The OpenBFS team today announced that they finally moved to beta stage. This means that OpenBFS (the free and open source alternative, but fully compatible BeOS File System clone) is completely done feature-wise and only testing is missing now. OSNews (over)heard that “the query engine is way faster than the BFS one _and_ it supports searching on non-indexed attributes. Also it performs at least as good as BFS and in some test cases it is even considerably faster than it.”.
OpenBFS Reaches Beta Stage
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I didn’t say that!
Anyway, I would like to point out that “beta” here means “100% done and 10% tested” so we really need you guys to step up and help us to track down all bugs (I am sure there are a lot of them). See http://www.openbeos.org for instructions on how to help with testing.
-Bruno
is there an ISO image can i download OpenBEOS for free?
congrats!!!
now I am a happy hobbit! ^_^
ausome guys this is great. And i am hoping now that some linux users help use this to make the linux support better for bfs!! (hey nd meybe Blue Eyed OS will switch to BFS)
There is no notion of OpenBeOS full-featured OS. It is only bits and pieces currently. There is nothing to see if you are just a user, the kernel boots in text mode command line, it has some options and that’s all. Their teams will need some years to get a working, real “BeOS clone” out there. The OpenBFS is just one of these pieces that create the BeOS puzzle. You will need BeOS 5 PE or PRO to test it. Not OpenBeOS yet.
A quick look at the team status page shows that the translation kit has reached beta as well. Way to go guys!
From this post looks like OpenBFS is quite good in comparison to various alternative file systems. Unlike XFS or JFS, OBFS is covered by MIT license (correct?).
I’d say would be quite logical, once it reaches release quality to start efforts to port it to say *BSD, since they not have anything like that.
What d’you think?
Years my ass, Eugenia. We might have a very, merry OpenBeOS Christmas (Easter at latest); the goal being a complete clone of R5.
It’s great to see that the OBFS is now feature complete, but as others have pointed out this is only one piece of many needed to make a standalone BeOS clone. There has been a lot of success with the file system so far, but I haven’t heard much noteworthy whereas the kernel is concerned. I have a feeling that the kernel dev. will prevent R1 for much longer than the months that the last chat log claimed.
“Their teams will need some years to get a working, real “BeOS clone” out there”
Will there really be anyone left that cares “years” from now? Can we really expect the very face of computing to remain unchanged for “years” while projects like this slowly come to fruition? How discouraging.
Sure it is possible and the license won’t be any problem for anyone trying to do anything with it, but we will not be doing it. It anyone else wants to do that they have our complete support. OpenBFS won’t be the same without live queries, node monitoring and extended attributes though.
-Bruno
Beta? Huh?
Are the sources on some secret CVS server or something?
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/open-beos/BeFS/sourc… says that the last changes where done 2 months ago. Has OpebBeFS reached beta stage by believing very strong that it’s now beta or what?
Can anybody please explain it to me?
Beta? Huh?
Are the sources on some secret CVS server or something?
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/open-beos/BeFS/sourc… says that the last changes where done 2 months ago. Has OpebBeFS reached beta stage by believing very strong that it’s now beta or what?
Can anybody please explain it to me?
please delete the second one and this post
Flames. Yes, that’s what we need.
h_ank the Magnificient predicts… post deletion.
> http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/open-beos/BeFS/
> source/ says that the last changes where done 2 months ago. Has
> OpebBeFS reached beta stage by believing very strong that it’s now
> beta or what?
Don’t you know we are using specially designed mutant code? We don’t have to do anything for it to make itself better.
Now, seriously, try to look under the “current” hierarchy. You’re looking at the wrong place.
Ah… And being a complete a** won’t get you anywhere, BTW.
-Bruno
They’ve been saying that for a while, but last time I tested it, it was *much* slower. This was a couple months ago, after it was proclaimed to be faster than the original. It was taking me like more than five minutes to uncompress a fairly small, say 10MB, .tgz file.
Years my ass, Eugenia. We might have a very, merry OpenBeOS Christmas (Easter at latest); the goal being a complete clone of R5.
Jesus, I hope you don’t hold any noteworthy position with OBOS, you come off worse than Theo de Raadt.
Uh, delete both of them. Your post was stupid. You are checking in the -wrong- part of the repository.
Try under ‘current’, dumbf–k.
Hey, how about being polite to someone who’s interested in “your” project. There’s a thought.
>>Years my ass, Eugenia. We might have a very, merry OpenBeOS Christmas (Easter at latest); the goal being a complete clone of R5.
You obviously have no idea what you’re talking about. And it isn’t FUD to speak the truth. It *will* take years, pal.
Let’s be honest, it’s not my position to represent the project in any way. I’m not having a good day and I tend to bitch at everybody for everything. I’m sorry to say but trying to spread FUD that OpenBFS hasn’t changed over the aforementioned amount of time in a sarcastic way is a straight route to pissing me off.
If I’ve offended you, I do apologize (yes, even you, RJW). I’m sure we’ve all had those days and went over the edge with less than pleasant comments.
<irony>
I’m sorry King TET. I apologize that I don’t have your great wisdom.
</irony>
Blah.
=======
Thanks for the answer, Bruno. I missed the ‘current’ directory. Sorry.
An OS isn ‘t complete without its very own trolls
“Years my ass, Eugenia. We might have a very, merry OpenBeOS Christmas (Easter at latest); the goal being a complete clone of R5.”
you don’t think years? well lets see, obos is just over a year old(happy birthday!) and all they have is a BETA filesystem and other alpha projects, this is an amazing accomplishment but it is not as far along as you make it out. another year and i think the majority of projects, except for the kernel, imo will be beta… but even then, beta is beta. 100% features, 10% tested.
“Will there really be anyone left that cares “years” from now?”
yes. be is out of business, and has been. obos is not slowing down or lossing steam, they are gaining. the brightest of this project’s days are yet to come.
Realistically speaking, a stable, feature complete release of OpenBeOS (the fabled ‘R1’) is not going to appear tommorow. On the same token – it will be a _lot_ sooner than some of you seem to think.
Most importantly, the ability to replace existing BeOS components with new ones as they appear means the benefits are being felt even now.
Unlike some other platforms where this can result in a ‘frankenstein OS’ scenario, the transition can be smooth and pleasant (and has been even before OpenBeOS – please check out OpenTracker/Deskbar, the maildaemon replacement, etc etc)
And remember, while R1 is going to be a “BeOS R5 clone”, there are a lot of bugs/gaps/limitations that Be never had a chance to address – some which are really significant in day-to-day use. Awareness of these problems precludes their occurence on OpenBeOS (well, ideally
This is awesome news!! BFS is both a fundamental and a highly-cool feature of BeOS – seeing such real progress like this is just great. There are many puzzle pieces to put together to really make OpenBeOS happen, and I agree that it could be a good two years or so before we have a truly functional OpenBeOS – but think about it – this OS is going to KICK BUTT! Before you know it we’ll have an OS which is:
*Open source *32-bit *object-oriented *free of crud *multimedia oriented *not made by M$ *fun to use *and all the other awesome features of BeOS, only OURS. YAAAY!!!!
Go OpenBEOS!!!!! OpenBeOS programmers RULE!
Will there really be anyone left that cares “years” from now? Can we really expect the very face of computing to remain unchanged for “years” while projects like this slowly come to fruition? How discouraging.
Let’s just play with the thought that it would take 3 years to complete OBOS. Than obviously it would STILL be 3 years ahead of Linux and Windows on the desktop market. I can hear that you never tried BeOS, it’s future technology today….
Good work OBOS guys, I look forward to R1 in a couple of months from now…
TET, please respect the forum rules and do not speak offensive to the other readers. Please, whatever you have to say, back it up in a nice way, not via bad language. Thanks.
Congrats for reaching the beta stadium, guys! I hope there’ll be many beta testers (I am one for sure!) and you’ll find and crush all bugs in the coming months.
Nice work!
I’d like to offer my congratulations to the team for bringing OpenBFS so far along the road and wish the OpenBEOS team good fortune in their struggle to hit R1.
As far as I’m concerned BEOS is far from dead. As another poster commented “it is a future OS, today.” With governments, corporations, and individuals seeing the advantages of moving to open standards, open source, and cross platform development tools and languages, BEOS might just have the last laugh.
One of the things that’s been annoying me for some time now is how Microsoft (and software companies generally) make so much revenue from selling solutions to “problems” that are solved or shouldn’t exist. When you consider the advantages and quality of solution provided by Windows relative to the amount of money Microsoft has earned off it you begin to wonder what would’ve happened if the same amount of money had been thrown at something useful and innovative.
Ok, as OSNews reader, when I went the http://www.openbeos.org/, it’s said
“now we need your help!” blah blah
then
“1 – Compile OpenBFS as per instructions here.”
So I went to http://www.bug-br.org.br/openbfs/index.phtml?section=testing
and then no link where to download the thing (just a link a BeOS PE edition link ( but in fact, i’ve got an official Pro edition, so I pass).
So I went to sourceforge.net, type ‘BeFS’, found http://sourceforge.net/projects/befs-driver/
but last driver changed 28th of march.
So, where is the sources ?
I mean, if someone want to test BeFS, he doesn’t know where to download the source code and so the thing cannot be tested ..
Theses pages need to be changed
*Congratulations* to the filesystem team for some outstanding work. You really are helping the BeOS user community realise a dream of an open source version of their favourite OS….
No matter how far the OSS OS comes however – be it this easter, next easter, or 3 years away – it will need a few *up to date* killer apps to help it on its way. Obviously R5 apps will run, but which of the ‘big ones’ will still be up to date when R1 comes along?
I’m hoping that the enthusiasm shown for OBOS will drive developers to write new and exciting apps for the OS, and also encourage others to port other popular OSS efforts to the platform – I for one would love to see an official openoffice.org version for the OBOS desktop. Also, if (when?) OBOS takes off i’d realy like to see comapnies like VMWare actively suporting the OS through their products.
I hope the OBOS team stick to their plans of ‘functionality not features’ for R1, and we can all be installing from an ISO soon…..!
Again – congrats to the team, keep the good work coming :-]
My £0.02GBP
> They’ve been saying that for a while, but last time I tested it,
> it was *much* slower.
Considering I never got *ANY* feedback from you there is not much I can do about your situation.
> This was a couple months ago, after it was proclaimed to be faster
> than the original. It was taking me like more than five minutes to
> uncompress a fairly small, say 10MB, .tgz file.
It *IS* faster on some operations. It is up to par on the others. It *IS NOT* heavilly tested and that’s why it may not perform that well or even work with some configurations.
-Bruno
It is available from CVS under the OpenBeOS source tree (please use the sources that are inside the current dir, the tree is a mess and we are having problems on getting the SF guys to axe everything that is not needed anymore).
After getting it, see here for instructions:
http://open-beos.sourceforge.net/misc/howto_test_obfs.html
-Bruno
Congratulations to the OpenBeOS BFS team.
But if you want to have a lot of testers you have to give some better instructions on how to get the sources or provide us with a binary.
/
Vincent
I agree, with the above writer!
Many thanks to the coders in OBOS, let this be a carrot for us all, its possible to things better….
/Konrad
> They’ve been saying that for a while, but last time I tested it,
> it was *much* slower.
>Considering I never got *ANY* feedback from you there is not much I can do about your situation.
Don’t worry, I’m not in any kind of “situation” because of it.
>It *IS* faster on some operations. It is up to par on the others. It *IS NOT* heavilly tested and that’s why it may not perform that well or even work with some configurations.
Great to hear it. If I ever get around to installing BeOS again, I’ll certainly give it a try.
To clarify with all of those who responded to me, I have very little to say; so I’ll make this brief:
Eugenia, thanks for not just censoring me and hiding my posts. It proves you run a site that has grown beyond the childishness that certain other sites are known for in moderation. *cough*. I apologize for the profanity, I hadn’t reviewed the policy.
Kamikaze, you only prove more and more what a fool you are. I believe I gave the first, concise answer to your question; despite replying to your question only because you couldn’t click down a few modules and realize they made a change in the layout of the source tree.
And the rest of the crowd; I really hate having to declare what’s next to a fatwa on this forum every time someone makes a naive statement about how long it will take to deliver OpenBeOS in an R5-like state. Consider how productive the team is; I have observed so much change over such a short period of time that I can honestly attest to their set due date being possible.
Have a nice day; I’d be glad to argue more, but I have to sleep!
-The English Troll
The filesystem is actually a pretty good desinging concept for the kernel. Kernel design is mostly timing design. With hd’s connected there is always the seek time. Important drivers first and kernel timing design afterwards.
The current source is at:
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/open-beos/current/
i.e. confusingly the parent directory contains an older subdirectories (like /app_kit /kernel_kit) but only the /current directory is the real McCoy.
The CVS instructions are here:
http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=33869
The amazing thing there are no links to these instructions via openbeos.org or open-beos.sourceforge.net . These sites hide the sourceforge interface. (However if you go to the page there are links back to open-beos.sourceforge.net).
It’s the truth, I speak newbie.
What we’re seeing now is the really difficult parts being developed. As this OS becomes more usable, and programming and testing for it has a lower barrier-to-entry, the rate of development will speed up exponentially.
So, I think the 2-3 years is accurate, only if you consider development *at the current rate*. The easier it gets to use, the faster development will be.