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GIMP, Civ:CTP, and low-cost box Coming to BeOS
In a frenzy of porting, Be.com has unveiled that both the GIMP and Civilization:Call to Power will be ported to BeOS. With the news of a new low cost Be system, I'm gonna have to look closely at getting one. Update: 06/22 11:14 by J : flaggz writes "We've posted a screenshot of the GIMP toolbox for BeOS. "
Linux is a open book compared to a properly setup OpenBSD computer.
This doesn't follow. What in the world are you talking about?
And, if you want "Ooooh, Aaaah" or more 'hidden agenda' (?) stuff:
- Audio that *never* skips - Replicant apps that can embed into the desktop as well as other applications - 99% efficient with multiple processors - Stable as all hell .... Ah well, I've run out of steam. "About time", you think. :)
Wah!
The two totals combined will probably be less than the number of copies sold for Windows in Rhode Island.
Are we talking multithreaded rendering here? Or just the rest of the program/UI stuff being multithreaded?
seems to me that the lusers are coming from the linux fanatics...and they never learn http://www.mindcraft.com/linux-net-rage.html
some of you commented that be's server was down, but as of about 6:20 central (US Daylight) time, I could load entire pages without web-server-socket problems.
hopefully it will stay up for the remainder of my little browsing excursion.
Smitty
± 29 dB
Usage of BSD software does not imply stealing. Don't spread FUD.
Some GNU software is based on BSD licensed software. Was the software stolen? I would say not.
What was the point of replacing tracker? I seriously doubt that they added anything that is any better.
---Got Coffee?---
For free.. is that what it comes down to? Be has a
money-back guarantee if you aren't happy with the BeOS. If you want to keep it for free, then I guess you won't be happy. There *is* a place in this world for products that aren't free you know.
Isn't it obvious? Haven't you noticed that anytime someone posts something controversial it gets moderated down and marked as "Flamebait"?
I think a new moderation reason is required, "Controversial" -- at least then it will be the truth. Apparently a moderator who likes BeOS got offended, what a shame.
But, I agree completely. Although I may not agree with everything he wrote, he's certainly entitled to his opinion.
This reminds me of a Simspons episode, when they were listening to the radio in the kitchen and the guy on the radio was talking about politics and Marge said "That sounds like controversy, I don't like controversy in this house". (It's satire, damnit)
Looks like you'd like the XFree license then. Similar to BSD but with no advertising clause.
Read section 2.c of the GPL. I would call that a major advertising clause.
The multimedia speed is there, but I didn't like the interface, nor the networking, nor the lack of
:) ) If you want to see a selection of them, check out http://www.be.com and go to the store link. If you want to see the freeware available already, go to http://www.be.com/beware
decent apps for it.
Um... well... you can change parts of the interface quite a bit... what can you not like that much to turn you off the whole OS? If you want, you can run it all just from the command line... what can you not like?
Please don't rattle off that tired crap about there being a lack of apps. Quake2/3. E-Pictuer. CivCTP. There are no shortage of apps for it, and in development. Simcity 3000. Gobe Productive. Be Basics. Sheepshaver (for you lucky PowerPC owners
Believe with me, my saplings.
One of the most important aspects of an OS that is used by users is the User Interface. This should be obvious. In this respect, BeOS (although still extremely young) is growing in popularity if only due to the fact that it looks gorgeous. It's not hard to impress onlookers when you are playing 10 mp3s and at the same time full-motion video flawlessly. It's harder to do the same for Linux (open flame invitation) when what you want to show off is a stable, multi-user server OS.
Another way of looking at it:
If BeOS were a woman, it would be Rebecca Romijn.
If Linux were a woman, it would be your wife.
If Windows were a woman, it would be serving time.
Is this yet another anti-BSD flamebait?
I take it that the Ethical Treatment of Animal Bytes doesn't simply involve clubbing the biting animal to death.... heh
BeOS for Intel is barely over a year old. My Microsoft mouse and my SCSI2 (oh no, I'm not on the bleeding edge!) card were detected just fine. Same effect for many other people who use BeOS every day; it does "just work" for them. Did you even bother to check the hardware compatibility list? Do you just stick in any hardware for Linux and complain when it isn't autodetected? Or do you consult a list of currently supported hardware?
Why would you port the Linux version of CivCTP to Win32 when it was already out for Win32 last year?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Well... I went out and bought a new video card (Millenium II) and haven't looked back. There are always problems like this when changing periferal cards. I remember my Diamon card not working for ages with linux back around 0.97 or whenever I first started using it...
Believe with me, my saplings.
You don't have to read the source to care about it. I happen to read some of the source, and I edit some of the source, but I'd say I look at less than 1% of the source I use everyday (for example, it takes a special kind of person to wade through the X11 source). However, the fact that the source is available to the community at large is very important to me, regardless of whether or not I'm reading the source. It is clear to me that having the source available under a Free software license makes a huge difference in the quality of the software. I consider it very important to me. I am quite aware that there is well written software where the source is closed and secret, but over the twenty-someodd years I've been dealing with the computer industry, it is clear that they are the exception, not the rule.
----
Open mind, insert foot.
One likely would not. However, if one was not interested in managing multiple source trees for the platforms one's network games support, something that supports all the major platforms could be useful.
Bull. There are examples of driver code available, online documentation, and printed documentation. Why do you need the source to the kernel to produce useful drivers? The drivers attach to well-documented hooks in the kernel. Nothing more is really needed.
Have you ever used Irix? Or BeOS itself? THat moment where you get the feeling "This is how I want the world to be". I'd never used Windows when I got it on disks with my first PC. We used DOS for months, and hten I decided to install Windows. I was amazed you could move the mouse while the hdd was being accessed. BeOS is that just over existing Win32 that win16 was over DOS. You justh ave to see it in multiprocessor mode to know. I have a dual P2-350... and when I upgraded the speed in crease to NT (which I also had installed then) was very slight. Very slight. But BeOS became able to play 20 MP3s at once without maxing out the chips. It really takes advantage of the second processor like you wouldn't believe. The consistent interface is a nice change from linux too (I hate fvwm95 more than anything else on this earth).
Believe with me, my saplings.
If you want to see what people mean when they say that Be advocates are irritating, look no further than this post. Knowing that the person he is responding probably hasn't taken the time out to read up on just what BeMessage and AppServer are, he just throws them out there in buzzword-like fashion, followed by a nice little taunt ("...that alone would take a very, VERY long time [to implement]") and expects all readers to just cower in awe without giving any substance as to what his cute buzzwords actually mean (not to mention downplaying the fact that Windows95 has a LOT of API calls that have a lot of details that have to exactly match the original or things don't work right). Now, I don't doubt that the technologies behind "BeMessage" and "AppServer" are very real and very useful, here they're nothing but buzzwords. This kind of crap might impress those PHB's, but around here it won't do much but tick people off (like, for instance, me).
This hardware support thing crops up every time Be is mentioned in slashdot, regardless of the nature of the post. Other favourites are "They won't second guess apple so they must be rubbish" and "There arn't any applications". Just go out and buy a supported video card! What - do you expect a OS that has only been on the intel for eighteen months to be able to match Windows? Buy a supported video card, get BeOS and you'll never have to worry again!
Believe with me, my saplings.
I believe one of the biggest problems in Wine was that they're trying to recreate, bug-for-bug, a multitasking windowing system kludged onto a braindead boot-loader and program-starter originally written for PCs with 64KB of RAM. The Win32 API is a nightmare to use, let alone to port (which brings up all sorts of issues of undocumented or incorrectly documented API calls..)
Given how elegant BeOS is supposed to be, I think it would actually be much *easier* to write a clone. Even if it isn't, I'm sure someone will do it just for the challenge..
Oh, and it's 'app_s_'
Daniel
Trenches are no defence against nuclear attack.
Believe with me, my saplings.
Don't forget about SimCity 3000, Quake II, Quake III and more... (like Mozilla) BeOS will impress you if you give it the chance!
a) Quake3 is MUCH more performance sensitive.
b) Quake3 is a strictly one house project.
This contrasts to CivCTP which is:
a) Playable on a P2/200 w/S3V
b) Spread across at least 4 sets of developers.
Quake 3 is on BeOS, plus beos has sc3k and several other companies looking to port games. One company has been looking into porting FF8 among others. His post wasn't hyped, just not defendable by publicly available documents [yet].
Yes! 1999 is turning out to Be a very good year!
Yah, well
As long as BeOS succumbs to a bit of slashdotting, I don't want it.
23:02 GMT and they're out of the air
I recently decided to pull out my copy of BeOS r4 and give it another shot. I think the OS is a fairly decent one. The one major problem it has is hardware support. If it is a desktop multimedia targeted OS, shouldnt it support most major graphics cards on the market? I have a TNT2, a TNT, and a FireGL Pro. Of these three there is a beta driver for the TNT that works fairly well. I think Be should really start working on their hardware support if they ever want to go far. Do you think windows or linux or any OS would be able to be a major player if you couldnt install it on almost any PC on the market? I really wish I could get the FireGL to work in anything besides Black and White mode.. sheeessh. Anyways, that was just my 2 cents.
Tim
Try Beos.com, It looks like they moved their site without telling anyone.
The Gimp = http://www.beos.com/press/pressreleases/99-06-22_e ventloop.html
Civilization: Call to Power = http://www.beos.com/press/pressreleases/99-06-22_w ildcard.html
Low cost Be system = http://www.beos.com/press/pressreleases/99-06-22_i DOT.html
I do think that Be should release the source to ;-).
all of their drivers so that people can fix bugs
in them... (not least so that I can make the screen
appear centered on my S3 ViRGE
However, the kernel source code is not needed to
write drivers. They are not built in to the kernel
and the interfacing-to-the-OS bits of driver code
are very easy to write from what I have seen.
I know Linux is getting better and better for games all the time, but it still has a loooooong way to go. BeOS already has a killer multimedia implementation.
Currently, I dual boot Windows for Delphi and games and Linux for all the work I need to get done. I'd absolutely love it if BeOS stole the game market from Wintendo. BeOS would make a great gaming platform.
--
"I got it running, grabbed a rocket launcher, and fired down a hallway." --John Carmack
The Old Site Is Here, http://www-classic.be.com/
I Wonder Why be.com is not up.
For the record, the PRIMARY reason we were working on GeTK (a port of GTK+ for BeOS) was to allow us to port the GIMP for BeOS...
At the time it was started, I was under the impression that no one else was working on a port of the GIMP to BeOS. Our approach was to get a working version of GTK+ on BeOS so that we could leverage the ongoing development of the GIMP and it's plug-ins with minimal effort. Additionally, we planned to add extensions into the GeTK framework to allow for better integration into the BeOS application/desktop environment, thus minimizing the impact of using a non-native toolkit. We also planned to use themes to make the GIMP look more like the rest of the apps on the BeOS desktop...
EventLoop is taking an entirely different approach to porting the GIMP to BeOS. The only redundant effort was the fact that we were both trying to port the GIMP...
:-l
Microworkz announced that its up-comming low cost ($200) web appliances will be powered by BeOS, also metacreations is porting Bryce 4 to BeOS, Bryce 4 is a nifty & fun to use program that will fit nicely with BeOS.
Way to go BE!
and this would be an example of an "open source bigot"
Why don't you run your open source software on open source CPUs?
But you're quote about it being a privilege to work on the GIMP is quoted twice. Otherwise, it's great, if you port GIMP to BeOS, I may give BeOS another try!
it IS big news because gimp is open source and EventLoop Inc will sell support (yay another example of selling open source software) and add back to the source.
---
You are right. The same logic should be applied to Windows port. After all, there is native, powerfull GUI API available there. Why reinvent the wheel ???
That's not quite right.
From what I read, not only is all of the work being contributed back into the normal GIMP development tree, but the BeGIMP people (for lack of a better title) are going to be modularizing the GUI code, something that's been on the list of things to do for a long time.
So the overall GIMP project benefits by getting a major item done (granted, the Linux version of GIMP needs to be redone with the modularized system, but at least it's there now), and BeOS gains the GIMP.
Give and take - just like what you wanted.
this more like anit-microsoft sentiment
It's paranoid to assume that all OS vendors will behave like Microsoft. There behavior cannot continue in a truly competitive enviroment.
Isnt' the hardware the building block of everything? Sure you can port an OS to other CPUs but you can port Applications to other OSs.
Had Lotus had other viable options, well, you don't know that story.
Learn to read with comprehension. Even when BeOS users are negative, they don't go as far as linux users were demonstrated to do.
I just thought it was funny people were using it in a negative way against others.
...for you to just try it?
I really can't follow your reasoning, unless by "try it" you mean using it as a server for some critical purpose.
And if there is any doubt, you can check out http://www.mindcraft.com/linux-net-rage.html for a few
examples of what you've never seen BeOS users do.
I agree with the comment about non-Linux users being derided.
Guess what? I use Mac OS 8.5.1! And what's more, I like it. That's right, folks, there's a Mac user on Slashdot. It's not Linux, and it's not open source.
*cowers behind desk*
That's just an excuse because you don't want to admit you're so freaking paranoid.
Ya, and monkeys will fly out of my butt.
Although the source for the OS itself isn't provided, BeOS comes with a complete development environment, including an egcs-based compiler and the entire GNU toolchain. Since these are GPL'ed, they all come with complete source code. BeIDE is a basic IDE for those who prefer to work in a GUI setting. There are also about 20 demo applications that come with complete source code. The API is thoroughly documented in the "Be Book", which is also included on the CD.
The Be web site includes a few BeOS programming tutorials, and the Be newsletters deal with a lot of programming topics. Basically, even though BeOS isn't open source, the atmosphere for the prospective developer is totally different from Windows, where you get fscked over for a couple thousand dollars just to get started.
http://www.ast.com/beos/
What I have a problem with is people who feel that just because a stand is
:-)
:-)
different from theirs; it is automatically wrong.
Sometimes this is the essence of a position; eg, someone who believes that it is wrong to kill is likely to consider someone who allows killing in self-defense to be wrong. Of course I suppose that this doesn't count as a 'non-injurious idea'
I've noticed though that a large proportion (I suppose maybe not a majority) of people denouncing the "zealots" and the "extremists" on any particular issue are the ones who have a stand which can be followed by going along with the status quo. This really bothers me -- you just happened to get in the way of a pet peeve. Hope it didn't bite too badly
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Maybe some of us don't want another MS?
If we wanted another Proprietary OS, OS/2 would be the one, it's much more flexible, and is rock-solid, and proven. Be is just an OS/2 wannabe without the stability, but with pretty graphics (A more stable Mac).
-- Keith Moore
This sig is the express property of someone.
First of all, as of the last time I checked, BeOS costs $69, not $100.
/.ers will buy Quake 3 Arena for $50 or whatever. Is that an "absurd price"? To be somewhat facetious, I would say that neither Quake3 nor BeOS is supposed to replace Linux. Many BeOS users feel that $69 isn't to bad for an OS that is really fun to use and program for. Look at the other end of the spectrum - how much does MS charge for NT plus complete development tools? A couple thousand dollars, at least. In that context, BeOS isn't too far from free (in the beer sense).
All of the copylefted tools can be downloaded for free (not that they are much use if you don't pay the $69 for BeOS, in which case they're on the CD anyway).
I'm sure a lot of
This is basically correct, except that the 'Linux version of GIMP' will be 'redone' at the same time. We are modularizing the UI components. That means we are abstracting the central GIMP code away from GTK+ to be toolkit independent.
Once completed, we will have 'modules' (dynamic libraries) for GTK+ and the BeOS interface kit. This should allow much more rapid development of additional interfaces in the future, including versions of GIMP that run with no user interface at all (batch/server processing.)
James
EventLoop
I've been trying to use Be as my main OS lately and yeah, it's damn fast. You can say what you want about lack of hardware and software support and closed source (and those are annoying problems, believe me), but it SMOKES. I've got a quad-boot system with Be, Linux, Win98 and WinNT, and in subjective feel, the UI speed and responsiviness of Be smokes all comers. The menu and window drawing and response times are instant, scrolling is baby-butt smooth, and I have a now-dated Riva128 with 4mb.
None of the chugging and hard-drive grinding you get with Windows (even NT), and I think that Linux is pretty pokey using Gnome or KDE or one of the other window managers over X.
I thought that my Celeron@464 with 128mb and 7200rpm hard disk could drive any GUI "fast enough" until I used Be, then I got a taste of real speed.
I think this is similar to the stuff Precision Insight is doing with their DRI. Not necessarily greyscale fonts, but you can have direct access to the video card to make it faster.
Citizens Against Plate Tectonics
Not to be disrespectful to Be, but as of now, BeOS is mostly used at home by geeks who find it FUN to use an enormously powerful, high performance OS with all the latest buzzword features. You don't need it to be multiuser to have fun. Once BeOS starts moving into the workplace, I agree that multiuser support will be critical. BeOS is designed to eventually be multiuser, and I'm sure that Be will implement the multiuser features if BeOS really takes off. In the short run, Be wants to win over individual users who will "play" (again, no disrespect intended) with it at home. I think Be has made the correct assessment that other issues (hardware support in particular) need to be addressed first.
Well, it looks as if old Slashdot really drives traffic. I've visited be.com a number of times and never had problems, but it seems to be rather dead right now...
I just have to point out that it's totally annoying when someone comes up with stupid guidelines for how people should respond to their post. If you really don't want a certain anticipated response to something, refrain from including it in your post or just don't post. The great thing about slashdot is that it is an open forum and people can reply however they want. The minute that changes will be the last minute I spend here, and I would guess that I'm not the only one that feels this way.
I will go on to go against the guidelines for replying you set in your post and say that BeOS is great because it is another OS out there and it is usable for some people that want to use it. Linux is the same way as is Win32 and MacOS... usable for some but not for everybody. Competition is good for everybody. Personally I use them all on a daily basis.
I'm just replying this way because I can... even if you ask me not to. :) Honestly I could care less about influencing anyone's views on BeOS - or any other OS for that matter. I nearly included a whole list about why BeOS is great along with a list why other operating systems are great (just because I can), but instead I decided to exercise a little self control today. :)
As for being disgusted with what you are reading, if it is really that bad perhaps you should stop reading the thread... nobody is forcing you to read it.
"Reply to this however you please, even if it offends me or goes against what I think... I just might learn something from what you have to say."
--SONET
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. --Benjamin Franklin
I agree, after getting the rug pulled out from under me with Amiga
and Os2, I will not longer trust a proprietary operating system.
Granted, Os2 and Amiga aren't dead, but they lost their momentum
because of the commerical companies owning these systems
failing to follow up on a good thing. When Commodore went
down Amiga had more installed units in Eurpoe than Windows.
When IBM abandoned Os2 for consumers there were more
installed units of Os2 than Windows 9x.
I will stick with Linux or a related Open Source system. I hope
several others spin off, and from bsd.
This is too bad because I originally became interested in
programming due to the emerging capabilities of computers
in such areas as midi and multimedia, in the late 80's. While
there are some good apps in these areas, whenever something
good happens it seems to fizzle out due to lack of follow thru
by developers dependent on proprietary systems. There really
isn't a good midi suite for professional musicians on a pc, though
Mac has some which are better. Look at video with Amiga
and the Video Toaster. What a waste.
Linux has even less than Windoze in this area (mp3 players
and rippers *do not count* as there is nothing creative in this
fad except for the developers of the apps). I mean appliations
to create music, 3d graphics and other designs - including
CAD. Linux has some projects which are making some
progress. Let;s hope they contiunue. Really, one of the best
music apps for Linux is Keykit - relatively unknown but
excellent. Also avaliable for doze and some other systems.
BeOS may be a superior platform for this kind of application
(servers are boring though there are many advantages to a
multi-user client-server system even for these applications)
but never again will I spend considerable amount of my
free time developing applications for a proprietary os. Neither
will I trust such an os enough to invest significant time in
learning to use apps which run only on these os'es. The
good news is that most of Be's apps are developed on Linux
first.
X Windows is really not so bad. Speed and direct access to
hardware or graphics in kernel isn't everything. the speed is
fine with a graphics accelerator and 3d card, but there are
other problems with asynch io with sound that need to be
addressed in the kernel. It's especially bad with midi - better
with dsp.
I do wish Beos the best of luck. If they go open source I
will certainly buy the cd and install it. But for now Linux will
have to do, and it does pretty well.
> ...Be is just an OS/2 wannabe without the stability...
Gimme a fukin' break! It's you fukin' IBM/Unix suckers that have us stuck with Microsoft now!
IBM couldn't imagine good marketing killing a superior OS, and now we have M$ on 85% of PCs.
I wanna see some benchmarks with Unix vs. Be on Gimp, Mozilla, and Apache (when they're available)!
Then we'll see who's the real OS!
Hey, you! Yes, you. The person reading this message. I have a grave warning for you:
YOU ARE USING OBSOLETED TECHNOLOGY!!
That's right! All computers today are based on the OUTMODED, ANTIQUATED Turing model combined with DIGITAL ELECTRONICS, products of the 1950s. For a fee of only XXXX$, we are pleased to offer you our new "SuMath" technology. With this technology, all of your information will be efficiently stored using SuLights, an innovative system which represents data as strings of ones and zeros. We believe that it is possible to store as much as 64 MegaSuLights inside a single SuChip, and 10 GigaSuLights on a SuDrive.
But that is not the end! The ancient 'for' loop will be replaced by our SuIterator, 'if' by SuDecide, and 'while' by SuRepeat. All of these were developed using our patented SuLang tools, which allow the easy creation of multiprocessor, digitally enhanced, storage-enabled programs with LESS EFFORT!
Say 'no' to 50s technology! Get SuComputing today!
[satire mode off]
Daniel
naw-Gimmick isn't open source.
At least GimICQ isn't.
In the FAQs they say it will be like semi-OpenSource, tho...
Well, that's not necessarily true. Civ:CTP is not a very fun game (IMO), and it certainly doesn't have much to do with its namesake (i.e. the Civilization series). I honestly don't know exactly how well it's doing right now, but when after I bought it and found I rather hated it, I checked out some of the gaming sites and many other people were feeling the same way.
I seriously don't mean this to sound like flamebait, but I do wonder if they might not sell a decent amount just because of the general lack of games available for the OS? C.f. many mediocre (at best) games selling extremely well for the N64 because of the sheer lack of numbers of different games available at and shortly after release.
"With the news of a new low cost Be system, I'm gonna have to look closely at getting one."
$500 for a Cyrix MII 333, 32M, 3.2G, unnamed video and sound cards, and no monitor? That's not much of a bargain.
A true "MediaOS" machine should have dual processors, gobs of RAM and high end video/audio hardware. And a monitor.
"ext2fs" and "rpm" are not inherently buzzwords, and neither are "BeMessage" and "AppServer." Nonetheless, all could be used as buzzwords if someone wanted to (i.e. "Microsoft will take years to catch up with RPM technology" and offering no further explanation and also there being a good chance that the people you are talking to don't already know what RPM is). When I said they are nothing but buzzwords here, I meant "here" as in "here in this post I am replying to," not "here on slashdot."
some people deserve to be unemployed and starving. it's what we call evolution. i'm serious.
Actually, that's Social Darwinism. It has nothing to do with evolution, and is primarily the product of apologist thinking regarding the disadvantaged.
And it hews very closely to eugenics, which explains its unpopularity amongst the itelligentsia.
Much like pampheleteers who insist the Nazi Holocaust nver happened.
I agree with the idea of modularizing the UI components. However, what are your plans for addressing the GUI issues surrounding plugins?
I understand that all the Script-Fu stuff seems to use a generic dialog mechanism which shouldn't be a problem. The plugins which I'm concerned about are those which fall into the Filters category;
Any thoughts on how this problem might be solved? Do we need a new SDK so that these types of plugins don't need to be written against a specific GUI toolkit?
neither...
> There is no real user difficultly difference
> between OpenLinux 2.2 and Win98.
I don't use OpenLinux, but my setup is redhat and
gnome. It has an elegant interface (both for the
user and programmer) and I'm very happy...
but...
I don't argue that gnome (I guess you use kde and
the same probably applies) is very usuable for
anyone to run a program. The fact is, however,
newbies (the group the windows courts and I assume
that linux (or be) needs to be successfull)
get frustrated by having too many options and
not understanding what the majority of the
software on their computer does.
I'm a little bit sick of people dismissing any criticism of linux as FUD...
A unix based os is, by nature command line heavy
which is also a deterent to beginners.
Perhaps what I'm saying is the linux should not
seek to derail MS in the consumer os market
because... I don't believe it is the solution the
world needs. It gets so much coverage because it's the only alternative, not the *right* alternative.
That is, of course, just my opion... NOT the
result of ignorance OR an attempt to spread FUD.
chris
Bigot (one g) means that you believe others to be inferior to you with no grounds to base it on. Ignorance should never be applauded.
If BeOS were open source, it would die. It may be better supported by those who used it, but everything cool would be stripped out of it, and it would be left a hollow shell.
Use the right tool for the job. If I want to run a server, I'll use Linux. If I want to do graphics, video editing, audio production, or any other media based work, I'll use BeOS. If I want to suffer, I'll use Windoze or MacOS.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I run BeOS. The rules don't apply.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I run BeOS. The rules don't apply.
buddy, commies suck.
some people deserve to be unemployed and starving. it's what we call evolution. i'm serious.
i guess in this example, it's wrong to simply leech off of everyone else's code. let's get some programmers that can write their own shit, k?
it's because multiple people use my machines. So being multiuser is a big plus.
hey, i just posted the url to the second reality demo.
i'm not responsible for it's content
:)
no worries,
dave
Opensource breaks standards...
I believe Closed source has a role in Applications, But not in the OS. It is too easy to get another MS, with hidden APIs and Stock-price controlled Features in the future. It's just not worth it.
-- Keith Moore
This sig is the express property of someone.
Oh so you mean Be doesn't have the standard disclaimer about how it's not their fault if the product isn't "fit for purpose" like Microsoft??? I suppose it would be a definite plus point if there was actually someone you could sue when/if it all went wrong.
One of these days I will work out who to report Microsoft to (Trading Standards Office I think) over their illegal(*) licensing agreement.
* Illegal in that it attemptes to violate my statutory rights, which you're not allowed to do!
Did you know the Be Inc. was a "a Linux-based Internet appliance operating system maker" ?
I didn't either till I read it here : http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/990720/bxs.html
Doesn't it make you want to laugh ?
What problems doesn't open source fix?
Be cannot be run command line only.
Amen brother!
If I had a penny for every time a snotty Linux user came on, I could.. hell, I'd have a lot of money.
Whatever happened to Strenght Through Diversity?
I justlove the Puritanical Feeling here on Slashdot!
"I NEED FREEDOM!" "Hey! That isn't the OS I use, thou heathen."
Get off your high-horses, people.
It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off
I'm sure someone will jump in here and point out that OS/2 isn't really dead.
Practically speaking, it is dead, though. I know; I used to be one of the biggest OS/2 advocates around (yes, member of Team OS/2 and all). OS/2 is, of course, proprietary/closed. As a result, the OS/2 user base is unable to take the good parts of OS/2 (and there are many) and roll them into Linux/BSD/Hurd (actually, more likely into KDE and/or GNOME) because of the closed nature of OS/2.
Who wins by OS/2 being closed source? IBM? Not really, since they're just trying to make it go away as quickly as possible. OS/2 users? Nope. They're stranded with an operating system that seems likely to become less and less maintained. OS/2 commercial developers? Hardly. IBM is leaving them holding the bag. The answer is: no one wins with closed source software, at least in the long run.
That is why I am never going back to using a proprietary operating system. I really want to move away from closed source software for any kind of important work, but in some cases that's not practical. For the OS, however, I cannot go back to a situation like the OS/2 situation. BeOS users may scoff at the idea now, but in a few years, they could well find themselves in a similar situation to OS/2 users. Believe me, we OS/2 users didn't believe IBM would ever throw in the towel on OS/2, either...but here we are, with no real upgrade path on the horizon.
Is Linux (or BSD, or the Hurd) the be-all, end-all solution for every use? No. However, for the things I use a computer for, Linux works quite well, supports my hardware (allowing me extraordinary platform flexibility), and has programs available to do about anything I can think of doing with my computer. And, thanks to its open source nature, it just gets better and better, at an unbelievable pace. BeOS may well have some advantages over Linux, but I believe that any shortcomings in Linux will be addressed by the open source community, and in a way that benefits the users, not the interest of a particular company.
If BeOS works for you, fine. I don't criticize people for using it. I just hope people will look before they leap, and realize what they may be getting themselves into with a proprietary operating system. Some of us have learned what can happen the hard way.
--
you've got that wrong. It's People Eating Tasty Animal Bytes.
This makes much more sense.
> Well, they're giving away Linux Civ:CTP, so at
> least the BeOS version will more money... 8)
Since when? It retails for the same price as the
Windows version (excluding stores using the
Windows version as a loss leader to get foot
traffic).
Probably. But I wonder how Linux will do relative to the BeOS and also the Mac version, and what fraction of the Windows sales it will hit. Most of the stores I tried in the area (Boston/Cambridge) were sold out within a day or two of getting the shipment.
I had to drive all the way to Marlboro (consult Mapquest for an indication of how far this is) to get a live copy.
Of course, stores probably ordered a lot fewer Linux copies than Windows copies, but this is still an interesting data point.
BTW, to the other poster who said he didn't think it was a fun game, I disagree... it's quite different than the other Civs but I think it is
still cool.
--
so there should be no need to choose it based on some sort of philosophy
:-)
Even outside the bounds of 'Open Source'/non-free software, I find it interesting that this sort of dismissiveness towards anything that purports to be 'philosophy' (and differs from the prevailing Libertarian one) is so prevalent. You might not want to admit it but you also have a philosophy (or political stance, whatever you want to call it). So stop playing holier-than-thou
Daniel
Is Quake 3 Open Source? *evil grin*
Now there's a way to get people to really think about their position on the subject.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I've never used Be and am a linux user. However,
:) )
from what I've read and seen (screenshots, etc)
BeOS has a chance to make a difference.
It's plainly obvious that windows users have begun
to notice linux and are curious about it, but the
truth is, my grandma will never be able to sit
down to a linux computer and use it. There is just
way too much that one must learn to be a proficient linux user.
From what I've heard of BeOS, it seems to be
usable enough for the average user and still have
enough power to attract the hackers and programmers.
That is why I suspect that BeOS has a much greater
chance of overthrowing Microsoft than linux...
Don't get me wrong, in the web server arena and
other areas, linux has got NT beat and people are
beginning to notice.
But Be could be the only current consumer OS with
what it takes to make a difference. (But then
again, I've never used it
Chris
I know this isn't a post about Be. But I've been thinking.... Linux is finally starting to get Games and Multimedia apps. Is there an actuall game distro of Linux? Yes, I know, a lot of people are already rolling their eyes saying "another distro." I can't help to mull it over though. Get the Linux kernel and strip it way down. Keep what you need for gaming and include the latest utilities you would need. Include a number of the better freeware games, and maybe even a commercial game or two. You can have a small window manager and tweak the hell out of the file system... I already have a system I set up where I killed 90% of the services (NFS, Samba, Named, Ect.) so I could devote it to a few games I enjoy under Linux. It works extremely well, but it could be taken a lot further...
I've been reading this thread and have been pretty disgusted with all the Be zealots badmouthing Open Source.
Hm. There are certainly Be zealots out there, but most of us like Open Source. We badmouth the "Open Source is the only way to salvation" mindset. I respect the choice some people make to go open source all the way, but I don't buy the "you are enslaving yourself to proprietary software if you use it" mindset. I am fully aware of all the advantages of open source development. But just like I buy products with "no user serviceable parts inside" if that product does what I want, I will buy "closed" software if it is a superior solution. If you won't, that's fine, but I'm sick of having the more... mmm... energetic free software advocates tell me I'm an idiot for my choice.
I could go on, but the point of this message isn't to flame...
As evidenced by your use of "BeOS lusers."
So far I've found Be users to be the most obnoxious of any group.
To me "who gives a shit if it's not open source" is more obnoxious than "BeOS is really cool, let me fanboy about it," even if the latter is irritating.
If you're developing open source software for Linux, you just might be developing open source software for BeOS, too. That's part of what "open source" means. Isn't that ironic?
it doesn't help user related problems
---
The reason they're working on games are because games tend to be really great showcases for multimedia. Think about it - you've got all of that 3D, high speed rendering combined with incredible sound effects and background music.
As for the other things, they've been couting a lot of places, and if you go look at their press releases, many companies are in the process of developing/porting programs over. Unfortunately, almost all are still being developed. Another six months or so will yield a vast trove of very high performance software.
Such as the standard way of giving your money to a company for buggy software? Oh I see....
There may be a place, but it won't be on any of my systems. :)
;)
To quote the Culpepper Minutemen's slogan: "Freedom or death"
Actually, I can back up Brian here. I work for a printer company, and WE write the drivers for out products. BeOS doesn't support the [snip] printer line because WE haven't written one.
Be has crappy hardware, it is true. But it isn't all Be's fault.
It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off
Microsoft.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
They don't run BeOS on their web servers. They run Linux and NT. Do you still want either of those?
I thought it had something to do with freedom.
Actually BeOS is designed to work wiht multiple users. The API already has support for multiple users in it and they are planning on adding in the code to finish it in a future release I think R5 or R6 is supposed to have it. Still I would not use it as a server yet, FreeBSD does a much better job. For the record I run R4.5 and it's great. I'm in awe at all the audio capabilities in the media kit, I think if you show the 3dsound demo to any Linux/Windows user they would start drooling immediately.
They actually do have multi-user support designed into the various APIs, they just haven't implemented it yet. They've had important things like device drivers that had to be written. I believe the time frame I last read for multi-user is R5 or R6.
I think it's the hardware. I've seen many linux servers fall apart by slashdotters
---
...nice try, trollboy.
(And before anyone else responds, no, BeOS isn't a good server platform. Blah blah blah single-user blah blah blah TCP/IP stack blah blah blah Linux roolz. Happy? :) )
Since they are so strongly posiioning themselve as a "media OS" .. why are they worried about games at this point? Are they courting the major midi and audio software houses? What about movie production stuff? Even under windows and Mac this stuff isn't very good.
Does anyone know what is going on with Be in this regard?
support gun control: take guns from cops
Point well taken. I should have caught that...
--
I agree with many of the ideals of the Free Software movement. I'm just mentioning that if all the claims of open-source software being superior are true, then there should be no need to choose it based on philosophy, since it will be the technically better piece of software.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
1. GUI - Assuming one is using fully supported card (say Voodoo 3)is BeOS GUI faster, more responsive than X on Linux ?
2. What are choices for someone who would like to develop for BeOS ? Free compilers ?
Documentation ? Is this available off the net ?
Thank you
awwww, so sorry the OS isn't open...the new progams are tho of course (hell, GNU is in the name GIMP).
Kudos to my fav for-profit group of people
"There is no spoon" - Neo, The Matrix
Kind of ironic that people complain about there not being enough Linux apps. And at the same time, there seem to be so many great Linux apps that now they're being ported to other Operating Systems.
it makes more sence to port glib/gdk/gtk so that all gtk apps are easier to port to the platform, after all gtk is a very nice toolkit.
I like the "UNIX + X" portability that exists now, with ease in compiling between all the BSD's, Linux, IRIX, Solaris, DEC-UNIX (whatever it's called now), etc... and I don't like seeing applications being ported out, when I would rather see support for existing GNU/GPL or BSD licenced UNIX + X OS's comming in.
Feel free to correct me technically, but it seems like "portability" between the existing "UNIX + X" OS's is very very good, it's just these "consept non-X microkernel" things that are fringe and difficult to port to, and I just don't see the advantages to these new OS's. I see merit to new open source (lower case generic, not "Open Source") OS's if they are UNIX + X, some are more secure, some are slicker, some are.... But, if were going to say it's "UNIX" but ditch X and make everything difficult to port, why not look at Berlin or something that could potentially be the next generation X for ALL UNIX, not just some new thing?
Aside from my potential mistakes in determining the differances here, I would like to hear someone support my view with some hard fact, or convincingly argue that a TOTAL diversion is needed and a small unpopular (even if it is cute and slick) startup OS is the answer?
QNX GPL'ed, or maybe HURD, and a next generation X that runs on all legacy UNIX boxes seems the smart move to me. But those things need to come from an open source community itself through evolution, not a startup indepenant OS, IMHO.
Get the update (automatically sent if you registered) and then talk about the hardware support. More CPU's, chipsets, video card, capture cards, digital cameras, USB, sound cards, etc... A lot more suppport and more to come!!!
The iToaster is also runs beOS, and is based on an intel celeron 300 Mhz, with 32 M RAM, 2.1G hard drive, USB, serial, parallel, 56.6 modem, no floppy, no CD-ROM and no display, and comes for $199. With the USB port other peripherals could be hooked.
c fm
URL:
http://12.18.142.10/Products/iToaster/iToaster.
second reality demo:/ 0-9/2ndreal.zip
http://ftp.hornet.org/pub/demos/demos/1993
dave
After seeing some weird discussing about GIMP on Be and Be not being open source I wanted to know...
Are Open Source advocates against Oracle, Sybase, Microstation, and other non open source apps from developing apps for Linux?
I think a realistic view of the future is there will be commercial (nonOSS) apps running on Linux and there will be OSS apps running on commercial (nonOSS) operating systems like Be. Well that's not the future that's today.
I really don't understand this extremist view. Many Linux users seem pretty violent on this.
Can't we all just get along?
I wonder if they ported GTK+ or just Gimp. If they ported GTK+, that would open up a lot more possibilities for software running on Be.
I know Intel based processors are cheap, but wouldn't it pay for a "Media OS" to support something with a more long-term approach? Intel is giving x86 the boot for merced (soon they say). And there's all that PPC code already done. (Of course I've not been able to run Be on any system I own yet, so maybe the x86 has surpassed the PPC?)
Also, Be started making PPC computers, so they have the blueprints, minus some upgrading.
Anyone hear anything?
I love my computer -- You make me feel alright (Bad Religion)
These people are "very excited" to be working with GPL'd software. On the whole, this looks like a Good Thing. Checking the company website, it looks like a pair of university students who are into free software. Hope they can make a go of it.
Let me get this straight. BeOS is being pitched as a snappy multimedia OS for intensive image and audio processing tasks. It has fewer consumer apps than Linux and no mainstream web browser, but this is made up for by its wonderful suiatbility to multimedia production. Fine.
So here it is being sold on $500 PCs with low-end CPUs and low-end audio and video hardware to a market that generally goes with 15-inch monitors.
Who is a low-end Be system for?
But wait! Lo and behold the BeOS! They take the Gimp and port it to their propietary windowing system and toolkit. And even if this windowing system is better, it is Be-only and that windowing system is useless on other platforms.
I guess it kinda seems one-sided. But heck, the more platforms the better, right?
--
Because GTK+ already contains that wheel. Switching to windows' wheel would be more work.
> unfortunately, the FSF has mangled the meaning
> of the word free
Hardly. The BSD gives more freedom than the GPL in terms of "freedom to", however the GPL gives what one might term a more wholistic freedom, in that it also gives "freedom from", that is freedom from your code being used in proprietary software.
Which is more "free" depends on the motives of the author - the FSF value the "freedom from" more than the extra "freedom to" given by a BSD license, where as the BSD folks feel the other way.
The FSF have NOT mangled the word free at all, the word free simply describes a concept which is far from black and white.
"Now watch what you say or they'll be calling you a radical, liberal, fanatical, criminal." - Supertramp, The Logical So
Aww, hell. I have a stand. I don't have a problem with THAT. :)
What I have a problem with is people who feel that just because a stand is different from theirs; it is automatically wrong.
I guess I'm just against intolerence to non-injurous ideas. Like what OS to use
It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off
Closed-source coding does not necessarily equal bloated Microsoft software. Because of the hard work and coordination going on at Be, Inc., the BeOS is slim and quick. As an example, the BeOS boots in under twenty seconds on a PII 400 machine. Including the BIOS checks. As an OS, it's polished and honed in a way that is very hard to accomplish with the Open Source philosophy. I'm sure you all know of the merits and disadvantages of the BeOS (read: no software), but would you leave the Open Source maxim in the cupboard for once?
Wah!
BeOS is not stable? Seems like you've never tried it. For me, it's much more stabler than Linux (which boots up every 10th time if I'm lucky), OS/2 or Windows.
Why should Be go open source?
Open Source exists to provide quality software where there is crappy software or there is no software. Also, Open Source is a security blanket against a bug preventing something mission-critical from going forward.
BeOS is already quality software. It is not a server, so nothing running on it should be mission-critical. Read the Cathedral and the Bazaar and the Mythical Man Month. Sometimes a small group of dedicated people work better than a large group of people. Be is the slim and trim ninja of the OS world.
--
"I got it running, grabbed a rocket launcher, and fired down a hallway." --John Carmack
By setting limits that seem rediculously high right now, Be is making it easier for themselves in the future...
Don't forget to mention that Bryce 4 is coming to BeOS as well! Woo hoo!
This is just another example of how Open Source can improve even proprietary systems. With more and more programs being ported to Be, this is a great thing for all involved now that open source has finally moved beyond Linux and onto a desktop that an average user is likely to use (at least in the near future). I'm hoping and praying that Open Source becomes an uncurable infection in others soon. THEN we will have somthing to cheer about.
As computers are priced cheaper and cheaper, the fee paid to Microsoft for use of their OS becomes a larger and larger chunk of what the consumer has to pay. Jean Louis Gasee (CEO of Be) recently offered to give the BeOS away for free (beer) to any computer company with the guts to put a BeLaunch icon on the desktop of a dual-booting Windows-BeOS machine. No takers. Hmmmm.... www.doj.com
Wah!
including Gimmick (www.gimmick.org) which looks pretty interesting.
---
Yeah, why can't any of these RFC complaint open source DHCP clients and servers deal with Microsoft's "standard" servers and clients? We all know that the only standard that matters is the one that M$ makes up/breaks. ugh.
No prob, Daniel. As a (except for work) mainly Mac and Linux user, I don't consider myself mainstream, but there's that opinion thing again! :-)
It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off
You could maximise a command window and jsut use bash to do whatever you do with a PC. There was an element of sarcasm - his condemned the interface but didn't justify why. But no, BeOS cannot be run just from the command line :)
Believe with me, my saplings.
For all the latest releases and information
regarding BeOS, check out www.benews.com
It's a joke.
Wah!
A BeOS API implementation would be easer than a Windows one. For a start the underlying OSes are more similar. Secondly I suspect the API is better defined and may actually meet its spec in places.
Dude, haven't you ever looked at the responese you get around here to anything which isn't Linux or Open Source? Anybody who chooses not to use Linux gets derided as somehow incapable, stupid, or both. The worst Be advocates seem to do in general is to just always keep going on about it with a somewhat incessant cheery enthusiasm, but in general they don't slur the users of other Operating Systems. I see stuff that's not far off the emails posted up on the Mindcraft site on slashdot every day. It's depressing.
Actually, the reason I love BeOS is because it's so much fun to develop for. I find it much nicer than both UNIX and Windows to program for.
BeOS users just tend to be of the opinion that 'not all software has to be open source', rather than 'open source sucks', but they do get an awful lot of shit from the Linux & Open Source crowds about how crap BeOS is because it's not open source, and how they ought to use a 'real' operating system like Linux, and how Open Source projects shouldn't be ported to it because the OS is proprietary. Often it seems like Open Source software should be 'free' but only to run on Linux...
The problem of programmers feeding their families.
Let me just say that I have a PC that boots between Win98, WinNT, Linux and BeOS, I own a Mac and I also have an SGI IRIX box. So, I use a lot of operating systems and don't obsess about any of them.
/.'ers who just can't accept that Linux isn't the only good OS out there.
However, I find myself moving away from Linux more and more due to the self-righteousness from regular
I like BeOS and don't care if it's closed source if it does the job well. Same for all OS out there. So why don't you grow up people?
You act like a bunch of kids.
Is there any identifiable proof to Metacreations porting Bryce 4 to BeOS? If so, I will go buy the program and the BeOS.
I'd still like to see better hardware support of video cards along with quake 3 and tribes 2, not to mention PhotoShop and Illustrator. But if Bryce 4 was ported to BeOS, I will go buy both.
"Dogs and cats, living together...it's mass hysteria!"
let's get some programmers that can write their own shit, k?
Why should we reinvent the wheel? If something exists, why should we rewrite it? Just so you did it yourself? I guess to a certain extent that needs to be done for education (like Linux was in the first place...), but it should be kept to a minimum.
I wonder how many copies they will sell of Civ:CTP on Linux vs. BeOS.
Usability. The GNU/Linux xulture has resulted in an OS which may well be technically pretty strong - not the best by a mile, but useable - but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who isn't an experienced techie. It's miles off.
Greg
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
That may be the case. However, the fact remains that the Linux source for CivCTP very likely represents (with little extra effort) OS/2 and BeOS and MacOS source as well.
That's the beauty of a completely free API, rather than a non-free or kinda-free API.
So, does anyone know if the Be version will be an SDL game or use some other 'native' api directly.
From what I've heard, correct me if I'm wrong, development of Gimp has really fallen off since the original developers graduated college.
OK, you're wrong :-) Take a peek at the Gimp-Devel summary page ( http://www.kt.opensrc.org/KC/gimp-devel / ). It summarizes a lot of the activity on the gimp-devel list.
In addition, the May issue of TheGimp.com has an article about some of the new features ( http://www.thegimp.com/articles/1999 05.html ).
If I understand the history correctly, frustration at the lack of 1.1 releases (since all work was being done in CVS) resulted in a semi-fork and the series of 1.1. A reasonably comprehensive guide to the changes can be found at http://sven.gimp.org/1.1/ . Pay particular attention to the feature list.
Development isn't stalled, and it is moving forward, but it's not being shouted from the treetops. Personally, I noted a marked difference when I tried one of the 1.1.x released, at least as compared with 1.0.x. There's a lot of exciting new stuff in there.
This
One of my favorite features on the Amiga was the ability to have multiple Screens, similiar in concept to multiple Windows. Unlike most current systems which have virtual desktops which all run at the same resolution/color depth, each Amiga Screen could have a different resolution and/or color depth. Programs could be set up to open on an existing screen, or to create a new screen if their run-time requirements are not met on an existing screen. Great for programs that require a specific color depth which, more often than not, is different than the color depth the desktop is running at.
I've missed that feature for a long time in the current PC world. That is until I made a Be partition on my OS/2 box.
This feature is a boon to web site developers. They can have multiple screens set up with common resolution/color depths. The browser window can then be dragged to the different screens. The program will correctly adjust to the new resolution and color depth, and the site can easily be viewed as it appears under other users' systems.
No. Such as having someone to hold responsible when it doesn't work. From a business viewpoint - someone to sue. :)
Who cares if it is "open source" (which doesn't mean anything anyway, BSD or public domain software are the only types that are truly free and open) -- the important thing is that it runs well.
For now, I think most geeks interested in BeOS would want to install it alongside Linux and whatever else they need to use. You don't lose anything other than spending $69, which is hardly a big deal considering the price of hardware, Quake, (or beer, cars, etc.)
As for the interface - well, there isn't any way to turn off the GUI, but you certainly use the bash-like terminal if you want. At any rate, the GUI does seem pretty slick and well thought-out.
I think the application availibility issue will have to be sorted out in the marketplace - it's not a technical issue, and Linux has had to face the same battle.
On the technical front, a lot of issues are rapidly being addressed with each successive release. If Be survives, I doubt anyone will have any networking complaints two or three years from now.
As for Open Source, that would assure the survival of BeOS (at least in its present form) but I bet it would kill Be. That's a lot to ask of them. No offense intended to OS hackers, but I think a healthy Be is the best way to keep BeOS advancing.
While the Second Reality demo is very impressive, it's "canned." The animation it shows is known, uncompressed data. If you want to write a program for MS-DOS that duplicates the spinning cube of BeOS' "3dmov" application, it needs to be able to decompress and scale movies on the fly, let users change the movies by dragging and dropping files and respond to user input for controlling the cube's spin direction and speed. I'm sure that could be done under other operating systems, but it'd probably be painful--and I doubt it'd be as responsive as the BeOS version.
Absolutely. My wallet is ready. Sign me up.
Here is a press release stating that bryce4 for BeOS will be out by the end of the year! They are getting slashdotted right now tho :) QuakeII & III have already been ported (they're using QIII on a dual pentium as a demo at PC Expo right now & apparently its impressing the heck out of people who see it :)
hahahha :) Me, too.
There is no real user difficultly difference between OpenLinux 2.2 and Win98.
If you are using Fvwmm95, then too bad for you; otherwise don't FUD or get educated.
Let me preface by saying I've kind of followed Be from the start (being a Mac guy from way back) and have found it to be an intriguing OS, though I haven't had the opportunity to try it.
Clicking around the Be site today I found this description:
Work with audio, video, image, and Internet-based applications, and edit files of millions of gigabytes in size, simultaneously, in real-time.
What files exactly are millions of gigabytes? I'm not trolling, I'm sincerely interested.
Thanks
Laugh while you can, monkey boy!
Link
They announced it on their newsgroups, but haven't gotten around to updating their web pages yet. Next in line is probably the EPOC/32 version...
It has some restrictions too. Maybe you should read this:
http://www.es.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html
The multimedia speed is there, but I didn't like the interface, nor the networking, nor the lack of decent apps for it. I'm no Open Source bigot, but I fear BeOS will go the way of OS/2 unless it itself goes Open Source...BeOS and OS/2 are both high-class OSes, one died, one isn't gaining popularity as rapidly as it should.
Hey folks, we've added a bit of content to our web pages. There's a preliminary screenshot of the main GIMP toolbox here.
James
EventLoop
And soon from the looks of it at: http://reality.sgi.com/rhess_engr/beos/bezilla/sna p/s5_m7test.jpg
I first used Linux way back in the 0.9x kernel days (an SLS distrobution) and it didn't support diddly!
BeOS is much further ahead in hardware support at it's current age on the Intel platform than Linux was at the same age.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Talk is cheap. I would suspect that most of the Slashdot crowd has never needed to modify the Linux kernel source.
The other plus of Linux, in this regard, is relatively quick turnaround on security fixes. But BeOS is not a server OS. Security is still a good thing to have, but it is not their driving force.
It all depends on what kind of work you are trying to do. Be does what it set out to do quite well. I believe making it open source would not change this, and could possibly make it less streamlined as others have mentioned.
Blah!
Wah!
Most likley be's native API. Sorry but it runs circles around sdl/directx. Nothing comes close to the batmobile ;)
Try editing video. Too much disk space is almost enough.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
It's an Eye on the top and an ear in the bottom.
Yeah, it still ueses gtk. . .so that means gtk is being ported to windows, too. That will make it easy to port a LOT of gtk software to windows. The end is not near. . .but like the other response said, it is very beta at this point
OS/2 is still being used and sold, its just no longer being sold as a consumer OS. And has been around since the late 80s when it was part of windows and then split seperately.
BeOS for only having been released publically for 6 months is growing incredibly quickly. Its getting most of the games support linux is getting (and it took linux several years to get that). Its got major companies developing and porting to it, distributing it, and selling it with their PCs. Which also took linux much longer to do. Be's actually getting ahead in the gaming area a bit now. And its on the set top internet boxes as well. All of this and its only been existance on x86 for a little over a year.
You probably didn't like the interface as you didn't understand it. Its quite different, but is quite customizable as well. Its quite similar to windows, macos, and x, minus its way of handling windows with subsets and such.
Just released is the Beos version of Blender. If you are running version 4.5 on x86 you can find it here:
Be has 93 employees, around 50 of which are programmers. It has to build the OS, net positive and drivers. Even microsoft would have a hard time if it had to do 90% of the driver coding.
---Got Coffee?---
I had some conern about Be. I am a converted-to-Linux WinSheep and I felt that another OS might overshadow Linux and my platform would be forgotton. Small wonder that when I saw things along the lines of more people supporting Be, I was concerned.
Then I got to thinking. What was the whole reason I decided for Linux as opposed to Win32? I wanted an OS that:
1.) Played Quake
2.) Was stable
3.) Was customizable
4.) Did what I wanted it to do.
So now came this BeOS as an alternative to Win32 and, of course, my Linux. I felt this was bad and all people porting to it would ruin my way of computing. Then I began thinking a bit more..
The development to other platforms is not *bad*. Lets say Be does shadow Linux and can do things Linux cannot. I feel that competition in this instance will be good for everyone, even if Be isn't free. If it does some neat feature, some Linux people might like it and support/emulate it. If Be raises the bar in technology, well... they raised the bar and now the world has more technology and Joe user has another choice. I feel that choice is much more important than my sentiment for Linux.
Just thought you would like to hear what a Linux user thinks.
-Clump
A small correction: the generic VESA driver is only 640x480 at 16 color grayscale. It's also very slow. But it is usable enough to let you boot into BeOS, download, and install the real driver for your video card (assuming one is available and isn't included with BeOS itself). It's definitely not good enough for daily use.
--
Jake
better than 60s Unix.
and try mapping 6 movies to a 3d object in realtime in unix, huh?
AST is also bundling BeOS on their new machines with Windows NT on their Dual 550 Pentium III machines, using Be's new bootloader.
Microworkz the company slashdot reported as having a linux box for 199$, well the machine doesn't run linux but BeOS as you can read. THere are BeOS applications shipped with it and the BeOS window manager is replaced by their own.
Those were just the start of the announcments, several other were announced and we're still waiting to see some screen shots of like q2, q3, SimCity3k, and Steinbergs audio app.
It seems a little harsh, but he has some good points. If Slashdot is to be a fair forum, we need to let people express their opinions, if they're relevant to the topic. And this one seems quite relevant to me.
--
Jake
Interesting conjecture to say the least.
Actually from reading threads like this, especially on Slashdot, I think you are more likely to find the Linux crowd dumping on Be for not being opensource. I don't really hear too many Be fans saying that open source sucks- they usually just try their best to defend the fact that Be is closed, and that closed source can have it's advantage. A lot of Linux people DO seem to bash Be just because it's not OSS, and then they drop that mantra, what is it "closed source, binary only, proprietary"?. Sorry if I botched it, but I feel that a sheep for an enlightened cause is still a sheep.
The Be community does have a decent amount of OSS, and there is a lot of source code on the Be CD for the demo apps and stuff that come with the OS.
I personally think it would be cool if Be started openening some of the OS, as long as they kept some sort of reign on it. But I like it as it is, mainly because it's so goddamn fast and responsive. I use Win 98/NT, Linux, and Be, and for overall GUI responsiveness, Be RULES. They have a great foundation for some seriously lean and powerful software.
I agree with your comments about the GUI beeing a little cheezy though. I do basically like it, and I think it looks great, but there are some aspects that are annoying and make you do things reduntantly, lack of a heirarchical file-manager being one of the most glaring. I hope it gets tweaked and improved as the OS develops, and I'm pretty sure it will.
That's the total fallback driver. However, in
R4.5 if your card is VESA 2.0 compliant the
bootloader can preset a linear video mode
(all the way up to 1600x1200x32, depending on
the card) and you don't get the performance hit.
No hardware cursor or accelerated blits, but
definately nicer than grayscale.
-- Brian
I am a developer and would like to respond to your fairly narrow minded comment. /. is known to be one of the most anti-Be sites on the web, and this has been true in the past. I quit frequenting this site due to the general narrow mindedness of those who posted here, but recently it has been getting a little better.
1) What the Be people are saying is not "SCREW OPEN SOURCE". That would be like cutting their own throats. Many of the apps that make it possible to run Be as a primary OS have come from open source. What is being said is "open source is not the be all and end all of existence" and it's not. I am very grateful for open source and all it has done for computing, but it has its place.
2) you are obviously not a person who uses media apps often. This means the BeOS is not for you. BeOS was made for media and not for "hacking" or network serving, although it does this well too.
3) Be advocates sound so evangelistic here because
4) if you don't develop for Be because it's not open source then you are truly a close minded individual. The API is extreemly well documented and open to your perusal. Be is dedicated to helping it's developers succeed and helps them.
I've been reading this thread and have been pretty disgusted with all the Be zealots badmouthing Open Source.
Well, just to make sure you don't call me a Be zealot, let me mention that I don't use BeOS.
Sure, Be is better than Windoze...like that's saying a lot.
"Linux is better than Windows" is a reason for switching to Linux that I hear often. When another OS uses it, how is it suddenly invalid?
But if they wanted to impress me with a robust operating system they could have included multi-user support and a tcp/ip stack which is a little more functionality and speed. Basically Be just strikes me as a wanna-be UNIX that sold out and is now pandering to some make-believe "media" nonsense.
It's not intended to be a multi-user OS. It's a single-user OS with an emphasis on multimedia. At least it supports bash.
What all the Be zealots (and a lot of the Linux zealots too) have to realize is that no operating system is going to be perfect...you have to look at everything objectively and evaluate them realistically.
Of course it's not perfect. Nobody's suggested you use BeOS to run your server. Even be.com doesn't run on BeOS. It's not a server OS.
1. So far I've found Be users to be the most obnoxious out of any group.
Hang around slashdot a bit and you'll find Linux users to be equally obnoxious.
2. Open Source is important, even if you've never personally hacked the kernel code.
Perhaps, but I'll judge on the final quality of the product. If Open Source is indeed better, than the final product should be superior, so there should be no need to choose it based on some sort of philosophy. If, on the other hand, BeOS ends up being better for my purposes, I'll use it instead.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Letsee...
Quake III
BFRIS
Heretic II (Yes, rumor has it there WILL be one!)
Myth II
Railroad Tycoon
To name a few of the Linux specific titles already available or in development that aren't, to the best of my knowlege, going to be on Be anytime soon. No, I'm not going to knock Be (I personally like Be and would wish them well on their endeavors.). However, I seriously try to not make exaggerated claims for my preferred OS, and I'd ask that people do the same for theirs. Claiming that Be's getting ahead of Linux in the Gaming arena is a bit farfetched at best.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
For a game like Civ, running circles around some API foo is not as useful as one might necessarily think.
This is a network game remember. That means version control issues. A common source base makes that remarkably easier. This port doesn't exist in a vacuum.
This isn't Quake3.
According to Be's feature spec list, at least, R4.5 has limited FireWire support--at least enough to interface with DV cameras, assuming the drivers are there.
And, yes, R4.5 is better for hardware support in general. It's no longer horrifying, it's merely dismaying. :-)
Hmm sounds pretty much like what NetPositive uses as its error message when it is unable to contact a server. :)
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. --Benjamin Franklin
I really like the new logo, but wonder....
What does it mean? I received my 4.5 update cd and was bewildered by it. It looks like a question mark on acid.
WINE has made some very notable strides, but if you can barely emulate a legacy OS like win95's appz then don't even think about trying to emulate native BeOS appz. Hell you would have to reimplement the entire BeMessage/AppServer system and that alone would take a very, VERY long time. It would probably be BeOS r5 or r6 by the time you got a somewhat usable emulator working. Why emulate it anyway? Why not demand support in VMWare if you insist on using linux?
---Got Coffee?---
I have been thinking about a few things due to the recent flaming of X and new display servers such as Berlin and something called "Y". And as hardware support for Be increases it will be more and more the platform for high performance grahics(IMO).
So I have a couple questions. X seems to pretty well supported by hardware vendors these days. Would it be possible to seek out a new display architecture? For instances have X have two parts. One part is the server that allows export of remote displays. The other part would be the local libraries that controls the local display. It seems to me that it would be possible to make some(many) modifications to Xlib such that it would check whether the display was local or remote. If it was remote then it behaves as normal(a wrapper for the X protocol). But if the display is local then Xlib makes direct library calls bypassing any pipes or other ipc.
This would allow for backward compatibility with all the old Xlib apps but allow for extensions to X that would improve my local display(such as gray scaled fonts, accelerated 3D).
Also I would think that such a modification would improve the speed of X with local displays...
Nothing against Be Inc, but I am far too paranoid because of Microsoft to lock myself into any one company for my OS. And I think that is the reason a lot of people use Linux. I consider OSI Certified my insurance from companies who like to control thier customers.
I feel safe with Linux and am not going to switch to another OS unless it offers the security I deserve.
--
With BeOS a closed-source operating sytem taking advantage of an open sourced project like Gimp, it would really help press relations to contribute something back to open source. From what I've heard, correct me if I'm wrong, development of Gimp has really fallen off since the original developers graduated college. Now gimp is a great utility, but is missing some of the functionality and much of the user interface and ease-of-use of photoshop. I hope that BeOS will help Gimp out with some of these missing features!
The only real problem I have with this whole thing is that it seems most of the utilities outside of the OS itself is composed of ports from copylefted software, yet Be is expecting us to pay for giving us back our own software! I think that's patently unfair to take from the free software community, repackage it, then try and sell it back to us at an absurd price. I can see paying $40 for RedHat on CD-ROM with a manual, I can't see paying $100 for what is essentially even less of an OS than Linux is (right now, at least).
-- Ed Carp, N7EKG erc@pobox.com PGP KeyID: 0x0BD32C9B What I'm up to: http://intuitives.mine.nu
I think that the majority of slashdot readers generally don't READ the source code, let alone care about it. My suggestion for a poll:
"I read X% of the source code for Y% of the programs I use." Or maybe "I read all the source code of the for X% of my applications."
Or maybe the READERS of slashdot are hard-core hackers, but the POSTERS aren't. Of course that would imply that I'm not a hard-core hacker...
Am I the only one that read this as iDIOT.com the first time through?
jtn wrote:
/. poll:
I'd say 98% of the Slashdot crowd doesn't care about the source...
I'd disagree with that number, but I'd be guessing just as badly as you are. I think it's a good topic for a
Having Source available under a Free/Open Source license is:
* Essential or I won't use the program
* A good thing, but I run a few programs without it
* A nice idea, but I really don't care
* Unimportant
* Bad
* Cabbage
* Huh?
----
Open mind, insert foot.
(For the record, I dual boot Linux and Be, and love Open Source)
/., doesn't mean everyone does.
:)
1) I haven't seen a Be zealot badmouth Open Source anywhere in this thread. I've seen them say that it's not the most important thing in the world, yes. But there's a world of difference in between those two statements. Please don't be so reactionary.
2) Be may have some wanna-be UNIX roots, but it's hardly washed-up, and media is not make-believe. Some people in the world actually work with the stuff, believe it or not. Just because I spend my days programming and reading
3) I share your pain with the "If you just TRIED it" nonsense, even though I am a Be user. Try to remember that most of these folks are Windows/Mac refugees. Some that try it, love it (as I do), some don't.
4) As far as impressing you goes, you may not care about the particular demo that you ran, but I have never seen an OS take such advantage of my processor power with media applications. But if the only things that impress you are multiuser capability and a rock-solid TCP/IP stack, hell stick with Linux.
5) Be users are not the most obnoxious of any group. Almost without exception, Be users have tried one OS (whichever), and taken that serious plunge into trying another. That alone separates them from the Mac or Windows One True Way crowd.
6) Open Source is important, even if you've never personally hacked the kernel code. I'll quote you on that, and even add to it. It's important if you've never hacked any code, or even seen any code. Nothing saddens my day more than to see a new Be app come out as *gag* cripple-...er shareware; as if I'm gonna pay $15 for an MP3 player.
I have a _great_ deal of respect for the open source community...far more than I have for the Be community taken on the whole. But be a little more forgiving of them, huh? They're new here
"UNIX" is never having to say you're sorry.
I'm confused. Civ CTP is a network game, but Quake 3 isn't? Better get a memo to Carmack, because he sure thinks it is. The reason that I'm yawning about Q3 is because of its singleminded focus on network play. I'm bored with deathmatches. A common source base does, in fact, make version control easier to do, but a well-documented communications system would do the same thing, yes?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I'm sort of a history buff, and I took a course on 20th century Russian history the other year. Despite common perception that communism is the most perfect form of government (and on paper, it certainly appears that way - no inter or intraclass warfare, no unemployment, etc.), it collapsed - not because the ideology was imperfect, but because the people were. For a movement that prides itself on the ability to choose, it seems that some (and I make the distinction here) would rather use their newly-hyped and steamrolling movement to oppress others in a feel-good fit of self-superiority and snideness. I hope those people can learn differently some day, but I won't hold my breath.
Things are looking good for the BeOS... now if only i could get it to work with my cable modem...
I'm trying to remember the group, but there was a Eurodemo (if the words "Second Reality" mean nothing to you, never mind) with videos on the faces of a cube about 3-4 years ago.
Wise engineers in this business leave plenty of headroom.
Consider the following historical limitations:
640K RAM
64K Memory segment limit
Limitations on maximum IDE disk size
(540MB, 8GB)
All of these seemed like unreasonably high levels of resources when they were introduced, but ended up wasting millions of man-hours of time.
Storage devices in the TB range don't seem so unlikely to me; IBM is shipping a 37.5 GB drive; seven of these in a RAID 5 configuration would yield 225 GB. Posit an order of magnitude increase in capacity in three or four years and you are into the TB range. Actually, I don't think it would be that difficult to configure storage systems in the 10TB in a couple of years, and it would be a huge win for people in that industry.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
There's a big difference between decoding videos and playing those back on each different side. That was a simple mathmatical calculation using shpecial shading. It was the same image in different colors on each side. Plus it was doing very little in the background, and was at 256 colors. Big difference. But if you want to play that game, they weren't the first I've seen things mapped onto cubes be animated since the late 80s in demos.