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

[John Reinke <ufotofu@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, I've tried it out, and it is pretty good, but being the poor person I
am, I haven't kept up it up to date. Up until release 3, it was a free
download, and I downloaded and installed version 2 without any trouble. It
just needed a 100 or 200MB partition. I believe the current version is
about $100 or so. You can research this for yourself at:

<www.be.com>

I first saw a demonstration about two years ago, and they had it running on
a BeBox and on a PowerComputing (Mac Compatible). They have since added an
Intel version. It is basically a version of UNIX with built-in GUI. If you
want a command-line, it's easy enought to find, and you can do about
anything you would normally do in a UNIX environment. I'm not sure about
multiple users, however.

The OS is not open source, and I don't believe there is a big drive to make
Be applications free source, but I think many are. I don't see the OS
really taking off, but there are some users who are dedicated to it, like
any OS.

Be was started by Jean-Louis Gassée, a former president at Apple Computer.
An interesting point is that Apple has been stuggling to come up with a new
OS that meets their grand expectations (protected memory, true
multitasking, etc...) for the last few years. A year or two ago, they
finally decided to look outside the company for a solution, and it came
down to Be and NeXT. (NeXT was formed by Apple founder Steve Jobs, which
like Be, started out with hardware and OS, but later went to just
developing and selling their OS.) Apple bought NeXT, rather than Be, and is
now on track to release OS 10 next year, which will have NeXT's UNIX
kernel, and a MacOS GUI. Apple is reportedly looking at making some parts
of the OS open source, even.

Back to Be, the reason I downloaded and tried it is that I have a dual
processor Mac, and Be will use both processors, along with a little window
that shows progress bars for how much of the potential each processor is
using. The BeBox actually had LEDs on the case showing this. It was amazing
to run the demo, which had several programs running graphics, fractals,
movies, all at once, and nothing seemed to slow down when you drag a window
or start another application. It was very easy to configure everything from
the mouse settings to internet connections within the OS, and everything
worked.

Unfortunately, as the OS develops, new applications written for BeOS will
not run on older versions of the OS, so most current applications won't run
on the release I have.

I hope this helps. It's certainly a neat OS to try, but you'll probably
have to fork out a little dough to get a recent version.

John

>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.
>...



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