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BeOS for the Internet: BeIA
askwar writes "Heise reports in this article that Be Inc. is to debut their BeIA dubbed operating system for Internet Appliances today at the DEMO 2000 in California. According to Heise, BeIA will support Real's G2 and Macromedia's Flash. Another nice thing is the file system of BeIA, which will be database like, and allows the users to create their own file types with special attributes. This, and the ability to search for specifically search for these attributes, the system will be suited very well for technical/scientifical applications, says Heise. The article on Heise is in German, so you either have to learn it :-], or go to the Babelfish. "
My guess: Crusoe!
I mean, Be already runs on x86, they wouldn't need to port anything! And all of the programs people own for BeOS will automatically run on BeIA--a major plus for Be fans. Considering Be's easy interface, I think Internet appliances would be a great market for them, 'cause I doubt it will ever catch hold on the desktop market.
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
I agree BeOS is good. The step to "free beer" is a gutsy move, but I am waiting until they go to "free speech" before I move all my client systems to it. It's not that I am a religious fanatic about it, but I got burned with OS/2 and the Amiga, so I will no longer use a closed source OS as my primary platform.
Very informative ... Perhaps I should give BeOS a try.
Ummmmmmmm.... so what? Crusoe is supposed to Be 100% intel compatable. I'm sure they probably booted Minix and CP/M on it a couple of times too...
Of course, I don't mind having latest software for Linux . I was simply responding that there are valid reasons why some companies still refuse to port their products to Linux.
It might change but for now, Linux is mostly server OS and I can live with that.
Look to This BeOS Source Forge page for a developement. I believe theres also a similar developement for Linux, but uhh... I don't care :) (oops! I said the wrong thing on Slashdot! :)
Oops, I'm sorry, I guess I missed when Linux came out with multinode audio, and an integrated, stable sound system. However, it is good to see that Linux is finally getting support for journalling file systems after all these years.
Point out to me one lie in my previous post.
-lx
Except the euro-bigots at least live somewhere good.
My understanding of it (and nothing more) is that Be cannot support the G3 or G4, because they have no _REAL_ documents (the G3/4 specifications) to turn to if one of its customers askes Be for support. If Be can't provide support, then it can't sell BeOS under the same terms as it can for other boxes.
:)
Plus, apple are jerks.
I'm a Linux user, I tried BeOS (4.5 to Be exact). I liked it. I think it is highly overrated, but it is a NICE system for desktops. My requirement for liking it enough to use it full time, is in fact that it become Open Source. You may think this is stupid, but if/when BeOS goes out of buisness because they cannot compete with Microsoft or Apple, where will Be be then? I used to use OS/2 (for many of the same features that Be now claim they invented, like extensive threading, OO support, advanced filesystems, etc) but when IBM dropped the ball, that was the end of my non-Open Source dependency. Sorry if this offends you, but that's just the way it is.
Be is not Unix-like. It does not abstract things to the file system and it does not have support for more than one user. It DOES support POSIX api's, but that's about it. I also seriously doubt it is based on any of the BSD's, as Be claim s it is "from-scratch" (sure they could be lying, but I doubt it).
It's because Linux applications generally suck -- it's all about services, and the user just gets what's left over. The Macintosh, Be, and Windows OSes have a uniform look and guideline set, so that applications will more or less look and feel the same. In UN*X, there are dozens of windowing systems -- ugly Motif apps, KDE and GNOME apps that can't work together, etc. In other words, UN*X sucks.
I have no personal feelings about Be, but I'd just like to ask, where has Be been? I've driven by their offices many times and browsed their webpage but that's the only exposure I've had with them :) Be really sounds like a NeXT clone:
Senior exec at apple.
Senior exec leaves apple.
Senior exec starts company to create a media platform, a new OS.
Senior execs has many critics that his company will fail.
We see what happened to NeXT, is Be the next takeover target of Apple? I'd be interested in hearing if anyone has any inside information on the relationship between Jobs and Jean-Louis Gasse' (founder of Be).
But back to the original point of my post, where has Be been? Can anyone name a Fortune 500 company using them? To me, as a professional in the industry, I would discount Be pretty quickly. It's too propietary, not well known and there are plenty of operating systems that could do the same thing. Hell Linux is free. I'm not meaning to bash Be, but someone tell me some good experiences with it.
Sorry, I HAVE paid money for their products, which are NOT good. I paid a very nice chunk of money for a 60-stream Real5.0 server a little over a year ago, and now what do I have? Useless plastic, because the 5.0 encoder doesn't work with the 2.2 kernel series. Why should they bother to update it when they can make more money from me?
Now, let's take a look at icecast as a server (free, actively maintained, can be compiled for my platform) and mp3 clients (free, better sound quality (IMO) than Real). For my radio station, I much prefer the sounds of streaming MP3 to RealAudio, and our budget certainly does, too.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
>Ban the Rebel flag..
Keep the flag, ban LocalYokel.
That sounds somewhat like BFS, the BeOS file system, as described in Practical File System Design with the Be File System. The BeIA file system may be BFS, or a variant thereof (the Be press release says "At the foundation of BeIA are a core set of system functions, leveraged from BeOS, which talk directly to the individual hardware designs.")
Section 4.8 "Attributes" of that book says that a file (or can have) associated with it a directory (not part of the normal directory hierarchy; the only reference to it is, presumably, via the file's inode), and in that directory are files that correspond to the file's attributes, with the name of the attribute being the name of the file and the value of the attribute being the contents of the file. They later added a mechanism to store small attributes in the inode itself.
(ReiserFS might obviate the need for such a mechanism, although, from the stuff on ReiserFS, having a separate name space for attributes might be considered an anathema.)
BFS also supports indices of attributes, allowing searches for files with particular attributes.
True enough. And I'm the first to admit that Linux does have some pretty crappy video support right now. But there's certainly enough demand to make it worth their while, don't you think? Linux desperately needs to be able to participate in streaming media, and, well, M$ can say they're gonna port Windows Media Player all they want; I won't believe it 'till I can actually download the program. And even then, I probably wouldn't use it anyway on principal (giving them a monopoly over streaming media players means giving them a monopoly on servers... NOT good). Either Real needs to get with it, or someone needs to reverse engineer it--the latter would actually be better, since they wouldn't be able to get by with the crappy quality alphas they offer now, and we'd regain control. But considering the Streambox trial, they'd probably prosecute. *sigh*
What we really need is our own open standard, maybe some form of MPEG.
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
But consider how popular TVs are. A lot of people like the idea of simple, purpose-specific devices that are easy to use and reliable.
/. story here and there without having to know how to use a computer.
My grandmother doesn't really need to do any serious word processing or Gimp work. But I think she would like to read a
If/when they go out of buisness, all their hard work will still be useful to the suck^H^H^H^H people who paid good money for it.
I for one understand EXACTLY what Be is gunning for. Unfortunately the market for this kind of thing is simply far more limited than the market which Linux appeals to. For example, if I wanted a robust multi-user departmental server, do you think I would pick Be? of course not, but this doesn't mean Be "sucks" the way the varoius rabid Be advocates here constantly claim of Linux. This just means it has different priorities. As I've said in the past, the combination of (hopefully one day Open Source) Be on the desktop with Linux on the server is absolutely KILLER, and is what the people of Slashdot should really concentrate on, instead of these naive and childish arguments over stupid things like 18petabytes of user data and multi-user support.
You know it is interesting, but I have seen VERY LITTLE Linux people claim Be sucks. You see a LOT of Be advocates harp on Linux all over the place (ZDnet forums, Slashdot, etc) but I really don't see the reverse. You guys need to lighten the frig up and get over your defensive attitudes. Linux is more successful than Be, get over it already, and get back to reasonably arguing why 18petabyte filesystems are superior to 2GB ones.
Here's the press release from Be themselves (in English): Press Release
Don't generalise everyone into your category.
There are many parts of BeOS that ARE open source, but many parts that CAN'T be. It's not Be's decision. They use some licensed technology that they can't just turn out to the public.
OS/2 failed because Microsoft was just getting its head up when OS/2 was trying to become popular. Bad timing! Now linux has broken the ice for those who wish to depart the Windows train, and BeOS is there for people to try.
This is an OPPORTUNE time for BeOS to become free, and available for general use.
With Be, you can browse onto the CD and copy an entire track over as a raw WAV file, or play that file directly from the CD.
This is NOT what "rippers" are like. Rippers extract the data, then write it to the HD, this is actually READING the data REAL TIME and playing it back instantly.
And this is also not like playing CD Audio backwards. This is more like playing MP3 audio backwards.
I appreciate open source software and all that it gives us. However, to wish for BeOS to be open source is to wish for the death of BeOS. The only way BeOS is going to become opensourced is if Be, Inc. goes under.
This may not apply to you, but it does apply to many people I have had discussions with who are open source advocates. It upsets me to think that juvenile people would wish for the downfall of a company, just to get a look at the code. If you want to see the code, get a job with Be, Inc. Oh, wait. You actually have to be a talented programmer for that.
It seems that many open source advocates call for the open sourcing of BeOS for selfish reasons, like wanting to rip all the cool features out of BeOS and integrate them into Linux, or something just as ridiculous. Let me let you in on a little secret. It would be easier to figure out how to create those features from scratch specifically for Linux, than it would be to try and hack the code from BeOS into Linux. Having those features kludged into Linux doesn't help Linux, and definately doesn't help BeOS, or Be, Inc.
Open source is a death sentence to BeOS. Would you actually use and develop for it if it were open source? Why only then and not now?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I run BeOS. The rules don't apply.
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I run BeOS. The rules don't apply.
many years ago the iroquois nation believed dreams were so important that there was an annual holiday during which dreams were acted upon lest the dreamer die of 'dream stoppage'. i think you need to follow the ways of this wise nation.
It's great to see Be branching out, but is this Good or Bad?
They are branching out and creating more versitile systems for muliple uses... yet their main product still needs some support, help, and effort behind it. The upcoming free BeOS 5 will help them, but does this move stregnthen or dilute them? I don't know...
nope, don't chell speck.
.sig last updated Jan. 14, 2000
What? Sorry the Confederate States didn't hang around for anywhere close to 200 years. Or is there some multiplier going? The Confederatcy is gone, and in a large portion of the world so is slavery. Perhaps as much effort should be put into abolishing slavery altogether?
OK, but I didn't find it funny, because it reflects ignorance: IA64 is not a chipset, but a CPU architecture. And as for IA creating confusion with something that's forthcoming, IA32 is already here, so (by your logic) is the confusion.
Sigged!
Obligatory Tuesday Troll: CowboyNeal told me that CmdrTaco gives good head.
Linux is much to bulky to be considered any kind of an app capable of handling files over 18 perabytes in size.. It's completely bogged down in legacy code. I dont know where anyone gets off saying Linux or any other OS can do the same things BeOS is capable of. Linix as a desktop environment is a total joke. I cant even fathom it running IA's.. "... recompile my kernal!! Damn toaster!" It's silly yes.. But I'm sorry Linux is anything but a viable GUI emvironment at this point.. I encourage any Linux user to look into how powerful the BeOS is..
They've been saying since the G3 came out that they would probably never support it. Now the story is the same with the G4. They basically have a story about how Apple refuses to provide them with specs, etc (maybe bad blood between Gasse and Apple?). I wonder why they can't simply take a look at the PPC Linux stuff...I mean, they (Be) don't want to open their core OS, but they could certainly find legal ways of getting the ideas and implementing them themselves...
::shrug::
Though I wonder why I bother to remember all this, since I use Linux on x86?
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
Electronic organizers have been around for decades, but they didn't really come into wide use until palm computing, where you could actually do something with them beyond what the designers envisioned.
That's interesting. At least where I am (Rio de Janeiro), quite a few people have organisers (I do as well, but I don't like to use; it's to intrusive), whereas very few people own palmtops. Both cost (at least R$700 = +- US$350 for the cheapest PDAs) and the novelty factor (they haven't been around for very long here) are relevant, I guess.
Regarding flexibility: as someone on Slashdot has recently reminded me, computers are tools that should work according to the needs of the owner. And amongst these owners, few need anything too sophisticated out of a computing environment; our class is amongst the few who require a rich and wildly-customizable system. Comparatively, many more people need exactly that: an appliance; anything over and above is just wasted on them. (That's not to say that they shouldn't be flexible, in the sense that they should be able to accomplish a wide variety of tasks, within the constrains imposed by size, speed and the purpose of the appliance. But that's another matter.)
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
"There are no shortcuts to any place worth going."
"Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work." -Flaubert
It might help a little that Be users don't put up a big stink about binary-only releases.
Besides, RealPlayer final code is still sh!tty, so don't feel too bad...
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E2 IN2 IE?
PENIS had a gain of 3" upon seeing the faked nude pics of Natalie Portman.
How old are you?
My Calender must be off, I thought it was Wacky Wednesday.
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0w3nd
Who is this Aphelion guy, and why does he keep calling me late at night?
Because BeOS can grind Linux into a messy stain on the floor in terms of power.
Because many other people want internet access, but don't neccessarily want a computer. Why is it that you think that all people must have the same needs/wants as you?
BeOS boots fast! This is the number 1 reason I use BeOS. It is a nice operating system. It works. You don't have to fiddle with things for hours like in Linux. You don't get frustrated with the crappy gui like in Windows. C++ application programming is intuitive and clean. When I do operating system development things, I want a system that is powerful and boots in as little time as possible (I don't always have a junky second test machine available).
On the same note, how can you get Linux to boot as fast as possible? Does anyone have any tricks for me? I'm willing to live without X, CDROM drivers, etc. if the machine will boot in under 30 seconds. Is it possible to tweak the rc scripts for faster boot times? (Of course I have already compiled the kernel without anything non-essential).
-Nathan
The 'database-like' filesystem with special attributes is not new to BeIA. BeOS's current filesystem supports the special file attributes, and was designed to be a database.
Actually, an ex-Apple employee developed the filesystem while at Apple, but nobody thought it was very interesting. Nobody except Be, that is! I can't remember the fellow's name who deveoped it, but I remember reading about him in Scot Hacker's 'BeOS Bible.'
Why would they write a separate filesystem for BeIA that has exactly the same features as BFS? Of course it uses BFS...
I strongly disagree with "banning" anything, but there's only so much space with with to say anything when you've got a long URL to link to. A SYMBOL OF OPPRESSION SHOULD NOT BE FLOWN OVER EVERY COURTHOUSE IN THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA!
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E2 IN2 IE?
don't burn books, burn Nazis.
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E2 IN2 IE?
This site loads Slashdot's main page. Is this a harmless redirect, or perhaps a way of stealing a person's login cookie?
Organization:
Andrew Chandler
Chafford Hundred
London,
UK
Registrar..: Register.com (http://www.register.com)
Domain Name: SLAPDASH.ORG
Created on..............: Thu, Dec 16, 1999
Expires on..............: Sat, Dec 15, 2001
Record last updated on..: Thu, Dec 16, 1999
Administrative Contact:
Chandler, Andrew Andrew.Chandler@FT.com
+44 7976151688
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Internic, Registrar internic-free@register.com
212-594-9880
Be suspicious
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I suppose that is the difference between geeks and ordinary users. Many people would rather learn a given interface in order to use something; that's the way they work. I, OTOH, would rather mess about with the interface until it works the way I think it ought to work, to best suit ME. I view that as the device conforming to the user rather than vice-versa.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
I could hook up a v8 engine to my skateboard and use that as my means of transportation. Or I could just drive a car. BeOS, MacOSX/Server, and NeXTStep are all unix/unix-like desktop OS. And none of them use XWindows as their windowing system. This is not a coincidence. This is why it took the giving away of Be gratis for anyone to even notice it.
It was noticed before. It's just that Slashdot readers genreally don't have enough money to afford a proper Operating System, which is why Linux and *BSD are so popular here.
Of course the Confederates couldn't hang on for that long -- they were too stupid for that.
They just happened to have enslaved my people for 200 years, and the flag is a symbol of everything leading up to that.
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Good for you. However, Linux has features and combinations of features that no other operating systems have. Multi-user, stability, drivers, ease of use, some fancy feature of some window manager, whatever. Linux beats out each one of those OS's in at least one of those areas. Of course they beat linux in at least one of those areas. All are ligit demands of desktops, and give good reason for somebody to use them.
You said linux couldn't stream audio+video, play and mp3, and browse the web. Well, it can. YOU LIE!!:)
Did I ever say anything about the American flag being a symbol of something good? Does the Confederate flag have any symbolism other than anti-federalism for the purpose of maintaining slavery (and possibly making inbred marriages legal)? FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE.
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Yes, but you have done those things precisely because you wanted to hack these things in your life. Car freaks hack their cars. If they are just putting new fuzzy dice and matching seat covers, they're doing a lame job of hacking. If they are turning a straight car into a racing machine, they are doing some serious hacking, and deserve to be respected for it as hackers.
But that does not get around the basic fact that the vast majority of the cars on the road, refriderators in the kitchen, and TVs in the living rooms are bog standard, and un-hacked.
This is normal. The first computer owners, people who bought Altairs and the like, had to build the freaking things from scratch, soldering each connector and chip in, and write their own OSes. Later people were able to buy pre-built hardware and get software and OSes written by other people. Do you know anyone who still builds his/her own motherboards? Who'd toggle an entire OS in by hand in octal via front-panel switches?
It's progress. At some point, computers will essentially disappear, in the same way that motors "disappeared" into all the appliances in your home.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
Erm, can linux stream video and sound while playing an mp3 and browsing the web? -->I don't think so
Nowhere did I say Linux definitely COULDN'T do these things, just that I have not observed it. My Linux box cannot reliably play a video and an mp3 without chopping up while I do other things. My BeOS box can. BeOS is generally optimized for media applications, whereas Linux is server-oriented. Linux is not a swiss army OS that can just be applied to anything.
-lx
Why is an 18 petabyte filesize limit superior to a 2GB filesize limit? Have you ever tried capturing 30 minutes of uncompressed 640x480 digital video to disk? BeOS is a media-optimized OS. This kind of thing is critical. Nuff said.
Well, I learned bash from the ground up in BeOS, and haven't hit any limits yet. I think saying "It's an okay path for an average Windows user" is downplaying the power of both BeOS and the bash shell.
CDs are played by the drive, and audio piped directly out the card. A CD playing when NT BSOD's will keep playing...
I know the point you're trying to make ... just that this element wasn't part of that :)
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Is this really any different than buying a Wintel box preloaded with a bunch of apps? Plenty of people never "customize" Windoze, making it little more than a loader for an embedded office suite.
Really. But I hear that the sales are going fairly well anyway.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I agree that not everyone needs a high degree of customization, I'm just a little apprehensive as to the possibility of a general movement towards these applications and away from desktops. Be moving towards BeIA and away from BeOS (at least that's what it appears to be) might be a smart move for the company in terms of economy (I sense that offering FreeBeOS is a realization that it would be almost impossible to grab a share of the pay-OS market), but I would guess BeOS development is going to be slowed because of it. Don't get me wrong,I like being able to check my mail or browse the web on my cell phone. But I wouldn't like to see desktop development slow down because everyone's pouring their resources into web appliances. Of course, get enough feature creep and these appliances just might come around full circle and end up as full computers themselves...
While I don't have anything against THE Web, it seems that this OS is less geared for "THE internet" and moreso towards _the_ "web". Macromedia flash? G2? That sounds very "THE" web and less "THE" internet. Now, if this thing had built in news spooling and pop3 mail clients, perhaps we could begin to call it an os for *the* internet. But this is the WEB. Is the web _the_ internet or is THE internet merely *the* "web"?
--[shangodee]
Linux can have those. But are you willing to do what it takes? Are you willing to pay the price?
If you start buying/accepting licensed binary implementations of defacto standards, you'll become dependant and lose your freedom. When that happens, Linux will become "just another OS" and nobody will have any reason to care about it anymore.
After that, you'll switch to Hurd and you'll know better than to ask, "How come Linux gets Real G2 and Flash, when Hurd can't get either?"
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
BeOS does not play CDs that way. It doesn't use the audio cable at all. This allows all kinds of digital manipulations of the cd audio signal in real time. In fact, one thing they like to demo is the ability to play CDs at variable speeds, including backwards :-)
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grappler
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Sorry, Net+ chokes on some /. urls, so I'm posting this again in the right place.
:-)
BeOS does not play CDs that way. It doesn't use the audio cable at all. This allows all kinds of digital manipulations of the cd audio signal in real time. In fact, one thing they like to demo is the ability to play CDs at variable speeds, including backwards
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grappler
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Look.. Linux works well as a server.. Yay.. linux works well for geeks... Yay.. It's not viable as a desktop OS.. Gee, I want to change my resolution.. Hrmm... How do I do this?? Command prompts??? I need to install a new device... OMG... It's like the computer olympics to do that... Turn on BeOS, it recognizes your hardware... If it doesn't you dont get a ton of errors.. Your system doesn't stop running.... And if i want to edit device properties you can... (unlike a macOS) BeOS is not based in nix... That's a myth. Linux is not a viable average joe product.. BeOS is intuitive and easy to use... It has a tiny footprint.. It loads in an instant... It's very, very stable... 64 bit... Handles over 7 processors.... And it's a true pre-emptive multi-tasking environment. It can handle file unimaginable in size.. Why is this important.. Well... Because if any of you command prompt junkies got your heads out of the formatted text of notepad and the terminal window, you'd realize that media... Specifically streaming media is going to be a huge...A HUGE factor in New Media.. ie. Entertainment.. ie, what will be become what consumers will access most on the net.. If you think that in 10 years we'll be looking at aliased text, and courier new fonts, while right clicking on web pages to look at source code you're gravely mistaken.
Yeah. Good thing he's not a GPL zealot, then.
'Freedom'? Alrighty then...
Why would BeOS need to handle files 18 perabytes in size??? Well gee.... Let's think here... One hour of BetacamSP video (highest analog video quality as of yet) takes up over 72gb's of space... What if I'm trying to access media, from several different sources at the same time?? While sending out a home video of my family to my cousin across the country??? Gee, if I'm using Linux I'm pretty much f^&^$ right?? Is the average user going to sit around and wait while the collosal *nix OS takes it's dandy time trying to wrap itself around these files?? I sometimes think people on this site suffer from Open Source Linux denial.
The moment you 'ban' any symbol, you may as well be burning books alongside those Nazis you reference.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Are they still around ?? I thought they pretty much died off. I am suprised they are still around.
You know you've been burned by moderation too many times when you have to put "HUMOR" in the subject line.... :)
I feel stupid for bringing such an obvious idiot to his senses, but anyone who thinks the American Civil War was only a war to end slavery is a certified idiot.
And you think freedom of "African-Americans" was achieved after the civil war? Poor fool.
They only went into a century of share-cropping, where they got MAYBE a little more of a pittance than they did under slavery. But that doesn't matter, does it?
Also, why don't you try to support banning our own American flag because of what we have done to the "Native Americans?"
You remind me of all these silly euro-bigots running around on slashdot lately.
jonathan@apathetic.net
I'll only apologize for my poor formatting.
Because I'm tired of having to split my digital videos into multiple 1,999,999 kb files. That's why.
Then let the people of that state decide.
...some would say that the US flag is a symbol of oppression as well. Native americans comes to mind... Should we get rid of it as well?
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
I feel stupid for responding to a troll, but anyone defending the "stars and bars" is a certified jackass. I agree that the Confederate flag is a symbol of your heritage -- it's part of mine, too. I think it works out to something like 200 years of slavery. /* begin sarcasm You're right, South Carolina *should* be proud, and the Germans are just wimps for regretting "that whole Holocaust thing"... end sarcasm */
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Hello folks,
You can find screenshots of BeIA under here. Note that these files are huge. Look at the dates and download.
Enjoy
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Of course, I'd still rather have my Linux box, but I think I could set up most people with BeOS, and they wouldn't miss anything.
"You ever have that feeling where you're not sure if you're dreaming or awake?"
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
This is all just guessing, but I've got a feeling that it's just the plain vanilla BeFS. What reason would Be have to invest more man-hours in revamping a filesystem that works perfectly? I think it's just Be's famed marketing people (the Buzzword-Enabled-OS) strutting their stuff. Anyone disagree?
Wah!
Of course it has a pop3 mail client. I'm not sure about the news reader but I'm sure they'll include something.
Apparently RealNetworks is staffed by ex-Microsoft management that couldn't cut it working for Bill. I'm often not surprised by Real's lack of product quality.
*sigh*
do you have the real link?
Actually, any app can handle a file up to 18 petabytes in size. It is because of the design of the filesystem. It is not an application based distinction.
That said, there obviously isnt a file that big in the world, nor a drive (or drive array) to store it on. It's purely theoretical.
I understand what you mean by BeOS being closed source and thus "trapped" - after last months "Focus Shift" I felt the same way. It IS rather scary to think that it could die. But I think that Be will release the source if and when they die, or can't keep updating the desktop.
I don't think they will let it die. If they do, then I may bother trying to figure out Linux... right now it just doesn't hold a candle to BeOS (IMHO as someone who couldnt care less about having the code - I am purely interested in functionality, features, and ease of use)
Is them Be off! I like Linux.
(Score:-1, can't spell "Humour")
;-)
sorry, couldn't resist
This is a troll parade
You know we have to do it
We like to get out
And make the children boo it
Three Cheers for TROLLS!!!!
HIP HIP HURRAY!!!
HIP HIP HURRAY!!!
HIP HIP HURRAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1. Pictures on BeIAa .jpg p g n shot.jpg
s .htm m l - What_Is_This_BeOS.html / beos-4.5-1.html
v olume_IV/Issue05.html#Insight = interviews&id=6&action=display
http://www.begroovy.com/news/pictures/compaqbei
http://www.begroovy.com/news/pictures/Kitchen.j
http://www.begroovy.com/news/pictures/qubit.jpg
http://www.begroovy.com/news/pictures/beiascree
2. Reviews of BeOS
http://www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/feb00/articles/beo
http://rivaextreme.com/reviews/beos45/index.sht
http://pages.cthome.net/iact/IQN/6-1999oct/iqn6
http://www.arstechnica.com/reviews/3q99/beosr45
3. The upcoming networking stack.
http://www-classic.be.com/aboutbe/benewsletter/
http://www.beoscentral.com/editorials?editorial
4. News and Program sites.
www.benews.com
www.begroovy.com
www.bebits.com
www.betips.net
Erm, can linux stream video and sound while playing an mp3 and browsing the web? I don't think so, and this is a use that is well within the realm of what a user might do.
Hmm, I don't know what planet you've been living on (BEanus?) but Linux can do all the above and more! Shame you have to resort to lying just to put BeOS ahead of Linux.
How come Be, the less popular OS, gets Real G2 and Flash macromedia, when Linux can't get either?
I am glad to see some more products that could prevent microsoft from attaining streaming media dominance. MS vs. Real is the MS vs Netscape of today - streaming media is a big deal, and Windows has all the support currently...
One question, slightly unrelated: If Real Networks is using Linux for their web server for their site, then why can't they give us a decent, up to date Real client? We never got a G2 that you can get without downloading an alpha from a special place.... and what of Real 7?
Juln
You can also find more at http://www.pcworld.com/pcwtoday/article/0,1510,151 34,00.html Am I the only one who is a little uncomfortable with this whole anticipated move towards web appliances? Seems to take away the greatest strengths of PCs, like flexibility. What's the point of buying a computing device if you can't customize it? Electronic organizers have been around for decades, but they didn't really come into wide use until palm computing, where you could actually do something with them beyond what the designers envisioned. Or look at TV design; hasn't changed much in 50 years; without flexibility there's little impetus to improve these kinds of things...
Much of the challenge for new operating systems on the x86 platform comes with application compatibility, which Be certainly lacks. On a more level field like internet appliances, widespread use of common applications is not as prevalent (if at all) as on the x86 platform. Simply superior technology, which Be is often praised for, should allow them to pull ahead and get them market share.
I am aware the BE runs on X86 and G3 and some older macs, but what chips will the mobile version run on.
Linux Does WEll Enough? So does Windows. So does MacOS. Millions of people get by on Windows and MacOS everyday because it does well enough. I want a system that performs. I want a system that can handle many different things. Linux doesn't do this. Nor does Windows or MacOS. BeOS handles it very well.
I've been waiting for Be to come out with something like this. Dispite what all the hardcore (downloaded Redhat 3 months ago and think they're l33t now) Linux guys have to say about it, BeOS rocks bunnies. It was inevitable the system would end up on internet appliances. Besides the really nice kernel design and programming environment the GUI is really nicely designed. Look at the other desktops you have to choose from, Windows has a taskbar that takes up a nice little portion of the screen and lots of wasted space in the typical app window. MacOS has a similar problem but has a little less clutter inside the window itself. Be on the otherhand is like using X with a WM without a DE, which is the way I like to work in X. There's a minimal amount of clutter which would lend itself to working on smaller LCD screens well. The most important part of an internet appliance isn't processing power or the size of the files it can handle, it's the ease of use and neatness of the GUI. Look at Win CE on handheld devices like the Cassiopea (sp?). The GUI is a major drawback to the usability of them because M$ tried to squeeze Explorer onto a tiny screen. CE doesn't look too bad on things like the Jornada but it could still use some work. Be has an innovative interface while still being familiar to Windows and Mac users and would look nice on the lower resolutions (640x480, 800x600) of many internet appliances. If the desktop people like K and GNOME want to make their stuff really user friendly they will scrap together 80$ for a copy of BeOS and play around on it a bit.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Better Ask Al Gore. :-)
If he invented it he would have the definitive answer
But does it? The definition of 'well enough' for apparently mundane multimedia applications is often surprisingly hard to measure up to. Stick any half-decent DVD player wired via RGB into a TV next to a PC playing a copy of the same DVD out onto its screen, and the consumer electronics setup wins hands down. (This is especially true when the DVD is of a video source (i.e. 50fps, or 60fps for NTSC sources) instead of a film source - temporal aliasing (visual artifacts typically at the beat frequency of the DVD's frame rate and the monitor's refresh frame rate) is perhaps the most obvious problem, but there are many more.)
Apparently the broadcast and consumer electronics industries have a much higher standard of doing 'well enough' than most of the PC world.
Whether or not Linux can play 3 mp3's while animating a spinning cube with each facet it's own running video mpeg is about as relevant...
That specific example may well be irrelevant, but this isn't so different: what about the ability to play 6 audio streams and a single video stream and (crucially, and this is something which is far easier to get wrong than a lot of people realise) keep them all in sync? Is that important to people? Well it's important to me - I like to watch movies with surround sound, and it requires you to do precisely this. It annoys the hell out of me when the sound and video get out of step.
Lots of people are trying to bring the Internet to an audience used to consumer electronics. Whilst this will need some PC-like features (e.g. everything required to be a web browser), this audience will not tolerate shabby AV performance. (And frankly, the vast majority of PC setups deliver very shabby AV.)
This is the motivation behind the technology Be have been developing. Don't dismiss it just because the demos seem overly flashy - try to understand what it is they are showing you. (Or alternatively, try and work out how you would go about demonstrating that a system can deliver the level of real-time media support that would be required by any Internet-enabled high quality piece of consumer electronics.)
Ian Griffiths
Erm, can linux stream video and sound while playing an mp3 and browsing the web? I don't think so, and this is a use that is well within the realm of what a user might do.
-lx
http://www.qubit.net/in_the_news/press_releases/PR _12-21-99.html
http://www.qubit.net
Be was chosen as the operating system of choice for the Qubit, another Internet appliance. Will Be help to distinguish this appliance from the rest of the bunch?
You want GUI, go with BeOS, you want CLI, go Linux, you want to bog down your system and reboot, go Windows. See? Simple...
Making a windows client is their top priority because its their main customer base. They don't make money for joe user, they make money from selling the server or a licensed clients to a big corporation. They can't make any money from the linux client. I know that none of you here would pay for it, and thats a shame. Their product is good because they put money and R&D into it. Thats why they charge for software.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Now we know that BeOS is a major player in the OS market--they have a product with a useless two-letter acronym in the title! While Microsoft has long had "NT", BeOS is competing with "IA", sure to sow confusion due to Intel's forthcoming "IA64" chipset. (As in, "When are they porting BeIA to the IA64?")
As usual, Linux and Unix still have to play catch-up to be a major player. The Linux Zealots claim that three-letter recursive acronyms like "GNU" are superior acronym technology. We here at FUD-Net think they said the same thing about three-button mice, and let's face it, that's just *way* too complicated for us.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
'Nuff said. If you've used BEOS, you know why.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. A database-like file system, support attribute-rich data. I mentioned this a while back on another article. I have got to get a copy of Be and stick it on a partition. I think BeOS is the hottest thing since grits-down-your-pants...I gotta stop being lazy and look into it. The developement environment/API sounds heavenly too.
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
The "internet appliance" might be ideal for business travelers - I can envision hotel rooms that have some sort of web terminal that provides e-mail, web browsing, maybe ftp downloading onto a Zip disk provided by the user. In a setting like this, a conventional PC would be too easy for the user to corrupt - having the whole OS in read-only form would be an asset. If the thing had a hard drive, its role could be limited to virtual memory and other caching functions. Similarly, devices like this could be mounted on business-class airline seats once there is a good way to provide broadband wireless internet access in flight.
Well here's what Jean Louise Gasse had to say in the latest online newsletter. Be newsletter Not only that but it talks how their new networking kit(?) called BONE (BeOS Networking Environment) fits into the picture. All in all a good read, even if you don't like the BeOS.
This must be one of the factors that contributed to Be's stock's large jump today +3 15/16 to 19 11/16, it had been languishing for a while, but many people are predicting (read: hoping) that it hit 30 by the end of the week. Intel has purchased a larger share in Be Inc. and the upcoming Stinger Internet Appliance will be based on Intel chips.
I wish people would stop bashing The Register -- I know a fake story when I see it, and they aren't very hard to spot. Usually, they get the scoop days before aggregators like /. get hold of it, and in the case of ZDNet, it's sometimes a week!
Uh, sorry for promoting another website, but I had to lay some asbestos because I usually get flamed for linking to The Register by people who don't get it.
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E2 IN2 IE?
Linux does well enough.
That's all that really matters in the end.
Whether or not Linux can play 3 mp3's while animating a spinning cube with each facet it's own running video mpeg is about as relevant to the typical end user as to whether or not Linux can be combined in parallel processing clusters to be one of the worlds top 500 supercomputers.
This is why it took the giving away of Be gratis for anyone to even notice it.