Nowadays, all you hear about is Windows, MacOS X, or GNU/Linux. However, what ever happened to the good old BeOS?
As most of you know, Be Inc. shifted focus on its business too many times that it ended up hurting itself. It is quite simply put: Like many failed businesses out there, they made some unrecoverable mistakes. However, I am not going to sit you down here to read about some analysis that states what Be Inc. should and should not have done. Instead, I am going to show you that something is stirring in the depths of the Net. The continuous existence of their prized OS.
The actual OS is still around and is being used by many, and I mean many, enthusiasts. You can go over to BeBits.com [http://www.bebits.com] and download one of the versions of BeOS available that was released by Be Inc. a year or so ago. You will find the BeOS 5 Personal Edition [http://www.bebits.com/app/2680] along with its updates that will install under a GNU/Linux or a Windows partition. I believe you can find the retail version of the OS, the BeOS 5 Pro Edition at Softline.fr [http://www.softline.fr/result.asp?MotCle=beos#].
So who is really keeping this OS alive and going? The BeOS community, who else?
Even though Be Inc. shut its doors and sold itself to Palm back in 2001, the BeOS community left behind did not waste a second. The developers of the community are working hard on creating a clone that will equal, if not, exceed the power of the current BeOS 5, bringing a whole new breath of life to the OS. It kind of redefines the meaning of “the future OS”.
Open Source projects such as OpenBeOS [http://www.openbeos.org], BlueEyedOS [http://www.blueeyedos.com], and Zeta [http://www.yellowtab.com], just to name a few, began working hard on making sure that the BeOS era continues to grow. The whole BeOS community is relying on these projects to make this happen.
However, these Open Source projects are not working alone. BeUnited.org [http://www.beunited.org] just recently opened its standards portal so that it can define and then promote standards among the Open Source projects. However, the standards portal does more than just make sure that standards are created and followed but, as well, it is involved in porting of software applications and the continuation of others. Such as porting of the OpenOffice [http://www.openoffice.org] or the continuous development on Gobe Productive 3.0 [http://www.gobe.com/storegobeproductive.html].
There are still several, if not many, software applications being developed for the existing OS. There are support forums, news sites, other OS clones or derivatives that are under development.
So as you can see, life did not stop for this OS. However, this does not mean that it is doing just fine. It is doing good, but it can do better.
The community still needs help to grow even more. Many areas still need attention and can not be left for the current developers to do all the work. Areas such as porting of other existing Open Source software and hardware drivers are so far the most important.
Even if help can not be provided in the areas mentioned. Developers looking to help can try to offer their hand in the development of the current clones. To put it quite bluntly, when there is a will there is way and for sure there is a way for any one of us to help out.
Does this mean that BeOS is making a comeback? All I can say is that it sure does look promising. I would have rather told you all about the clone OSes in detail, but I’m going to leave you to delve into their sites and judge for yourself.
—
George N., a.k.a. ClumzyKid, has been in the Computer Science community for the past 12 years. He has seen and touched a Risc OS, most x86’s, and most of the Windows incarnations – Let’s throw in a couple of Macs while we’re at it! Main interests fall in the cross-platform technologies,
particularly in Web Design and Development, Computer Graphic Design in general, and Techie work. You can find him lingering on Beshare and IRC Undernet channels. If you want to get his full attention you can contact him at [email protected].
jean-louise gasse was a bad CEO. he should have sold Be Inc to Apple, and realized that Apple could have and indeed did, purchase steve job’s next.
jlg screwed up apple and refused to be believe windows would surpass mac os (it did)
also jlg was offered a position at amiga as CEO, which he turned down. instead of creating be os from scratch, he could have made amiga os more modern, while enjoying a revenue stream!
if i c jlg as ceo of any company, i’ll know to sell off shares in that company’s stock.
i recall an article “how to make a million bucks on be os”
on be inc’s website. ironic since i doubt that be inc’s total revenue has ever amounted to a $1 million.
i suspect $100 million was invested in be inc from venture capitalists, and it was sold for $11 million, with $1 million in total sales.
ironic, given that next’s failure in the os market did not deter venture capitalists, nor ms’s market dominance
Isn’t it strange that all Linux Zeals here tell me to wait 6 months and it will be great, and I’ve heard that phrase for the last 3 years or so…
Bugfixes and updates every single day….
BeOS is old but really works pretty fine without bleeding edge updates every day…
Is it just me who wants to USE my computer rather than UPDATE my computer???
Let’s just face it… Linux will be stuck in serverland being *BSD’s little brother while all home users who like surfing the net just gonna have to stick to BeOS or Windows…. ’cause Linux will have 6 months left for the next 6 years….
Zeta you have my bag of money, OpenBeOS my bag of devotion
<RAJAN> suggest you hold off till 2.6 and till 4.3 stablizes. Wait approx 6 more months./>
HOW COME Linux users always tells me to wait ? I can say the same about BeOS. Wait 6 months and check out Zeta. OR i can say, wait 1-1.5 years and check out OpenBeOS or B.E.O.S.
<RAJAN>BeOS definately feels faster. Looks can be decieving, however. Remember how KDE guys used to say
Konqueror is faster than Nautilus 1? It was mainly how KDE loads directories.
</>
Isnt that WHAT COUNTS. The “FEEL” of it. You say Linux is actually faster, but BeOS feels faster. Whats WRONG what that sentence?
What distro are you using Rajan ? I’ll check it out and compare it to BeOS. To be honest there are a couple of things i’d like from the Linux users. The userbase, all the drivers and some of the applications. 🙂 But, i’ll stick with BeOS.
L8r
I am a huge BeOS fan, but these frequent and frankly content-less BeOS news items are beginning to sound a bit desperate.
Please only post if there is actual news!
Glad someone else noticed that.
http://www.linuxradio.info/
LinuxRadio is comprised of several systems to create the on net presence.
The media-server is an Intel PIII 450 with 256 meg RAM, running BeOS 5 Pro OS.
A voice for Open Source.
You need to buy a copy of the Pro version. The PPC version was never free.
“I am a huge BeOS fan, but these frequent and frankly content-less BeOS news items are beginning to sound a bit desperate.”
Well, it is the holiday season and people are spending more time in real life and less with their computers – as it should be.
The BeOS people are just trying to keep the noise level up until things begin happening again. Also, (in case you didn’t know already) there aren’t that many people developing /developing for /using BeOS. Real news will be sparse compared to that of the Windows or Linux crowd.
Rajan_r, your “BeOS is dead” statement is nonsense. Dead by definition means kaput, finished, broken and permanently out of order. BeOS IS unsupported, relatively outdated and is not currently being developed (aside from the opensource initiatives) – at least as a desktop OS. It IS still usable, however. When BeOS isn’t used, isn’t spoken of except in past tense and is eulogized in every retrospective of computing I’ll agree with you- not before.
Iconoclast wrote: Actually, I firmly believe that piracy is what got Microsoft where they are today. Think about it. Ten years ago, if you hadn’t been able to pirate Windows and all those nice programs to run on it, would you be using Windows today?
________________________________________
Actually, 10 years ago, I was happily running Amiga Workbench, which I continued to do until 1996, I believe. I tend to think Microsoft did the same thing to Commodore, but I am rather conspiratorially-minded. When I’ve completed my research, I might do a book on the matter.
A good place to start looking is the old Playboy interview with Steve Jobs. He talks a bit about espionage in the computer world. Apple even played at the game, for instance, forcing Creative Computers to drop the Amiga line so they could sell Macs.
Most Commodore employees feel the company was intentionally destroyed from the inside, which is a tactic common to John D. Rockefeller and people of his sort.
Is it just me who wants to USE my computer rather than UPDATE my computer???
There’s no need to update when something works, but there hasn’t been a driver update to BeOS since 5 was released. BeOS doesn’t work correctly with my video card. Therefore, if I want to run BeOS, I would rather UPDATE my computer than not have it run at all.
Let’s just face it… Linux will be stuck in serverland being *BSD’s little brother while all home users who like surfing the net just gonna have to stick to BeOS or Windows…. ’cause Linux will have 6 months left for the next 6 years….
I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have been using Linux as a desktop and “surfing” with it since before Windows 95 came out.
A good place to start looking is the old Playboy interview with Steve Jobs. He talks a bit about espionage in the computer world. Apple even played at the game, for instance, forcing Creative Computers to drop the Amiga line so they could sell Macs.
Wow! Somebody who actually does read the articles.
As I said before, I like BeOS a lot. However, I compare it to things like Amiga. Great, but gone. That doesn’t mean they can’t live again someday.
Sure, I can still go in my closet and boot up my Atari 800. I can still boot up my old Amiga. I can pull out my old slide rule and use it. However, development and support of these things has stopped, the world has progressed, and their usefulness has not kept up with the times. The same is true of BeOS. I can’t run it on my new computer. No updates are available. BeOS is at a complete stand still. It is dead, just as a car without gas is dead.
Just as I can boot up and run the old hardware mentioned above, I can get an older computer and run BeOS on it. However, times have swiftly past by BeOS and it is no longer useful to me since it won’t run on my new computer.
Just as promises of an Amiga return abound, promises of BeOS’s reincarnation abound in products like Zeta, OpenBeOS, etc. Once these things are released and stable, then I will rejoice over the rebirth of a great OS. Until BeOS (or a clone) are actively developed and supported, it is stagnant and it is dead. If you have a different opinion; so be it. This one is mine.
Albeit not often, I use it. In fact, I’m using it right now. I’m typing this from Mozilla (“Bezilla”) 1.0, I have BeAIM running in the background (wow, I never realized how much alike it was to AIM), and it works great. What’s best is that only 15 minutes ago I started downloading BeOS PE, Bezilla, and BeAIM, and now I’m using it. It ain’t dead yet.
B_Whopper: HOW COME Linux users always tells me to wait ? I can say the same about BeOS. Wait 6 months and check out Zeta. OR i can say, wait 1-1.5 years and check out OpenBeOS or B.E.O.S.
Zeta…. Zeta. 6 months ago, BeOS users said it should be out by now. Now, 6 months later, they say another 6 months. The same with OBOS. Besides, even they are released, Zeta to me would just be BeOS with a lot more features, and OBOS would just be R5 (not very interesting, is it, I already have R5).
Neither release would solve my qualms – the bigest of all, the lack of a *good* browser. And that’s not a problem with me only, but with many others. Right now, the only thing OBOS promises that attracks me is a faster file system; but you know that I can just install it on my R5 installation now, right?
Oh course, you can use Linux now, just don’t expect it to be as fast as I told you it would be.
B_Whopper: Isnt that WHAT COUNTS. The “FEEL” of it. You say Linux is actually faster, but BeOS feels faster. Whats WRONG what that sentence?
For example, when a application is busy, though matter how busy it is, the menus always work. But your commands into the app is as slow as on Linux. Things like that. If I don’t have a life, I can name a whole list of it.
To you, whether it feels faster or not matters. To me no. I compile a lot, I do a lot of memory intensive work – for me, Linux is way faster. In the future, my Linux machine would be the server of my home’s LAN, so networking speed is important to me too.
B_Whopper: What distro are you using Rajan ?
I really can’t answer that. I’m using Mandrake, albeit with kernel 2.4.19 with Love’s low latency patch (maybe one of these days I would use 2.4.20), XFree 4.2.99.3 (4.3 Preview), Qt 3.1.1, KDE 3.1 RC3, etc. So I would say I’m using something custom.
B_Whopper: The userbase, all the drivers and some of the applications.
Well, I hate some of the userbase (the high and mighty guys).
Ansis5: Rajan_r, your “BeOS is dead” statement is nonsense. Dead by definition means kaput, finished, broken and permanently out of order.
My defination of dead is different from you. Just ask you a question, is Newton dead? Is 486s dead? Is Windows 3.1 dead?
Besides, I don’t care if some clone is going to replace BeOS. Because BeOS is its product on its own.
Ansis5: It IS still usable, however.
Same with Newtons, 486s and Windows 3.1, and used by quite a number of people. To me, they are still dead.
Stephen Smith: What’s best is that only 15 minutes ago I started downloading BeOS PE, Bezilla, and BeAIM, and now I’m using it. It ain’t dead yet.
A few months ago, I have a old 486 running Windows 3.1. I can boot it up, run Netscape 1.0, and use it. It is dead, even though I can use it.
Anyway. I love using the BeOS, as you love slowNIX 🙂 No, seriously. Lets not diss any OS. As long as it get’s the job done.
PS: Zeta is due Jan 03. The 6 months thing was kinda of a joke. 🙂
PS2: I’ll try and get ALL the latest stuff for Linux and check it out for the 11’th time.
Happy New Year EVERYONE.
Hey you!
You’re contributing to Linux codebase?
Because we, BlueEyedOS men, with only low latency and preemptive patches not get the total BeOS performance, sorry, it’s sad but true (Metallica!!!).
Now, hacking and modifying the kernel, speed up the xfree (with our new app_server xfree based), adding BeOS APIs, ahhhh, now I can see a kernel that easily compete with BeOS.
Do you want see too?
http://www.blueeyedos.com/downloads.html
blueos.free.fr/kernel_server1.tar.gz
download, test and see the real BeOS power in your poor and simple Linux.
Ok, I admit. Our kernel is still “Linux”, but we can port it to FreeBSD kernel, because the code used is *fully* posix compliant (the adoption of the Linux as our kernel base has been made because of your drivers and have more developers avaliable than FreeBSD, if not bye-bye Linux…).
Now, only miss run OpenTracker, but in few months it will be possible
Happy new year and peace to everybody!
Michael VinÃcius de Oliveira
BlueEyedOS Webmaster
Zeta…. Zeta. 6 months ago, BeOS users said it should be out by now. Now, 6 months later, they say another 6 months. The same with OBOS. Besides, even they are released, Zeta to me would just be BeOS with a lot more features, and OBOS would just be R5 (not very interesting, is it, I already have R5).
Neither release would solve my qualms – the bigest of all, the lack of a *good* browser. And that’s not a problem with me only, but with many others. Right now, the only thing OBOS promises that attracks me is a faster file system; but you know that I can just install it on my R5 installation now, right?
You must be out of your mind. You’re saying that if OpenBeOS, in six months, churned out a 100% open and working clone of BeOS R5 able to run all of R5’s applications, you would not care? Something that you don’t realize is that all of those programmers who are now working on Zeta, YellowTab, OBOS, etc. could then work on apps. There would be a 100% platform with an increasingly large userbase, not to mention a great operating system. You don’t think that somebody would churn out a great browser before you could log into the CVS repository?
And plus, what about BeZilla? Last time I checked, Mozilla 1.2 was the latest for BeOS. That’s pretty damn usable. I think what we really need is some native readable fonts. 😉
1.3a is the latest og Mozilla. I agree, its bloated. Phoenix 0.5 “seems” a bit faster though.
No one said OBOS was 6 months away. I’d say 1.5-2 years. But i could be wrong. Zeta is the thing to watch for now.
Lessee…
BeOS is fast/No it’s not.
BeOS is dead/No it’s not.
BeOS is useful/No it’s not.
Wow. I feel so elevated after paging through this discussion. Y’all should call this site OSBitch.
For all you complaining about the existence of story – don’t read it, and don’t reply to it if you don’t want it to be here. If no one pays attention it’ll probably stop, yes?
For all the “what’s so great about…” BeOS is great. Compared to what it was up against at the time, it kicked the crap outta just about everything. Timing & market forces basically did it in. (yes, along with the company’s actions…but to be fair, you should try to steer a boat in a hurricane before you condemn the captain.)
As for XP…it still amazes me that, on a computer with a +1 GHZ processor & a hefty chunk of RAM, I would still wait as long or longer for the computer to DO SOMETHING as on an old PII with 64 MB. It ain’t the apps…I’m talking native stuff here: IE, Outlook. Windows is finally pretty stable, but it’s still a bloated pile of manure.
IF BeOS were updated to a fairly even keel, it would still kick the crap outta Windows.
Multimedia. Yes, it needs the app support. I myself have gone to OS X to use the bigger audio apps. But you wanna know what the big deal about playing multiple files is? If you have a multitrack recorder, THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE DOING. A 32 track digital recorder plays 32 audio track AT THE SAME TIME. If the OS cannot handle it (Win9x…) then it ain’t gonna happen.
BeOS could handle it with fairly modest hardware – that’s why all the “Big Audio Companies” were interested, until they got turned off by the company management. Most of them turned away because they needed to sell packages, and they did not see it happening with Be Inc, NOT BeOS.
I’m assuming that this story was posted to counter the idiotic piece on OS Opinion recently. For that, I’m glad that someone posted something more accurate. I also hope, though, that the next time I see the BeOS logo on one of these sites that it is about something new, rather than the S.O.S.
You’re saying that if OpenBeOS, in six months, churned out a 100% open and working clone of BeOS R5 able to run all of R5’s applications, you would not care?
I’m saying that it isn’t Linux users that say *wait*. At least I give a better timeframe for B-Whopper to wait, knowing if the releases are released late, it wouldn’t be all that late. My point was that the public knows little about Zeta.
In other words, Zeta is vapourware. When Zeta was first unveiled, they said by end on this year. Tommorow is the last day of the year, and they aren’t closing in on the final release.
OBOS on the other hand is very different. Some parts is moving very fast, other parts stagnant. But again, many fans said by year end we would have a feature-functional alpha. Do we have it? Nope.
How would we know YellowTab wouldn’t bankrupt or YellowTab doesn’t decides that a BeOS-clone is not a money-maker and picks a different market? How would we know whether OBOS just looses team or have a developer’s crisis.
Neither company/group have ever delivered, and the Linux kernel, xFree86 and KDE have delivered a lot of times.
And plus, what about BeZilla? Last time I checked, Mozilla 1.2 was the latest for BeOS. That’s pretty damn usable. I think what we really need is some native readable fonts. 😉
The last I tried (can’t remember the version) BeZilla was 3-4 weeks ago. As stable as a earthquake.
Rajan: “for me, Linux is way faster.”
No No and No, Linux os NOT faster than beos, dont be a stuborn:
Here’s an very old benchmark, so old you can only found it on google’s cache, but it serves the purpose:
http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:Sim25ScspvUC:slashdot.org/arti…
I use BeOs R5 everyday at work, I’m the chief developer at an ISP.
BeOs is great for multimedia and coding on really old hardware (MMX on x86 with at least 233 Mhz and 64 MB), something that Linux nor MS could ever do.
I use WinXP on PCs over 1 Ghz, but with all spyware daemons/services turned off, it does the job, even though I feel hat I’m selling my soul to Bill Gates.
I use Linux RH8 with W98 through VMWare on a Toshiba Laptop (850 Mhz 512 MB) and a BEOS R5 partition (geek pride).
Dvix movies play better on virtual W98 with media player 6 (very poor on media player 6 under crossover wine on RH) than VLC or XINE on real RH Linux, and movies on old 233 Mhz BeOs R5 pro with nplay.
I think BeOs technology has been certified by MS on several items, integrated multimedia applications, features found in XP (before only in BeOs PE) and in planned future releases (Database filesystem and 64 bit kernel architecture, etc) and so has MacOs X with zillions more CPU/RAM resources.
There is a winner in every facet of OS technology, MS has the big crowd, Linux has superb networking and file transfer, and MacOS X has the eye candy everyone likes. There is no winner, but an OS for every purpouse, BeOs will always be an option for making things easy for newbies and cheap/old hardware, but until it reaches new generation stable OSS releases BeOs will remain only for Geeks (remember the Geek Port on the Bebox?).
The benchmarks used XFree86 3.3 whom its OpenGL support for even worse than BeOS itself. XFree86 4.x should be used. Besides, the benchmarks itself isn’t available anymore (and that Slashdot page can be accessed without Google Cache.
Besides, like you said, the benchmark is old, and times have changed.
And to dod, if you actually checked it out, while WinFS in Longhorn and BeOS’s BFS sounds the same, technically they are day and night.
>>>Besides, like you said, the benchmark is old, and times have changed.
I agree with that. You can’t compare the good old days with 10 mpegs, quicktime movies and mp3 playing at once. 5 years ago, mp3’s were encoded at 96 – 128 kilobits — now most are 192 kilobits. Same thing for mpegs and quicktime files — the bitrate is much higher and the codec is much more CPU intensive.
And alot of the problems are related to the apps, not the OS themselves. Take divx movies, if you use ffdshow it is much faster than divx.com’s codec.
i just want to say that things like syllable/atheos, beos, morphos and similar projects is important, if the only OS’s around was the ones the masses used, then we would loose a lot! not everybody wants a slow os.. a OS designed for networking as a desktopmachine.. a closedsource OS.. and so on.. ppl want to be different! want to use things that fit for them, windows don’t fit me.. linux don’t fit me, i use freeBSD, but frankly, that doesen’t fit me either:) a mix between beos and freebsd would be genoius:) and atheos/syllable looks good so far!
well, happy new years..
and to those idiots that think linux is faster than beos, get a fucking grip.. beos IS faster than linux, a lot faster.. X is slow and depricated:) i run the newest X on my primary partition, with the newest graphics-drivers, and i run beos on my secondary partition.. beos boots a LOT faster than my freebsd, and the responsetime in beos virtually knocks Xfree out.. everybody ranting on about linux being fast gui-wise should burn..
ofcourse, if you run waimea, fluxbox.. something like that, you have a pretty fast system, but then, try to start mozilla, galeon, phoenix.. it takes TIME! a lot of time.. and that goes for several apps! linux/unix is nice, but it isn’t designed for the desktop, and that one can notice.. better run fresco/berlin or something like that when it becomes more mature!
and still appy newyearseve
cue music, maestro!
Yes, it took some major rewriting in assembly, anytime you wanna call something new. BeOS was best known as an OS that wasn’t built abour sedimentary design. It was a philosophy that JLG talked about, and something he believed in. It takes more to do that, rather than pop in some update. You can only update or patch enough times before you have to go “back to the drawing board” and for that, BeOS TOPS everyone else.
Is it a geek OS? No, not really, it wasn’t meant to be. Sure, geeks appreceate a lot of things in beos, both design and implementation. But it was designed so that an engineer could appreceate it, even if ANYONE can use it.
This is where the beos community is heading, and this will be BeOS’s year.
BTW, Midi Kit reaches milestone 1 as of new years eve!