Review of BeOS Developer Edition 1.1 222
TweetZilla writes "Good review if you are a fan of BeOS. Not ready for regular users but tinkerers will probably love it to death.
OSNews is carrying the story."
Where there's a will, there's a relative.
I never consider trying it (Score:2, Insightful)
It came with lots of GNU software, which i found great since they are free (as in free speech), then i read even more.
It has terminals, which i did not knew it had.
This will definitely be something i will try in the future.
Re:Be... (Score:5, Insightful)
For one thing, developers wouldn't be able to look at the source, because it would taint anything they would put out.
More importantly, the BeOS relied on a lot of proprietary, third party components. The BeOS developers pretty much said that it would be virtually impossible to disentagle the proprietary stuff from the Be stuff. Even if that were possible, you wouldn't have anything useful.
Besides, the Open BeOS [sourceforge.net] is making good progress without the source code.
Wait a second.... (Score:4, Insightful)
fyi (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This review was soooo bad (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the fact that he tried to burn two 650 meg ISO files on the same CD shows his level of technical savvy. I didnt even bother to read on. It would be like listening to a mentally challenged 3rd grader explain Shakespeare.
Re:Why would I bother? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And in one sentence, he described BeOS communit (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, right after I installed it was treated to booting into an OS that thought I was in France. Fine, not a big deal, but it would have been nice if the documentation (all in English) had mentioned this and maybe even described the process by which you fix it the language settings.
Then I got to experience the full glee of BeOS resending 16 email messages I had already sent from its mail program... about two years ago! I emailed the developers about this and got no response.
This is usually where the Be apologists will insert some vague praise of it's microkernel architecture. Yeah, it's great I can drag and drop a driver into the system folder and have it start working right then, but so what if it's totally impractical to actually *use.*
So I blew away the partition and said, "Goodbye BeOS, it had been fun." When an OS is new, you can forgive it for having no application support and no hardware drivers. Now, 2003, we're nearing 8 years with BeOS on the PC and almost all of the drivers we have today we had back then (exception: a non-accellerated nvidia driver). Application support continues to hover around the few commercial apps it had three years ago (though I believe Gobe has dropped BeOS support for Productive). When I last ran the OS, most of the software for it suffered from the same Windows delusion that every schmuck who downloads a shareware program is willing to chip in $10 for it. Consequently, actually achieving productivity with BeOS was difficult because you'd wind up paying hundreds in piss ant shareware fees to unlock the full features of whatever it was you wanted to use (see BeXL, all of the good code editors, SoundPlay).
So BeOS lost a fan in me. The only chance for redemption will be when OpenBeOS starts making releases, but even then it will be a long shot. If you doubt me, check my previous posts and you'll see, I used to be one of their supporters around here, but I give up. OS X certainly kicks BeOS in the nads, thanks in no small part to NEXTSTEP. I haven't used WinXP but wouldn't be surprised if much of what made BeOS advanced almost a decade ago had finally been integrated into Windows.
--
Daniel
Wait a second..... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And in one sentence, he described BeOS communit (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And in one sentence, he described BeOS communit (Score:3, Insightful)
Then I realize that I can't get a decent speedy browser, that I can't work on my resume, that I can't play the games I want, that I can't do my bills online either from lack of Java to lack of a quicken type app.
My partition will rott away, I fear. BeOS is the biggest heartache for me as a computer user and professional. So much potential, so little of anything else.
Re:if this is a good review, I'd hate read a bad o (Score:3, Insightful)
This will get you a fast and smooth set-up which will allow you to browse the web, read e-mail, get work done, play mp3's and the choice of games are fair enough for recreation. My set-up (ASUS Laptop PII 366, 128MB, 4.2GB) boots in 9 seconds, starts apps in under 5 seconds, is fast (2x mpg, 2x mp3 and OpenGL (teapot) running at once - no loss), stable, cost me less than $200 (with s/w) - and BeOS found all the hardware.
Great for taking out and about, getting things done without fearing damage to the machine and easy for the kids to understand and play with.
But I agree on the remarks for the review - it did not do BeOS a favour.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
ACs? elitist Linux users or just trolling pussies? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why are all the AC's ragging on BeOS? Funny, I seem to recall a little software project called Linux that happened to be in a similar situation as Beos.
Yup. No hardware support. Little software. Proto usefulness, if that.
Now what do we have? Linux is THE open source solution. It has come a long way.
How much of that progress are all you ACs responsible for? Not much, I'm sure. Just run your perl scripts and feel superior to windows 98 users. Whoopie.
OpenBeos and all its ilk are right where Linux was several years ago. The difference is that the people working and waiting on OpenBeos want it more than people want YALD (yet another Linux Distro). Another difference is that OBeos can be designed from the ground up to work better with today's hardware, can avoid the dead ends of the past, and have lots of good examples of UI, software, and ways of doing things that can be improved and incorporated.
My suggestion to AC is that you all shut your pie holes and *encourage* OSS of any sort, otherwise you may find developers for your favorite OS (OF CHOICE) going off and doing web pages for Microsoft.
No one needs or wants some faceless pussy ranting about how their labor of love is irrevelent.
Mod away, kids.