricing).
Le Buzz: BuzzCD
Wildcard Design: SampleCD
Free BeOS 5 FAQ:
Updated 3/27/2000 7:35 AM PST
Q: Does this mean BeOS is available to anyone free for any use?
A: No. We will offer free BeOS 5 licenses to individuals for personal, non-commercial use only. Commercial uses of BeOS 5 require a separate
license from Be.
Q: Does BeOS 5 Personal Edition contain everything in the current release?
A: Not everything, no, but it's fully functional and isn't a demonstration version -- it really works. We do plan to offer for sale BeOS 5 Pro Edition, which will be bundled with additional applications and services for advanced functionality that truly take advantage of the power of BeOS.
Q: I'm already using BeOS. Will I be able to upgrade to BeOS 5?
A: Yes. Check with your local distributor for more information.
Q: Will BeOS 5 Personal Edition include development tools?
A: Due to space and bandwidth considerations, the development tools are available as a separate download. Yes, they are still free.
Q: Will Be continue to update BeOS?
A: Yes, we plan on continuing to develop and release new versions of BeOS.
Q: How will Be distribute BeOS 5 Pro Edition? Through what
channels?
A: Check out the distributors page for more information.
Q: What does this do to the market for third-party products?
A: We hope that users and potential users will react favorably. This shift should give developers more control over their own marketing because they will have the ability to bundle BeOS 5 with their applications on extremely favorable terms, making it possible for them to ship complete, stand-alone packages at attractive prices. Also, if by offering BeOS free over the Internet we are able to expand our customer base, then this would benefit developers as well.
Q: If BeOS is free, how does Be make money?
A: Be charges for all uses of BeIA, its software platform for Internet appliances. With regard to BeOS 5, it is licensed free to end-users for personal, non-commercial use only. Be will continue to charge for commercial uses of BeOS 5 and for all uses of the expanded edition of BeOS 5.
Q: Will BeOS 5 Personal Edition work on my Intel-compatible personal computer?
A: The chances are good, especially if it was manufactured recently. Check
http://www.be.com/compatible/ for compatibility details.
Q: How large is BeOS 5 Personal Edition? How long will it take to download?
A: The download for BeOS 5 Personal Edition is just over 40 MB. This translates to a download time of about one and a half hours over a 56K dialup connection, or a few minutes over a DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) or T1 connection.
Q: Will I have to repartition my hard drive to install BeOS 5 Personal Edition?
A: No. If you're currently using Windows (currently Windows 98 or Windows 95), you'll be able to download BeOS 5 via a Web browser and store it as a file within the Windows file system. Downloading BeOS 5 Personal Edition will be no different than downloading any application or utility. No repartitioning will be necessary, and launching BeOS 5 will be as simple as double-clicking an icon on the desktop. If you decide to delete BeOS 5 Personal Edition -- though we hope you don't -- doing so will be as simple as uninstalling any typical Windows application.
Q: Does this mean BeOS 5 Personal Edition runs "under" Windows?
A: No. Although you can launch BeOS via a file within Windows, BeOS does not run as a Windows application. Double-clicking the file will exit Windows and boot BeOS from a large file in the FAT file system which contains within it a BFS volume.
Q: If I install BeOS 5 Personal Edition within Windows, will I still have the advantages of the Be File System (BFS)?
A: Yes.
Q: How large of a BFS partition will I get?
A: The 40MB download decompresses to a 500MB file in your Windows partition, into which the Be File System and BeOS is installed. Because BeOS 5 Personal Edition must reside on your C: drive, you'll need at least 600MB free on C:
Q: If I install BeOS 5 Personal Edition within Windows, will performance suffer compared to the stand-alone version?
A: Assuming your Windows partition is not highly fragmented, in most cases you probably won't notice a difference in performance between installation methods.
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