Free BeOS 5 is yours--if you can get through
![zd-defaultauthor-justin-pearse.jpg](https://www.zdnet.com/a/img/resize/a4a0f7ea41ce2588f9429a28bb327ba0cd220548/2014/12/04/85b1b144-7b6a-11e4-9a74-d4ae52e95e57/zd-defaultauthor-justin-pearse.jpg?auto=webp&fit=crop&frame=1&height=192&width=192)
The eagerly awaited latest version of Be's desktop operating system was made available for free download Tuesday.
But throughout the day, strong demand for BeOS 5 Personal Edition made it almost impossible to gain access to any of the company's FTP or mirror download sites.
Since the company announced in January that it would be releasing a free version of the OS, with new audio and video manipulating capabilities, 100,000 people have pre-registered at the BeOS Web site.
Users who eventually manage to get through to the download site will be able to launch the operating system simply by clicking on a desktop icon. BeOS is stored as a file within Windows, and no hard drive partitioning is necessary.
Be will also launch a full-featured edition of the OS, BeOS 5 Pro Edition, with additional applications. It will be available through third-party vendors.
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