BeOS For Linux

Bob Gortician writes "The BlueOS guys have posted a few screenshots of their progress in porting the BeOS interface to Linux. Note that this is an intermediary step toward a BeOS clone OS. " I actually had a Be machine for a while, and played with it - nice OS, and well thought out, just a problem of very little applications for it.

More information on BlueOS

[Eugenia Loli]

Please go to BeNews [benews.com] and read the explanation for these two BlueOS screenshots. The second shot uses a "dummy" content for its windows.

Also, click here [osnews.com] to read the Interview with the BlueOS project leader at OSNews.

Re:Not so much applications as...

[Eugenia Loli]

Actually BeOS had quite some support with BeOS 5 and the third party drivers found on BeBits. I agree with BeOS 4 and 4.5 did not have many drivers, but version 5 was really good at the time. Now, it is 2 years with no BeOS official updates, so naturally, it is already out of date.. :(

Back in the day

[DCram]

Back in the day we all had such high hopes for BeOS. They had the coolest apps for watching SMP apps utilize CPU. Then we all rejoyced when it was thought that Mac was going to use Be for there underlying OS, but to no avail. Then we cried when it was thought that Beos would be no more. I wore my T-shirt for a week in defiance. Now I have a little heart that it will still live on in our memories and in our porting dreams.

IMHO it could have been more than a PDA or a toaster oven OS. Too bad more apps wern't produced. I actually think I still have a CodeWarrior CD that will let me compile on Mac to Be. Not that i even know where to find a Mac anymore,*besides the one at work that runs linux*.

And does anyone remember that app they had that bounced a ball from one window into another window. In the day that was cool.

ahhh.. misspelling blis! Maybe i should have the doctors remove that 6th finger, they just don't make keyboards with us in mind!

OpenBeOS

[I Want GNU!]

Don't forget about OpenBeOS [sourceforge.net]- working to keep BeOS going.

That's nice; Open BeOS is also coming along nicely

[eexlebots]

I appreciate the efforts of the BlueOS team, but I still have reservations about using Linux as the base for the new BeOS. I am glad to see that they have made progress, don't get me wrong; however, the OpenBeOS team has made huge strides as well, and may be more in line with the original spirit of BeOS. For example, they now have: BFS read support in their new driver, many preferences done, good progress made on the printing kit, a prototype app_server, and more. It looks like binary compatability will be achieved sooner than thought, too. Check out http://www.openbeos.org/ [openbeos.org] for more details on another team working hard on a worthy successor to BeOS.

Re:What is this?

[Eugenia Loli]

It is a port of the BeOS C++ API on top of Linux. Everything will be "wrapped" to resemble the BeOS API to the point to almost be source compatible with the BeOS applications. Even the filesystem API layer will be changed accordingly in order to accomodate OpenTracker, the BeOS Desktop and filemanager.
So, in a sense it is like KDE and Gnome, it is a full desktop & development environment on top of XFree & Linux (they plan to remove XFree completely in the future), however lots of things will change in order the system to "feel" more BeOS-ish. They also apply some additional patches to the Linux kernel for better UI response, as this was one of the strong points of BeOS.

Joe Sixpack

[MadFarmAnimalz]

I've been here long enough to know that this thread is going to devolve faster than you can say TinyX into the only real challenger to the vim/emacs war; the Linux on the desktop debate.

To save time, we should just symlink to the earlier desktop discussions. Here [slashdot.org] ya go.

I'm just sitting here wondering why we seek the acceptance of Joe Sixpack.

the *REAL* problem

[Derek]

"...just a problem of very little applications for it."

Ummmm, try "just a little problem of a monopoly using illegal business practices to make sure it never reaches the market."

Hell, PC manufactures were offered the operating system for free if they would just put it on their machines! (Not even replacing Window$, but dual-booting along side it!)

To get the apps, it had to have some penetration in the market. It was penetrating the Microsoft controlled market that was the problem. Oh wait, are we talking about that anti-trust thing again!?!?!

For a time, I used (and loved) this operating system. It had enough apps to do *most* of what I needed to do.

-Derek

Re:More information on BlueOS

[Eugenia Loli]

The CONTENT of the windows are just a picture. The window manager is real and fully interactive. It is just a demo/proof of concept to show that the window manager/environment works. They had to put something inside these windows, so they added this picture that looks like a real content, only it is not interactive, it is a picture.

Re:Fragmentation...

[MindStalker]

Wouldn't really call it closed source, its BSD, its the GUI thats closed source, and all the api's are fully published.

GUI without the GUTS

[glenmark]

While BeOS had a nice GUI, its read strength was its highly efficient threading model, which made the OS very effecient and responsive. The OS was especially adept at efficiently utilizing multiple CPUs.

While it is certainly nice that Linux users will have the opportunity to benefit from a nice new GUI and API, the best part of the OS, alas, is being left behind...

Re:Linux's true way?

[RevAaron]

I run Darwin w/o Quartz. I still have all the Quartz/Aqua stuff installed, but quit out of it at boot. I run Darwin over Debian PPC for a couple reasons:

1. Power management: Darwin works very well with the hardware (iBook). This manifests in more than one place. Longer battery life, and sleep works well (by shutting the lid).

2. The option to go into Quartz/Aqua: One of the things I hated about using Linux/x86 (what I ran as my main OS for a couple years before getting a Mac) was having to reboot into Windows to play a game or use certain useful applications for which there's no equvilent in Linux. This was true back when I used Linux a lot more than it is now, though. But with OS X, I can play games and run real, useful apps. And if I choose to run XFree86 straight out of the text console in Darwin rather in tandem with Quartz, I can always quit X11, and go back into Quartz. A lot less hassle.

Re:Hours for iTunes?

[fader]

Part of the 'hours' were spent looking online for a player that didn't suck as much as iTunes. (I never found one for OS X, unfortunately, and I can't see running the whole classic environment for just an MP3 player.)

But the consistency problems are hardly minor. They're part of a disturbing trend with Apple -- they're moving away from usability as their primary concern and going toward flashiness. Sadly, I've had much better out-of-the-box experiences with Linux (mostly Mandrake, but Red Hat is getting better and better) than I did with OS X. OS X is frustrating to use... Linux Just Works (tm). It's all a matter of taste. But I still wouldn't set up my grandmother with a Mac.

(I pick on iTunes because it's the single most frustrating end-user app I've ever used. It won't play OGGs, ignores some directories of MP3s at random, is a pain to reorder files in (I have them sorted by filename in subdirectories for a reason, thank you. If you're going to sort by ID3 tags, at least do it by track number instead of track name!), etc. etc. It's just painful to use.)