If you don't want networking you can skip this section.

Those extra files we got at the start have a network driver and some updates, but we need some way to get them onto the BeOS VM. It doesn't support VirtualBox's shared folders and we don't have networking, but we can mount a floppy image. If you like a challenge you can build your own image, or you can use the one I built:

ipro1000.7z

Shut your VM down, then go to the settings and add a floppy controller. Choose the image as the floppy disk.

Boot into BeOS. Right-click on the desktop and go to Mount, then click floppy. Your new disk should show up on the desktop. Open it and copy the ipro1000_0.4.zip file to your home folder. Now you can right-click the floppy and unmount it.

Go to your home folder and double-click the new zip file. BeOS came with an unzip utility out of the box, of course. In the Expand-O-Matic window click Expand.

Close Expand-O-Matic and open the ipro1000 folder. Double-click install.sh (yep, it has shell scripts!) to install the network driver.

Open the BeOS menu and go to Preferences, Network. Under Network Interfaces you should now see the Intel PRO/1000 network card that VirtualBox is providing. Click settings, choose Specify settings, and give it the following:

  • IP address: 10.0.2.15
  • Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
  • Gateway: 10.0.2.2

Click Done and then set a host name and DNS servers (you only need one, Google's 8.8.8.8 or Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 will work).

Click Save and restart networking when it asks.

Open the NetPositive browser in Applications and try navigating somewhere. HTTPS won't work so you'll need a plain old HTTP site, try www.google.com. It's not pretty but it works! There are better browsers available to install if you'd like.

Now that we're on the network, let's get some more files and install updates.

Download these two files in NetPositive:

The files will open once they finish downloading, so expand them both in Expand-O-Matic, close everything and go to your Home/Downloads folder.

Both of the blue pkg files were corrupt when I tried to open them, so double-click each zip and expand it again to fix the problem. Then open the BeOS5-Update3-Pro file. Click Begin, then Continue to install the update. Restart, then do the same with the cpu_fix package.

Click "Yes, I do have timing issues", then "Yes, please enable the patch".

Restart again and enjoy!

This guide was first published on Aug 07, 2019. It was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

This page (Advanced Setup) was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

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