Linked by Scot Hacker on Mon 17th Dec 2001 17:34 UTC
The story of how a BeOS refugee (and not just everyone, but the author of the 'BeOS Bible' book) lost faith in the future of computing, resigned himself to Windows but found himself bored silly, tore out half his hair at the helm of a Linux box, then rediscovered the joy of computing in MacOSX. Scot Hacker will describe his personal adventures with today's operating systems after he was set out to find an alternative to his beloved (but with no apparent future) BeOS. Update: Make sure you read the second part of the article, a rebutal, found here.
Permalink for comment
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Interesting to read a review of OSX that doesn't include the obligatory comparison to Windows Xtra Pricey. But a few small points:
1. "Hey" was the creation of a guy in Hungary, Attila something-or-other. It was never part of BeOS itself AFAIK. Before hey came out, the only way to "script" in BeOS was to use C++ and dig deep into the API. So to compare hey scripting to that in OSX is not really fair.
2. There were a few BeOS apps that didn't play by the rules. I recall Mail-it as having some individual ideas about UI, and there was another mail client that eschewed the standard email store in favour of a shared cache with its own Windows port - sorry, the name escapes me.
3. BeOS also had some really bright ideas, like desktop Replicants, that somehow never caught on with developers. Replicants were like Active Desktop components, only better. But the few that were produced were buggy (there was one, which shall remain nameless, that turned out to be the most effective way to crash BeOS) and as so often in the history of BeOS, we are talking of Unrealised Potential.
4. In the same way, it is doubtful that the average user really ever used the power BFS had, since creating new attributes was basically a command-line affair (later on, there was a utility to do it in a GUI, but by then the end was near). I never did figure out how to make an attribute contain a graphic, though I knew it could be done.
Like Scot, I am a refugee from BeOS. But I ended up running Mandrake-Linux. Load up GIMP, OpenOffice and a lightweight window manager (I favour XFce) and you have all your day-to-day software. At no cost except online charges to your ISP. Journalling filesystems? Three to choose from (though admittedly without the extensible attributes). Yes, it takes a level of effort and dedication, but my Linux desktop works the way I want it to.
Also, the catching-up stage of Linux development is drawing to a close and best-of-breed apps are slowly coming to the fore. IMHO, Galeon is the finest browser available, on any platform. Using anything else is *painful* now. MP3 and video apps? I'll have to give you that one, though Linux has more than enough audio apps for the average user. How relevant video editing is to the average computer user is a debate we can get into some other time ...
Out here in the third world, Apple's hardware (when you can get it) is also ludicrously overpriced compared to the equivalent computing power in a no-name-brand, no-OS-preloaded white box with Taiwanese MB and Singaporean HD that will happily run Linux. Like, between two and three times the price. Of course, Apple can't be held responsible for exchange rates, but it is a factor in buying decisions. If I can buy two, almost three, computers for the price of one, no amount of sensual curves and lickable UI will make up for it.
Furthermore, I have no intention of being held hostage once again by the fortunes of a far-away American corporation. Apple was close to bankruptcy not so long ago and had to be bailed out by Microsoft, remember?
But if Mandrake goes under, I'll just switch to SuSe. Heck, if *every* commercial Linux distro maker goes to the wall, there will still be Debian. In this sense, Linux is immortal. That should be a powerful factor to any ex-BeOS user ...