The large team known as the OpenBeOS Team, who their goal is to recreate a new operating system that it is largely compatible (source and if possible, binary too) with the abandoned BeOS has made another release. Codenamed Proto5, it is the fifth release of the app_server BeOS replacement (for BeOS agnostics, the app_server is a major part of the BeOS graphics subsystem that does not live in the applicastion address space and it also deals with the graphics driver). In related news, the OpenBFS team have also created a BFS filesystem driver and they are looking for testers.
OpenBeOS Proto5 app_server Replacement Released
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Well first I have to say good job. It’s great to hear about steps going forward. But can someone explain that screen shot. Like what am I looking at. If everything there generated by the app_server or was the outer main window just a photo shop job? And the stuff on the inside generated by the new app_server? Also will the API be able to be coded just like the real deal was, same commands and such. Or will some be removed and some new ones added? or will it be a whole new deal. I guess I don’t fully understand the level of compatibility they are going to achive. Maybe the best question is. Will my “programming the be operating system” book be of any use to me. Though i must say i struggled with it trying to write anything since it seamed to be dated when trying to use 5.1.3 .
Hi,
this is great news!!! I am really hoping that OpenBeOS will become a full replacement for BeOS in the not so far future. Till then you can download the BeOS Developer Edition:
http://bezip.de/app/1194/
This is an enhanced distribution of BeOS Personal Edition with additional and updated software put together by some BeOS fans.
Ciao,
Sebastian
The OBOS team is doing a lot more than simply re-creating the BeOS. They’re keeping the BeOS community and dream alive.
Anyone (and quite a few have) can repackage, redistribute, port, or even recreate software with the proper amount of time and resources, but the way they are involving programmers, non-programmers, legacy users, and even the casual enthusiast is above and beyond the call of duty. The fantastic progress is evidence that the talent is right on par with the outstanding compassion the team has. I don’t think I wouldn’t be as enthusiastic about their progress if they were simply posting changelogs and screenshots. The almost daily updates keep me checking the website every time I get a few extra minutes. The nostalgic newsletter gives depth and reassurance to people of all technical levels. The fact that the teams are even allowing the general community to alpha test functional code is a way of involving and inviting everyone to have a hand in creating something they admire even if they can’t program. Reading the mailing list’s wide range of topics and issues gives you a sense that the motivation for their undertaking is a lot more than simply wanting a BeOS clone.
So keep up the good work, and even more importantly, keep up the dream and vision.
Nice work, guys! Very exciting to see my next OS shaping up…
Keep it up!
I looked through the code, and I am very impressed.
Initially a lot of people dismissed the OBOS project, and after 7 months we have more than enough evidance to prove that OBOS is not a mythical thing, but on the contrary, its an achievable project. By this time next year, OBOS should be in the Release Candidate stage. To date the following sections have achieved important milestones and look poised to be fully functional within the next 6 months:
– BeFileSystem.
– Networking.
– MediaKit.
– Interface Kit
– Application Kit
Probably the final piece in the OBOS jigsaw will be the kernel, even though NewOS had a hefty head-start compared to other components. We live in interesting times…
Thank you Eugenia for public news about OBOS, they need some good PR.
And to all the OpenBeOS Teams.. you are making an amazing progress!
Many thanks!, for keeping my dream, more real for every day!
/Konrad
…when you’ve got something to show for your efforts.
🙂
so….will that be an OS agnostic FS or will it be hooked into the kernel of openBeOS?
I hope that it is agnostic….do you realise what combining the 2.6 Linux kernel and this FS will do!!! Linux will be a great Multimedia platform!!!
now, if some one will just do a highly integrated system involving all of these sytems inclusing menu simmilarities between applications, we will be set.
perhgaps the next step for Linux will be a common application design standard for look and feal depending on the DTE you choose. thatway, menues and applications will all look the same.
I thought they were insane when I heard the announcement of their project, but I must say I’m amazed at the amount of progress these guys are making. Keep up the good work!
go obos
OpenBFS should be portable enough. You will have to make changes when you’re porting it to a specific VFS layer, but that is expected. Anyway, our goal is not to make it portable to other platforms. Our goal is:
1 – Finish it so it becomes a complete BFS replacement.
2 – Get it working with the NewOS kernel (this probably means we will be doing some work in its VFS).
-Bruno
I was very skeptical when I first heard about this project, but when I looked into it more and found out that NewOS is involved and that plenty of real work is getting done and the team is very well organized, I became a believer. I would really like to see this come together and become a challenger to Windows, Apple and Linux (for certain niches at least, like the art-geek and hacker crowds).
The more I learn about BeOS/OBOS the more interesting it gets. I think that at some point hardware vendors will become interested in installing OBOS as an option because it will be so standardized (unlike Linux) yet it will have all the advantages of open-source freeware and community. Commercial software vendors should also be delighted by the fact that OBOS will be so clean and unforked.
ok, I was just wondering if it would be resonably capable on being ported to other kernels, not implying you guys would do it……
it is looking nice, how hard do you think it would be to get device drivers on this baby? I heard that BeOS was hard to write Drivers for.
the OBOS team is simply great they are proceeding at lightspeed.
Congratulation guys!!!
Keep the great work folks!
ciao
yc
I’ve heard that in general BeOS is pretty easy to write drivers for. The lack of drivers was more a combination of a lack of information from manufacturers and licensing questions that would arise if they tried to use existing GPL drivers as a base. (There was always an ongoing argument about this, but IIRC, there was an ethernet driver for BeOS that caused this controversy in the R3 days and the resolution was to get the driver author to grant Be a special exception to the GPL.)
I too was initially skeptical but i am thrilled by their progress and now impressed. I can’t wait to install it on my system! Keep up the awesome work!
I love what you guys are doing with OBOS,
but the biggest question on my mind is whether
or not you’ll be able to port any of that ‘great’
but GnuOpen Sourced software to the new
edesigned
system? I was thumbing through my copy of the Beos
Bible and it looked to me as if the lack of X-windows
or some kind of replacement (crosses fingers) was
preventing much of these programs from being portable.
Will you be addressing these issues? Plus the lack
of drivers? This too is a *huge* drawback to the system!
Heck even QNx is able to run my video card these days!
Very impressive work!!! I just hope the OBOS team will do a better job promoting OBOS, than Be did with BeOS. It would be nice if the OS didn’t stay a geek OS, but gained popularity because it (BeOS is anyway) just is a superb desktop OS. If it came bundled with a number of useful applications (mpg viewer, mp3 player, dev tools, office, updated GUI, productivity tools, etc.), I think they would have nice package that would attract a lot people.
Great work guys and its good to see updates almost everyday on the OpenBeOS.org website! This will be one kick butt operating system that I will be glad to run, though I still need to a newer PC to run it because my old PC is alittle too old for this sort of thing me thinks 🙂
>But can someone explain that screen shot. Like what am I
>looking at. If everything there generated by the app_server
>or was the outer main window just a photo shop job? And the
>stuff on the inside generated by the new app_server?
The reason it’s called proto5 is because it’s the fifth prototype of the app_server. This means the actual app_server is still a ways off from happening. I think the OpenBeos project is great, and they are getting a lot of work done fast, however it’s still going to be awhile before there is enough code for a full release. If you consider that no kernel code has been checked into cvs since the newos sources were first imported, and the kernel is arguably the largest part of the project, there is indeed a long ways to go before this thing is ready.
That’s “Ow Sah!” (a personal exclaimation of mine when I’m beyond super excited about something), for those that have never heard me say it… which is probably 99.999% of the population. 🙂
Anyways, at the rate the teams are moving on OBOS, I would not be the least bit suprised if we had a full replacement version of OBOS available by the end of the year. It might not be entirely complete or bug free, but…
Any bets on if it’ll happen? I’m betting it will.
Go, OBOS, Go! Go, OBOS, GO! GO! G O !! G O !!!
AUSA!!!
Jared
Admittedly until there is a fully functional kernal that can work with the OpenBe kits one wouldn’t be able to have a stand alone version of OBOS, but this along with the recent improved compatibility with the net server makes it sound like they are making signifigant strides towards a stand alone version of OBOS. If they can keep making steps like they have been I wouldn’t be surprised if there is an intial(albeit buggy) standalone version by next year.
To respond to Brad’s question, the screenshot you see is the test server and many instances of the accompanying test app running under R5. The window which encompasses all the little ones is a desktop environment running under the BeOS desktop environment. Certainly makes testing much easier that way. Programming the BeOS and all the other API will remain in place. Complete binary compatibility will be in place. I will be able to run my copy of Gobe Productive under OBOS and not BeOS and no one will be the wiser unless I tell.
Thanks
There was an X-windows implentation you could install for Beos. I don’t belive it was the best but i did use it. I was able to connect to lab computers and use CAD programs through it, was sad though, netscape over a network through X was faster then bezilla at the time. So it very much does have it and it did work.
I see, sorry–my misunderstanding of the text!
Still it would be nice if it were possible to
get a native version of some of the popular
LinuxGnu apps ported over to BeOsopenBeOs,
like Broadcast 2000 or some of the video editing
software that is common and free over on the
Linux side of the fence! Heck even Windows has
Virtual Dub! …and I way also referring to the
fact that BeOs seems to hate my SiS730 AMD mobo,
yet everything from Linux and Qnx to Seal2 work
fine on it ;(
love what you guys are doing with OBOS,
but the biggest question on my mind is whether
or not you’ll be able to port any of that ‘great’
but GnuOpen Sourced software to the newredesigned
system? I was thumbing through my copy of the Beos
Bible and it looked to me as if the lack of X-windows
or some kind of replacement (crosses fingers) was
preventing much of these programs from being portable.
Will you be addressing these issues?
There is x windows for BeOS, IIRC. As to why anyone would want to use X, I have no clue. Plus, X on BeOS really slows the system down. Really, it’s best just to port the app so it runs nativly in beos. OpenBeOS might be diffrent, mabye it will be source compatible with X, who knows. Any thing could happen.
Plus the lack
of drivers? This too is a *huge* drawback to the system!
Heck even QNx is able to run my video card these days!
I’m sure openbeos will get more and more drives as it progresses.
Heck even Windows has Virtual Dub!
I hope youre not saying that VirtualDub is a port from xfree/gnu/linux?
VirtualDub is heavily tied to the windows API, you would pretty much have to rewrite the whole app in order to port it to BeOS.
BeOS has mediaconverter which is a similar program, though I admit that it’s not even half as good as virtualdub
Porting toolkits like GTK++ and QT is a lot of work, but it can be done. But I would personally prefer wrappers around the BeOS API so we won’t have to worry about the GUI inconsistancy seen on Xfree.
Why, OBOS Project is hearing the Linux users? Is necessary accepting the opinion of Linux and BSD’s users? Insert Xfree and X-WIndows technologies in the OpenBeOS?
Maybe this question is interesting, but I and several BeOS users disagree with this point. Think: If insert this technology in the OpenBeOS, just insert KDE and Gnome too.
We are the futures users of this operating system, the orphans of Be, Inc.
I don’t say “I hate Unix-based operating system”, contrary, I use Windows 98, BeOS 5, Redmond Linux and FreeBSD in my computer (I’ve four partitions in my HD).
I think might use a OS different of others. No a OS with X-Windows, XFree, GNOME and KDE. We already linux and BSD’s with this things. I want BeOS-like OS. The BeOS community wants this.
OpenBeOS, moving ahead!!!
Why, OBOS Project is hearing the Linux users? Is necessary accepting the opinion of Linux and BSD’s users? Insert Xfree and X-WIndows technologies in the OpenBeOS?
Maybe this question is interesting, but I and several BeOS users disagree with this point. Think: If insert this technology in the OpenBeOS, just insert KDE and Gnome too.
We are the futures users of this operating system, the orphans of Be, Inc.
I don’t say “I hate Unix-based operating system”, contrary, I use Windows 98, BeOS 5, Redmond Linux and FreeBSD in my computer (I’ve four partitions in my HD).
I think might use a OS different of others. No a OS with X-Windows, XFree, GNOME and KDE. We already linux and BSD’s with this things. I want BeOS-like OS. The BeOS community wants this.
OpenBeOS, moving ahead!!!
Check out the screen shots and details at http://www.blueeyedos.com . They are using a Linux kernel with the goal of an open source BeOS compatible OS. While the idea of OpenBeos using the NewOS kernel which has a port to the platform I am using at this moment (Hitachi Super H, Sega Dreamcast) and the posibility of having a choice of; Windows CE, Windows NT, NetBSD, Linux or OpenBeOS booting up while sitting on my sofa, feet on the coffee table while browsing on my big screen sounds really exciting, so far I think the progress of Blue Eyed OS is a little further along than OpenBeOS, plus the chances of porting applications may be better.
Check out the screen shots and details at http://www.blueeyedos.com . They are using a Linux kernel with the goal of an open source BeOS compatible OS. While the idea of OpenBeos using the NewOS kernel which has a port to the platform I am using at this moment (Hitachi Super H, Sega Dreamcast) and the posibility of having a choice of; Windows CE, Windows NT, NetBSD, Linux or OpenBeOS booting up while sitting on my sofa, feet on the coffee table while browsing on my big screen sounds really exciting, so far I think the progress of Blue Eyed OS is a little further along than OpenBeOS, plus the chances of porting applications may be better.
You might not agree but I don’t really have much faith in Blueeyedos down to the fact that if they can’t even keep a website up-to-date with news of what they are doing then I don’t expect to much from there coding. Plus isn’t it going to just be yet another Linux OS with yet another front end ?