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BeOS Max Edition v3.0 Released
JigSaw writes "After Be went down, 2-3 "distros" of BeOS 5 PE (the free version of BeOS) were created and continued making releases by literally tweaking the internals, patching the kernel etc. in order to bring BeOS up to speed with new hardware. Additionally, these distros include lots of third party software. BeOS Max Edition is the most popular of the bunch, and version v3.0 came out today. The BFS ISO installs in its own BFS partition, however it requires a bit of attention in the way you have to burn it."
Good Lord! There should seriously be a disclaimer attatched to the link to BeOS Max Edition website.
BeOS used to be so much fun, but two things really held it back when I used it. One, NetPositive was the best browser. That sucked. It was like Netscape 3.0 compatible. I know that's not really valid anymore. There is a Mozilla port now. The second thing, which is probably still an issue, is the fact that BeOS wasn't totally POSIXified. All kinds of hacky stuff had to be done to get stuff to port. Compare this with OS X, which for all intents and purposes, is FreeBSD. Stuff compiles so good on there. I think the next time I will give BeOS a second try is when one of the free BeOS projects starts to come along. I kind of think of BeOS as OS X for i386.
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
I understand that BeOS is well done and some say that it advances the state-of-the-art is OS design and usability and its great that it has been open sourced to allow code and apps to the public. That said, why would anyone want to start using an effectively end of life OS, is there that much that can be done with the OS? I see all these people putting effort into reviving BeOS or AmigaOS or C64 OS's with TCP/IP and ethernet is this at all useful. If the best features of BeOS live on in Linux I do see that as a benifit but what gain is there in spending the time and effort in reviving a dead horse?
What? You can only burn it in the night of February 29/March 1 when it's a full moon, the CD is plated with mithril, the burner in sanctified with the blood of a virgin and Duke Nukem Forever is released? When you burn it, might it cause a rip in time or a quantum instability?
Man, BeOS is some scary stuff. I can imagine reading about it in the newspaper already... "Kid installs BeOS, blows up universe. God sues for damages."
Hate me!
Last time I was in my kick to use as many different OSes as possible, I found the hardware support for BeOS terribly lacking. Does it support modern graphics cards now? What hardware *won't* work with BeOS?
Is BeOS still stuck in the gcc 2.95 world due to c++ libraries?
At one time, I cared. BeOS could have beaten OSX to the punch. It could have been a kick-a$$ multimedia box.
Now, though, aside from the coolness factor of it being yet another OS that runs on Intel hardware, what exactly does BeOS have that makes it a desirable platform for users? Or put more succintly, Is there anything in BeOS that is not available in Linux?
Since I saw AbiWord already in the 3rd screenshot, I figured there might be some interest left for an AbiWord 2.x port for BeOS as well. If anyone is interested in such a port, he/she should stand up now and contact the AbiWord Developers Mailing List. If we find no active BeOS developers within the next 2 weeks, we'll drop the currently unmaintained and outdated BeOS port from our tree.
I know this article will generate a ton of "BeOS is dead, who cares" and "Who the hell uses BeOS anymore?" or "What is BeOS?" style posts, so as an avid user of BeOS I will attempt to explain some things:
(1) You'd be surprised how much hardware is supported by BeOS, Athlon XP CPUS, P4s, firewire cards, SCSIs, Magneto Optical, scanners, etc. If it's not natively seen, www.bebits.com (as well as bedrivers.com) is the place to go.
(2) BeOS is a refreshing change of pace from the "Big Brother" of Windows, the "Here's a million bits, put them together yourself" of Linux or the "Our way, the only way" of Apple. BeOS relies on the "less is more" viewpoint. Software packages range in the hundereds of k, as opposed to the hundereds of megs in size, yet still do what they need to do.
(3) I have yet to see a GUI is clean, useful and *consistant* as BeOS.
(4) It just works.
(5) The user base is friendly, enthusiastic and you won't get any of the typical *nix attitudes of "lamer" or "rtfm" in the BeOS user forums.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.