Re: [aclug-L] [ off topic ] the BeOS

["Brian J. Chapman" <bchapman@xxxxxxxxx>]

At 04:17 PM 11/27/98 -0600, Jesse Kaufman wrote:
> hey, i was wondering what anyone has heard about BeOS...  yes, i realize
> this is a LINUX usergroup and not an "Alternate OS" user group, but i
> figure if someone can ask an NT question, i can ask about BeOS (no
> offense to the person that asked that NT question, by the way!!!).

Well Be Inc. is no where near as evil as the Microsoft Corp. so it's
probably safer in any event. ;-)


> i'm just interested in getting as much experience on as many different
> platforms as i can, and BeOS intrigues me, because it is so
> multimedia-based, and i (IMHO) think the gui is nice...
> 
> anyway, what've you heard?

Well i first started getting excited/interested in the BeOS back when
Be,Inc. was just starting out. The CEO, i forget his name at the moment,
used to be involved in some way with the Amiga. Anyway, i was mainly
interested it it because at the time Be was making their own computer for
it too, know as the BeBox. This was one gnarly little box too! Dual 603e
PPC processors (in 66 and 133 MHz config/models), 4 serials, 2 MIDI ports
builtin, SCSI, and the infamous 'Geek' port (kinda like a parallel but ten
times better), oh and it had a cool case too. And, yes, the GUI looks very
nice, i remember salivating over the screen shots on more than one
occasion. But after about a year or so they discontinued the BeBox and
focused on developing for Mac PPC's and, now, Intel processors. 

Suffice to say, i have really lost interest in Be. I think it still has
potential, but it's future appears bleak. The BeOS reminds me of when i
first got Internet access, i went and downloaded all these cool Computer
Graphic generated JPEGs. They were really cool to look at, but they didn't
have any real value outside of aesthetics. So they just sat in some
directory on my hard drive until such time that i needed the space. So
they were zipped up and spanned across some diskettes and, now, probably
are buried somewhere amongst other forgotten diskettes on the floor at the
bottom in the back of my closet (probably next to my Intellivison).

Granted, it's still a cool OS, but I lump it in the same category with
QNX. They are both are technical achievements and i would be proud to run
either one. The only problem is Microsoft still has 90% (or so) of the
market, Linux is open source and has the hacker community behind it, and
at least QNX is a real-time OS and has the embedded controller market. I
guess I just don't see where the BeOS is supposed to fit into the 'real
world'. It has great aesthetic value and a little hacker appeal too, but I
have yet to see any real world advantage or future for it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, since they dropped the BeBox i couldn't
care less anymore. If I'm going to run an Intel box, I'm going to run
Linux and Windows. 

However it would be a different story if i had a PowerPC! Not to mention
if i had the money to obtain someone's old BeBox. I'll bet my attitude
would be completely different.

Oh well, on the plus side though, O'Reilly & Assoc. did write a couple of
good developer books on the BeOS. One on the Be API and one on developing
games under it!! =)

I think you can download a trial version of the BeOS from their site
(be.com) or at least order it on CDROM. I've been told its multiple-OS
friendly, but i don't know if you can use LILO with it like you can with
Windows and Linux. You might have to resort to either the OS/2 boot
manager (if you have OS/2 that is) or System Commander.

If you check it out though, could you let me know what you think and what
it takes to get it to dual boot with Linux (provided, if that's your
target setup)? :-)

...jezz that was a long reply...sorry...looks like i'm procrastinating
from doing my homework again, i hate speeches!...hmm, wonder whats showing
at the movies...



+------------------------------------------------------------------+
 Brian James Chapman | bchapman@xxxxxxxxx | www.feist.com/~bchapman
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
  "Absolutely nothing should be concluded from these figures except
   that no conclusion can be drawn from them."
                         -- Joseph Brothers, Linux/PowerPC Project

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