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BeOS r4.5 released 219

Posted by Hemos from the download-the-fun dept.
Eric S. writes "BeOS r4.5 is available at BeDepot.com. I'm not sure if its officially released yet, as there is no information about it on any Be website, but if I can get it it's released. Consequently, none of the updated features are disclosed yet. "
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BeOS r4.5 released More

BeOS r4.5 released

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  • You sound like a M$ FUDmeister (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I mean, really, what's the point of a post like that? Are you any different from those who respond to Linux kernel releases with statements like "When are the Linux fanatics going to realize that everyone's ALWAYS going to use Windows?"

    Be isn't your enemy. If Be is successful, Linux will benefit, because Microsoft's stranglehold will be weakened, and computer users may become a little more educated (BeOS includes a bash shell and a complete GNU toolkit). Conversely, Linux's success has already helped Be.

    BeOS will either be a huge success or be remembered as an OS that was way ahead of its time
  • Closed, binary-only, proprietary. What's new about that?

    You say that as if it's a bad thing.

  • Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 07:34:19 PDT
    From: custservice@bedepot.com
    To: douglas@min.net
    Subject: BeDepot Order

    ***** BeDepot.com *****
    * Order Confirmation **

    Thank you for your recent order from BeDepot.com.

    This is a confirmation of your order for your records.

    I've always wanted to take BeOS for a spin.. Looks like I finally will get a chance. (:

  • AFAIK- the only 3D support in 4.5 will be 3dfx..
    Definitely Banshee and V3, and maybe older Voodoo based boards as well...

    My CD should be in the mail tomorrow :^)
  • Posted by d106ene5:

    Whatever. Unless you haven't figured it out by now, everyone in here has a degree or doesn't need one. You're not impressing anyone.
  • Posted by d106ene5:

    A server has to be multiuser. Sorry folks, thats the price of admission. Any real server is going to be on a rack in a colocation. You have to be able to get multiple users on there to debug it remotely.
  • Posted by d106ene5:

    1. Install Be.
    2. Realize your stereo is an even better device for playing audio.
    3. Uninstall Be.
  • Well thank goodness they got around to supporting my graphics chip, the i740. So it's proprietary, blah blah blah, but it's what I have.

    So is there any place to get this software that isn't at retail price? Not warez, but discounted. Buying directly from the manufacturer tends to be the worst deal around, especially on the Internet, where people will sell at cost just so they can justify their existence.
  • yeah i had that same prob...the trick is to slow your BIOS' keyboard sample rate thingy down to about 6 chars / sec rather than the nice fast 30/sec...just kinda weird like that :P


    "There is no spoon" - Neo, The Matrix
  • I say good riddance to Apple hardware!

  • Look at Amiga.. I don't recall seeing any of the M$ 'killer apps' ported over to Amiga. You say Amiga, I think Toaster.

    If Adobe and Macromedia were to port their graphics apps to Be, then Be would likely have a long and successful life.
  • he was quoting from "animal house"

    he knows the japanese bombed pearl harbor...

    -garrett

  • Feature list.... (Score:3)

    by pev ( 2186 ) on Tuesday June 15, 1999 @03:13AM (#1850565) Homepage
    Not true. For updated compatibility, examine :
    http://www-classic.be.com/support/guides/beosrea dylist_intel.html
    The actual features (Apart from the extra harware compat) while not actually stated explicitly, have been mentioned at various stages in Be newsletters etc.

    Having been using the release for some months now I can heartily reccommend it. If I can only get emacs-20 ported ok I'll be a very happy chappy.

    ~Pev
  • Why do people keep thinking that Be needs to wait for specs to be publically released before adding support?! They're not releasing source code, so they can easily sign NDA's to get what they need.

    The real problem is that Be doesn't have enough engineers to get all of the drivers written as fast as they need to. I'm not complaining: I certainly don't know how to write a 3D graphics driver, but it would be nice if Be could manage to hire more of the people who could.

  • Considering the high performance of BeOS, it would be great if we could run Linux as a guest and BeOS as the server. :)
  • The Intel comptaibility list has also been updated : http://www-classi c.be.com/support/guides/beosreadylist_intel.html [be.com]
    Will allow many more users to use it. Bad thing is nothing new on the PowerPC pages :-(
    Btw The announce on Bedepot [bedepit.com] is preorder. The OS isn't ready Yet . The developers haven't been warned of anything Yet (maybe on the Beta list on which I ain't). So to say it is not released ! Ludo
  • Yes, I'm sure their recently-announced IPO, their premiere at PC Expo and the two-dozen-odd professional audio companies writing software or drivers are all part of a conspiracy to dupe users from noticing nobody likes the platform. e-Picture is a clever illusion, Adamation's Personal Studio is really just a PowerPoint presentation in disguise, and who would want to buy LCS's BeOS-based theatre control system, anyway? (Disney, Cirque de Soleil, and Broadway production companies are all part of the conspiracy.)

    I suppose I can't blame some Macintosh and Linux users for wanting to take the opportunity to spread a little FUD of their own given the tremendous FUD-spreading both those platforms have taken over the years. But FUD is FUD. The "BeOS has no applications" schtick is getting pretty old at this point to those of us who've been using applications on it on a daily basis. Yes, Linux has more applications for it. So? Windows has more applications than Linux, and I'm not using it, either. No, I don't have the freedom to hack the kernel source. So? I won't have that with MacOS X, either, and while I like free software (in both the speech and beer sense), hacking isn't my primary use for computers, and I part company with Mr. Stallman when he maintains I am enslaving myself to a manufacturer anytime I purchase something with no user servicable parts inside. If these are "make or break" deals for you--you absolutely won't use a non-open OS, or no other graphics program but Photoshop will do--you'll choose appropriately.
  • While the "GeekGadgets" version is older than this, I think, version 20 has been ported. Go to http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~xv9k -oki/en/Emacs.html [asahi-net.or.jp].
  • I figured someone would say this. Two replies:

    (1) No, the MacOS X kernel is called Mach.

    (2) If you hack Darwin, more power to you, but that's not hacking MacOS X. Darwin is, as Apple puts it, "a complete operating system based on the foundation technologies in Mac OS X Server." It's described as an "advanced BSD Unix." But it's not described as MacOS X, because it isn't. Hacks you put into Darwin are going to remain with Darwin.
  • Why, it's almost as silly as using a handle that uses numbers instead of letters to show the world how k00l you are.
  • There are signs that there'll be distributors for it other than Be themselves this time around. Computability already lists it, and there will probably be others soon.
  • Exactly. With the caveat that I haven't
    actually looked at the relevant source,
    I'd have to imagine that the Darwin source
    provides them with all the G3-specific
    info they'd need to add support for current
    Apple hardware. They appear simply
    not to be interested (beyond lip-service)
    to processor agnosticism.
  • you can order the CD "new" for 69$ or 25$, but if you already have R4, the upgrade is free and you'll be able to download it from BeDepot as well, like R3.1 and R3.2 were available when i had R3.
    Anyway Be Inc. promise Genki in June, it's coming!!! TNT2, SBLive, media player, pretty cool :), i really like this OS, simple, no hundreds of directories and links (it changes me from SCO at works!)
    Now wait for CivCTP, Simcity3000, Q2, and Q3A!!!!!
    --
  • just click here [be.com]
    --
  • ... from Stripes. Bill Murries character goes off on some rant to inspire the troups.

    The quote actually included someone else trying to correct Bill's character and being suppressed by a third person.

    If you haven't seen Stripes, go watch it now. It was actually on network TV recently.

    If you don't have a sense of humor, you can get the new MSHumor, 2.3! This latest upgrade is compatible with all MSComedians, and has even managed to fix that annoying "knock-knock" bug! Order yours today.

  • It's bad enough when some AC does this... "real people" should have their registrations yanked...
    ~luge
  • My (educated) guess is that that is for people who have not upgraded to R4 from R3. Be has maintained for some time now that R4->4.5 would be a free upgrade.

    Just because it isn't available on the BeDepot website just means that they haven't made the packages yet.
  • Once again, I fully expect them to ignore the PowerPC hardware which got them where the are. What? No G3 support? How about improvements to Mac-specific drivers? What, none of that?

    And to the first person who says that it's Apple holding them up (despite LinuxPPC/Darwin/MkLinux/etc), I have some nice beachfront property in Nevada I'd like to sell you.

    - Darchmare
    - Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
  • Sorry, I was bored and happened to notice tghat not postings had been made. It's not like that there is anything meaningful in any of the comments posted here.
  • It is not a troll! It's not like I got up here and said "Linus blows goats." I mean he may, I don't know. I really don't care.
  • Not likely. I would imagine you would get a mess of people attempting to be "last post" and since once one person does it, they will keep trying until the item is frozen. With first post, once it's done, it's done.
  • Linux users aren't bright enough to get high ratings.

    That's got to be flamebait.

    Anyway, lastpost!
  • However, Apple said that they were going to occassionally "sync up" OSX and Darwin. Expect a lot of the Darwin hacks to make it back into OSX.
  • Last post! :)
  • For talking sense! Geez, I am wondering when Be will just fold. This OS really isn't going to go anywhere. Why? Look at the attention Linux is getting. Look at the astronomical numbers of new installations. Be's hype machine is GONE. Buh bye! What's the reason to install it? It still serves no new purposes. You have Linux. You have Mac. You have NT. Where does Be fit in? Their hey day was two years ago. "It's over, Johnny!"
  • Hm nicely put. Good grammar, too. Thanks for proving to us that the best way not to sound stupid is to keep your moth shut. Oh BTW ? It's MacOS, not 'MaxOS'.
  • Congrats to /. for posting more unsubstantiated rumors.

    Various game retailers are taking pre-orders for Quake III and C&C Tiberium Sun... are they out too?
  • Actually you can hack the Mac OS X kernel it's called darwin ;-P
    "There is no spoon" - Neo, The Matrix
    "SPOOOOOOOOON!" - The Tick, The Tick
  • Yes but on the darwin mailing list many people are hacking the darwin kernel in on a Mac OS X system. They are using the darwin kernel on OS X.


    "There is no spoon" - Neo, The Matrix
    "SPOOOOOOOOON!" - The Tick, The Tick
  • I know at one point there was a plan for the mac rev of BeOS to be able to run native MacOS apps. Is there a plan currently in the Be roadmap to add something similar for dos apps, well specifically games?

    My current OS needs are actually pretty tame. SSH, SSL Web Browser, telnet, other net tools, vi, mp3 player/ripper, tv recorder and the ability to play Team Fortress Classic. Except for that last one it looks like I could use BeOS to replace the one 95 box in my house.

    ---
    Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Solaris/FreeBSD/Linux/ultrix/OSF /...
  • >I mean that was Steve's second child.

    hehe yup. And by that line, Be was born of the wicked stepfather :) (I'm should state that I'm a zealotry BeOS user, btw, it's my only OS as of last week :) ) I read somewhere that Gasse and Jobs had some big fallouts about the time that Jobs left Apple the first time...

    Apple are just like Gravis were with sound cards. They develop incredible products, based on an innate understanding of their consumers... except they completely screw up the software side of things and as a result suck (I used to be a zealotry Gravis owner and was digusted by the way they pissed their talent up against the wall while proudly crowing "If you look carefully you can see I've written my name").

    I wish that every time Be got brought up on slashdot some dickhead wouldn't rave on about the fact they don't run on Apple (and that realistically they can't) - if it did I would have bought an G3 when I last upgraded, but I am now more than happy with my dual p2 x86 box and Be. If you've got a problem, then flame Jobs about it and if you're lucky you'll get an arrogent reply.
  • Why should Be reverse engineer the platform. Compare intel to Apple. One has been very encouraging and moving away from MS (intel) the other has been anal and making deals with MS (Apple). As far as I'm concerned that's about as close as you can get to an accurate scale of karma, and it would seem to indicates that Apple will burn in the pyres of hell. (IMHO)

    Why should Be help out Apples sales? If they develop the greatest operating system yet devised for Apple's platform, then they are helping out Apple. Much better to make the move to the Digital Alpha platform the next priority, rather than piss-fart around trying to be partners with a company that's being recalcitrant.

    How can people support Apple and Linux at the same time, anyway? Apple are into closed systems and proprietary habits.

    Let me restate my case: Apple are bastards. Bastards. They suck. They have cool hardware, and closed minds, are friends with Microsoft, and they suck.

    I'm a consumer who was quite happy to choose intel to keep using Be, and I am not alone.
  • I paid for Linux 3 years ago. I did not reinstall since that time. All the components of my system are still latest and greatest of my choice. Guess how did I manage to do it? There are two kinds of computer users, some just uses what is available (like you), others have the choice (like us). You better do not think. Just use it. Guys at Be are thinking for you.
  • Wrong! Do not take thinking for only programming. There are many choices for us to think and choose. I can choose FreeBSD, or OpenBSD if I do not like what comes with Linux as an operating system in the future. There will be almost zero adaptation time to switch from Linux to any BSD flavor. All of them are more or less UNIX. Say I choose Linux, there are many distributions to choose, or I can make an hybrid system picking up the packages from different distributions and converting them for my taste. Or we can build our system from ground. Almost every component in the system has multiple alternatives. Like ftpd, nfsd, window manager, file manager, text editor ..... Nobody can annoy with a starting splash screen. It can be cancelled from the source code before compiling. If I do not like the scroll bar of my terminal I can change it to my taste. If the colors of the latest dock application does not match to others I can modify it .... Besides these little modifications, if one believes that some program can be done better nobody can stop that.

    This many examples are sufficient I think to say that you are wrong.

    Additionally, by using open source we can ensure our privacy. Since the operating system and programs does not have an identification number out of our control.

    On the other hand I am very happy that RMS is thinking. There is no problem about that. Because, while he is thinking he set others free to take his product and make better if they can.
  • "What... Over...Nothing is over until we decide it is....Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Habor?....Germans? Forget it he's rolling...and it ain't over now!...'Cause when the going gets tough.(long pause with military music playing in the background).The tough get going. Who's with let's get them!Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

    Don't count Be out yet. It is a wonderful desktop OS. Have you tried 4.x? The "media os" thing was timely and things have changed.
  • At least one person got the right source. Next time I wont be so obscure.
  • The greatest thing about a Free Software BeOS clone is the potential name:


    FreeBe.

    Its worth developing just for that.
  • Right, except that everyone does not type 50+ page technical documents. Most people in the world aren't that great at computers and simply want to write small documents. Which is why we have Office, StarOffice, WordPerfect, etc. Get off it, you are not the only person in the world. The fact that the BeOS is not open-source has absolutely NOTHING to do with whether LaTeX exists for it, or whether word processors exist for the OS.
  • Corporate image? Here's a clue for ya JLG:

    YOUR PRODUCT DOES NOT WORK ON G3 HARDWARE

    And just to drive the point home:

    LINUXPPC DOES
  • If open source provides better software, where is the free photoshop? How about Lightwave? Where is 3d Studio MAX?

    Oh yeah, gimp, blender, and povray. *snort* Meanwhile, professionals use what gives them power, not what makes them feel all warm and fuzzy inside for using.
  • I looked through the KOSH site. The Red, the Blue, the Green and the Yellow? How about Alpha through Epsilon? Then there's the cutesy spelling throughout to fit the acronym out of babylon 5.

    Far as site design goes, it's a model. The content still inspired more than a few chuckles.

  • I get the impression from the website that the upgrade is an upgrade from version 3 to version 4.5, and replaces the upgrade that used to be avaliable of 3 to 4.

  • You know, I think BeOS actually has more interesting applications than Linux. How about GoBe Productive, an office suite that doesn't slavishly imitate Microsoft? I was pretty impressed at how fast and smooth it was. And there's always NetPositive, a browser that may not have all the features we love, but is amazingly fast and smooth. (Guess I see a pattern here).

    Now, it's true that there are definitely fewer free applications, but we're talking about tiny companies trying to make a buck or two. GoBe Productive is under $ 100 and has a very nice word processor and spreadsheet (I haven't tried the other modules).

    Everything I've tried on BeOS includes an effort to be creative and original, and I love that in a company. Due to hardware compatibility problems, I'm not using the BeOS right now, but I have fond memories of it and don't regret the money I spent to support software companies that dare to Be (ahem) original.

    Also, Jean-Louise Gasse answers your email in his charming French way. Gotta love it.

    When BeOS gets FireWire support and video editing software, I'm definitely going to give it a try. I'll be frankly relieved if I can give PC users a better video editing solution than "Get a Mac".

    The only serious weakness of BeOS is hardware compatibility problems. Hopefully R4.5 will help.

    D

    ----
  • Must be nice living in your own little world, eh? Seriously, it's great that Linux is getting a ton of press and all, but a lot of it is just the latest "tecnofad." And if you look at the situation carefully you'll see that the driving force behind all the Linux coverage is actually the trouble with Microsoft. Microsoft is closed and monopolistic, Linux is open and a worthy contender, so let the battle begin, and bring on the cameras! You can bet that in another year or so all the hype will start to fade... because it's was never the Linux people generating it in the first place. Be doesn't get quite as much press, because the proprietary model behind it is old hat and not quite as newsworthy as the OSS bit.

    But don't mistake the lack of press as a sign that Be is ready to call it quits! They have been making some serious progress on the BeOS lately, and there are a bunch of the "media authoring" apps just around the corner. Be may not be able to ride the press wave like Linux can, and they don't have the pre-committed developer support that Apple has for OS X. But they're not down and out - not by a long shot. You'd do better to step out and take a look at the actual situation before you make your doomsday judgements, instead of getting all your news and opinions from Slashdot.

    - Slarty
  • How about because BeOS can address audio hardware *eight* times more efficiently than Windows on the same machine. How about because many of the BeOS media apps are capable of things that are simply impossible on other platforms? How about because you haven't seen all the media apps being released in the next three months?
  • Take a look at the freshly updated Hardware Compatibility List:
    http://www-classi c.be.com/support/guides/beosreadylist_intel.html [be.com]. There's *tons* of new supported hardware on it.

  • BeOS has been out of beta for more than a year now.
  • Uh... hello? The Be hype machine hasn't even *started* yet! The Be Everywhere marketing campaign starts probably right after PC Expo. The attention Linux is getting in comparison to BeOS makes no sense to me. Yes, Linux deserves attention. BeOS deserves more. And any journalist who sits down and installs / tests both systems will discover that for themselves. Linux has a long way to go to approach BeOS' ease of use, ease of configuration, gracefulness, and desktop speed / responsiveness. Linux rocks as a server right now. It may rock as a desktop OS one day. But BeOS rocks as a desktop OS now.

  • How so? (Score:3)

    by Christopher Thomas ( 11717 ) on Tuesday June 15, 1999 @06:59AM (#1850611)
    The fact is that if they wanted to, they could support G3 macs, there is no question about that. The fact is also that once they support the current generation of g3s they will always support the current generation of g3s, they may not support G4s or future G3s but they will support current G3s.


    How could they do this without using reverse-engineered specs? They need specs from _Apple_ to guarantee compatibility, and as other posters have pointed out, they aren't getting them.


    It's not different than being on Intel in that respect, in fact you are guaranteed that if you want to support newer Intel chips you will probably end up writing some code.


    Um, no. Or at least, you don't have to. You could dig out an old copy of Windows 3.1 and it would run on your brand new Pentium III, because the architecture is completely backwards-compatible (which is both a blessing and a curse, but that's another story). Now, any _application_ that, say, used SSE would be in trouble (because of data lost during context switches), and you could certainly increase efficiency by modifying code for the new processor, but the OS wouldn't _break_. Such is not the case, I am told, with G3-based systems.

  • I have to agree with you on that, since the release of that one program ("Insert Turntable Mixing Program Name Here") I saw BeOS mentioned in several places that had nothing to do with computers.. Actual newspapers... It was amazing, albeit tiny article about the program, they misspelt BeOS though, those morons....

  • I read on the Xfree86 site that 3.4 will include 1740 support.

    I have one, and I use the XBF_i740 with no problems ('course I don't play quake on it or anything) What did you mean by sub_optimal? Because it isn't free (speech) ?

    What I would like to see is OpenGL drivers for the i740 for Linux. The OpenGL drivers for my card in Windows RULE, considering it's a $50 card.

    I don't know jack about OpenGL or driver programming, or I might give it a shot. I just write CGI in Perl all day. I think my longest script is 100 lines...

    :)
  • There are still alot of people patiently waiting for BeOS to get some good application software. And I dont mean Office 2000 and Netscape. We could care less about those.

    Have you ever run Be? It's really nice. I've not
    seen Linux or Windows software that can play 6 or more (I only tried 6) MP3's at once, and mix them together, variable speed ,either forward or reverse. How about several video clips at the same time, full bandwidth, no skipping? Unlike the Mac and Windows Be has real multitasking, real protected memory and a modern OS design. Unlike Linux and NT it is streamlined from the ground up for multimedia content. It is NOT a swiss-army knife like NT or Linux. It does a few thiungs extremely well.

    BeOS will gain popularity amoung musicians and artists once the software is there. They'll probably use it exclusively. SGI should be afraid, very afraid. Be will soon be able to take advantage of the increasingly large number of pro-grade audio and video components for the PC and when it does it will embarass everything else when it comes to media production. Emagic, Steinberg, Event Electronics, and many others have commited to BeOS ports of their audio products, most of which are expected later this year.

    So in short, if you want to run an Office, go with Linux or Winblows. If you want to run a studio, throw out your macs and commit to Be. It will be well worth it when the software arrives.

    -Rich

  • Re:The straight poop (Score:3)

    by webslacker ( 15723 ) on Tuesday June 15, 1999 @07:03AM (#1850620)
    Jean Louis Gassee said in an interview that for Be to make BeOS run on the G3's, he needed all the tech data from Apple. He also says that it would not be too difficult to reverse-engineer everything they way the LinuxPPC people did, but that it's not good for a company to do "hacker-ish" stuff when they're trying to maintain a professional corporate image.
  • I have to take offense with this comment. "one of BeOS's strongest points is very low software latency for streaming media." BeOS is NOT a real-time OS, and as such, cannot provide the sub 1 ms latency required for real time audio effects processing. Linux with the KURT patches is quite good at this task. I won't argue with BeOS's great architecture for offline video and audio editing and effects, and I think it could quite possibly be the next toaster, but marketing BeOS as real-time is irresponsible.
  • They are one and the same, at least with audio. To do very low latency audio, you have to have a very small output buffer. To do this, you need to schedule events with very short intervals, for example, an event every 1 millisecond. You also need that event to go off as close to possible to the scheduled time. To pull this off you need an operating system with at least basic real-time capabilities. Of course, no mainstream OS supports this, which disappoints me. Firm real time support in BeOS would make it much much more useful for my realtime audio effects. For now I stick with linux with KURT.
  • People are entranced by beauty and slick design... and they always will be.

    I've been running be since R3.1 and I admit that it serves no purpose, but it looks damn nice.

    Of course, I could customize a window manager and blah blah blah, but I'd rather have it done for me.

    Once you run 3dmov with Frustration playing on the ripple you understand.
  • It's not really "officially" released. Most in the BeOS community consider a "point" upgrade released when it is both orderable through BeDepot as well as downloadable free of charge from Be's web site. So far, the latter is not yet available.

    Most speculation tends to think that Be will make the official release announcement next week at PC Expo.

  • It's $25 to upgrade - for people who already own the BeOS, and only if you want a CD. The point release will be made available for downloading free of charge, probably within the next week.

  • While I would dearly love for this to be moderated down as a "Troll," I have this sinking feeling it's going to be moderated up with "Informative" or "Interesting".

    The reason why BeOS is appealing is because it's different. It's different than Linux, and it's different from Windows. It uses different ideas, different philosophies, different technology. It has things that Linux doesn't, that Linux won't (simply because some of what BeOS has goes against the grain of certain UNIX philosophies). Does that mean BeOS is superior? Hell no - Linux will always kick BeOS's ass in certain areas. Does that mean Linux is superior? No.

  • >just with some more spit and polish

    Couldn't I just as easily dismiss Linux as 'just another UNIX' workalike, albeit it with a bit more "spit and polish," as you so elegantly put it?

    >Closed, binary-only, proprietary.

    Yeah, you're right. Unfortunately, your philosophical extremisim results in a closed mind. Apparently for you, nothing good will ever come from closed source. You refuse to look past the licensing to the actual technology implemented (and as a side note, the fact that you CAN dismiss it as simply a licensing issue and not provide examples of how Linux's technology is better or comparable to BeOS would indicate that you are unfamiliar with BeOS at best), and therefore there is no argument in the world to dissuade you.

    Just be careful of that soapbox you stand on to preach to the masses - it's an awfully long fall.




  • It stems from when Apple was shopping around for thier next-generation operating system. It came down to BeOS and NeXT. Jobs decided to choose NeXT (for whatever reason).

    After that, I think Apple has felt threatened by BeOS as a competitor to their operating system, and doesn't really want to encourage it on their hardware. It's only due to Be's peculiar sixth sense that they managed to do a successful transition to the IBM-compatible market.

  • Open-source protects me from closed-minded individuals such as yourself, who look at the world in total black-and-white, with no regard or place for another person's opinions?

    Wow - here I thought it was a philosophy of writing code, not a solution for intolerance and discrimination.

    With respect to Be going under, OS/2 was orphaned by IBM a long time ago and that community is still going strong. Given the support of the Be community, I wouldn't be surprised if a similar following emerged. Further, given the hype around open source, if Be DID collapse there's the possibility that they would release what source code that they could rather than let it die off completely (granted, there's probably an amount of code under NDA or some such).

    Barring those two solutions, I will happily transition to Linux. I've installed it and used it. For me, BeOS - regardless of licensing issues - is a better solution for me than Linux. It provides for more of my needs than Linux does currently. Simply because BeOS has the _potential_ to fail doesn't mean that it will, and it doesn't mean that I should just abandon it because some Linux blowhard feels his way is The One True Enlightened Path To Wisdom (tm).

    It works for me, and it works better than Linux. If there ever comes a point where Linux works for me better than BeOS, I will go to Linux. But you aren't going to get me to jump ship based on some vague prophecy of impending doom.

  • There's no better way to demonstrate that you are a sheep than to mindlessly recite the old Linux proverb of "closed source, binary-only, proprietary" software.

  • Caution, troll-bridge...

  • I don't think there is one. You could conceivably base it off of Linux/GPL'ed sources.

    The most obvious hurdle is the kernel; BeOS uses a microkernel where as Linux is a macrokernel. You'd have to whip up a new kernel from scratch or modify an existing kernel (Hurd?). Hey, if you use Hurd you'd also help further it along some.

    You could use XFS as the file system, since it is closest to the existing Be file system (it's nearly identical; 64-bit, journalling, with attributes).

    In terms of GUI, you'd probably need to modify GNOME or KDE for the task (there are a bunch of things that you can do in BeOS that you can't in the UNIX environments - for one thing, you can dynamically change placement of window tabs for individual windows). Given the popularity of BeOS themes for those two environments, however, it wouldn't be too hard.

    For the MIME-based file system, you'd have to whip that up from scratch. Given XFS and an integrated GNOME/KDE-style GUI, it wouldn't be too difficult, although there'd be a tight integration between the GUI and the MIME typing.

    All in all, it's not impossible. It'd just be time-consuming to put together all of the pieces.

  • It's not sour grapes on Be's part anymore than they really wished they could've continued on the PowerPC/G3 side. Given Apple's reluctance to help them out, they can't count on having Apple be a truly long-term stable platform to continue to maintain a port on.

    Be continues, periodically, to request the specs but Apple keeps turning them down.

    As I said, the situation sucks but it's perfectly understandable. I think both Apple and Be suffer from the deal. Be could've probably sold Apple quite a bit of hardware, and Be would've maintained a healthy set of sales on the Apple side of the computer world. Given the comparative sizes of the companies involved, however, Be is going to take it as a much greater hit. :(

  • I think the rules of reverse-engineering are interpreted somewhat differently in a scenario where Joe Clueless goes off into his backyard and manages to reverse engineer something, whereas comparatively large Company X does the same thing.

    I think the perceived intention is much different.

    Disclaimer: IANAL.

  • There's nothing more important than freedom. On the other hand, freedom should allow me - if I so choose - to give up some of my freedom if I wish. That's simply a part of being free.

    That's what you do in American society as part of the social contract. You give up total freedom for certain perceived benefits. A police force is a good example; society has given up a bit of its freedom in order to become a bit more secure. You can't go murdering freely and you aren't supposed to speed on highways, which impinges on your liberties; on the other hand, the police force also works diligently to track down and prevent murderers, as well as attempting to keep speeders to a minimum.

    The benefits I reap of using BeOS outweigh the freedom of being able to look at the source. I'm not saying open source is a "bad" way of doing things - I happen to support whole-heartedly the "free speech" aspect of open source. I also happen to STRONGLY enjoy the fact that should something bad ever happen to Be/BeOS, Linux will always be there as a fallback. I'm not even shitting (pardon my illustrious pseudo-French) on those who happen to use Linux. But Linux doesn't fit my needs as well as BeOS.

    I respect your choice of using Linux, and I respect your beliefs, even if I happen to disagree (which I don't). But the instant you fail to respect *my* beliefs and *my* choices, I will defend them.

  • The reason why somebody has to be wrong and somebody has to be right is because we're all insecure in our decisions, and we want to be affirmed that we did the "correct" thing. Barring that, we want to make absolutely sure that we did the "correct" thing by making everything else the wrong option.

    (My two cents' worth of pop psychology.)

    Though not on this particular story, I actually was inspired to give Linux another shot based on a lot of Slashdot comments. I recently grabbed a Linux Central CD of Slackware 3.6 and gave it a spin. I spent a few days playing with it, and then zapped it. I liked Slack - I ordered the Slack 4.0 Linux Central CD in case I felt adventurous in the future - but BeOS really did more for me with less hand-holding. (Even given that Slack is the most manual and hands-on of the distributions.)

  • It's a cross between Apple's reluctance to give them official specifications and Be's reluctance to reverse-engineer or otherwise become dependent on unofficial specifications.

    It's a case of limited resources (and I can hardly wait for all of the ultra-religious OSS fanatics to come crawling out of the woodwork for this thread). In order to support the G3 processor, Be would have to reverse-engineer the various motherboard chipsets (it's not actually the processor itself that's the problem). However, that would leave them not only at the whim of different revisions of the motherboard (altered chipsets that would break Be's unofficial specs), but also leave them guessing as to future developments. When Apple introduces the G4, Be would find themselves right back where they started.

    (In case anybody needs it, the starting point for the OSS argument is: "If BeOS were open-source, then they wouldn't have to worry about being squashed - they could let somebody else out there in the Big Coder World (tm) figure out the differences in architecture!")

    In other words, Apple's relucantance to give Be official specs means that Be is at the mercy of Apple. Be would rather not remain dependent on Apple, given Apple's rather surly attitude towards them. It might suck royally - I'd probably have considered buying a G3 instead of piecing together an IBM-compatible, had BeOS been able to run on it - but it's completely understandable.

  • As seen on bedepot:

    If you currently own Release 4, please don't
    order the $25 upgrade. We will send you a
    complimentary update automatically, provided
    that you have registered. You should receive
    your update by July 7th. Please do not contact
    customer service regarding your update before
    this date. Thank you, and we hope you enjoy
    your new BeOS CD!

    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
    I run BeOS. The rules don't apply.
  • As seen on bedepot:



    If you currently own Release 4, please don't

    order the $25 upgrade. We will send you a

    complimentary update automatically, provided

    that you have registered. You should receive

    your update by July 7th. Please do not contact

    customer service regarding your update before

    this date. Thank you, and we hope you enjoy

    your new BeOS CD!

    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
    I run BeOS. The rules don't apply.
  • BeOS has not been considered beta for quite some time now.. hence the names R3, R4, R4.5, etc. Those are VERSION numbers. Like Photoshop 3, Photoshop 4, Photoshop 5...

    Binary compatibility wasn't broken between any point releases in BeOS, it was broken between two FULL VERSION releases (R3 to R4), not .x releases, and only on the Intel platform. There was a perfectly good reason for this too. ELF is better than PE or whatever they were using before.
    Why was binary compatibility broken between versions of Linux again?

    Just because there is a bit of hardware limitation doesn't mean that BeOS is a beta product. It just means it's only in it's 2nd release on the Intel Platform. Hell, they're doing better than Linux in it's first 2 years...

    The fact is, you know NOTHING about what you are so vocal about.. Why don't you just crawl back into your opensource hole and shut your eyes and cover your ears and hope that somebody can make Linux user friendly, faster, prettier, and cleaner than BeOS. Yeah, right.

    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
    I run BeOS. The rules don't apply.
  • I'm not trying to be a troll here. Are there any visual environments for Linux that compare to Microsoft's Visual Studio? gcc might be a fine compiler, but I cannot survive without my visual debugger to step through my C++ code.

  • me too (Score:1)

    by SONET ( 20808 )
    Just in case someone from Apple is reading... I just built 3 BeOS machines. I would have preferred to just pick up some nice G3 machines... but I had no choice. There goes $7500+ in sales lost for Apple.

    Not that that's such a huge figure, but if you add up all the people here that have said they built on Intel for a BeOS box, you begin to see something a bit more significant.

    Just a thought...

    --SONET
  • I don't question that there is bad blood, but how does Apple have a surly attitude towards Be? I've been under the impression that it was the other way around. After all, Be is made up of a bunch of disgruntled ex-Apple employees. Has Apple done anything to hurt Be or been outspoken against them?
  • Is this true or is it just hearsay? I just don't see that jiving with Linux and the GPL so well.

    I think it is deplorable that Be doesn't support their PowerPC based customers. They've marketed the OS as platform independant but it's not and if you want support it sounds like you're stuck with a pentium, that's not so bad but they should stop claiming it's cross platform.

    The fact is that if they wanted to, they could support G3 macs, there is no question about that. The fact is also that once they support the current generation of g3s they will always support the current generation of g3s, they may not support G4s or future G3s but they will support current G3s. It's not different than being on Intel in that respect, in fact you are guaranteed that if you want to support newer Intel chips you will probably end up writing some code. There isn't a moving target. I really think this is just an attempt to try and smear Apple, but I also understand that Be doesn't have a huge staff either.

  • It would be far more unusual if they didn't pick NeXT, I mean that was Steve's second child.

    It doesn't sound like Apple has done anything negative or said anytihng negative towards Be though. They are competitors. Just sour grapes on Be's part. Anyhow, they've ported to Intel and have a nice little cult following, what more could they honestly expect?

  • How could they do this without using reverse-engineered specs? They need specs from _Apple_ to guarantee compatibility, and as other posters have pointed out, they aren't getting them.

    Maybe that's what it takes. It's been done before and it will be done again. They got LinuxPPC running on G3 fairly quickly. It's not against the law, Apple hasn't forbidden it, sure it's work. It has been done by hobbiests, if Be wanted to do it they could too, there is nothing stopping them. It might even be easier for them now that they have 2 opensource OSes to examine. increase efficiency by modifying code for the new processor, but the OS wouldn't _break_. Such is not the case, I am told, with G3-based systems.

    I'll agree with that. There is a lot more backwards compatibility in intel-land.

  • Yes it is. See where it says "code" or the left hand side of your screen?
  • That sounds really silly. Look past the licensing issues. I think that is what the original troller was doing. What's more important that freedom?
  • How about this:
    BEOS KICKS BUTT AT DIGITAL MEDIA

    and how about this:
    LINUXPPC DOESN'T

    Questions?
  • I'm assuming the question you're asking is earnest...right now I use BeOS for web site creation/design. I do a *small* amount of audio work on it. The digital media programs will be there - starting with R4.5. There were a *ton* of missing codecs - making video work unusable. This will change with R4.5. The lack of a useful group of codecs forced many companies to hold off on their products. That wait will be over as of next week.

    When I work with video, I want to do so without the overhead of NT or MacOS. When I mix 30 tracks of audio, I want to do it real-time with a system that responds to my requests immediately. I don't want to have to reset NT every 30 minutes, then wait 5 minutes for it to come up, then start the next cycle. I want my OS fast and stable. BeOS is the only thing that can provide that.

    If you're looking for PhotoShop, Premiere, or other established programs, stick with NT or MacOS. I prefer to live life a bit on the edge (as do most Linux users) and there are a few programs out there that fill my video/audio needs. A current investment in Be is an investment in the future.
  • Woah! I re-read your post again and again. No one said anything about real-time. How did "very low software latency" translate into "real-time"?
  • Actually, Jobs was not the decision maker at the time. Gilbert Amelio (late of National Semiconductor) was the man who chose NeXT over Be, bringing on Mr. Jobs as an "advisor", who then engineered an ouster to get Amelio out of the drivers seat, so that Mr. Jobs could become the interim CEO for large values of interim. (Gosh, I so plagiarized that joke, but I liked it so much!)
  • Yea.....what he said!!!

  • We're getting way off topic here, but I'll answer anyway, since it's a legitimate question.

    There is a new, but supposedly fairly decent open source IDE called Code Crusader (obviously playing on the name of the commercial Code Warrior, which incidentally has just been ported to Linux). If you're just looking for a graphical debugger, you might want to try DDD, which works as a friendly and powerful frontend to traditional command-line debuggers like gdb and dbx (nicely hiding their complexity). I don't know the URL's to either of these offhand, but you can find them via the AppIndex at Freshmeat [freshmeat.net].

    I'm a command-line guy myself on my own time, but I do use Microsoft's IDE at work and understand that some folks work better that way.

    Div.
    But my grandest creation, as history will tell,

  • Hopefully they will have included support for a wider range of hardware. The demo disc of the previous release I tried refused to work with my keyboard of all things.

    I am slowly building a second box to install BeOS on - I'd love to play with this wonderful looking thing.

  • I must confess I hadn't thought of trying that.

    I automatically assumed that it was my keyboard as I have a slightly weird and very old keyboard. Thanks for the suggestion, I shall have a go again tonight and see if it fixes anything.

  • I too, find the BeOS's lack of support for G3 puzzling given that Linux can run on G3's. The word from the BeOS FAQ is:
    No, the BeOS is not compatible with Apple's "G3" systems. We have requested from Apple the detailed technical specifications we would need to provide support for these systems, and Apple has declined our requests.
    Does anyone know if Apple provided said technical specifications to Linux developers? Was all of this information gleaned from reverse-engineering?

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