I miss BeOS

**RustamB** · 08-31-2005

Yep, I remember the time when I first installed BeOS as an 500MB image under windows. Once I felt myself comfortable with this OS I installed it on separate partition (befs formatted

), and migrated my daily tasks on it.

I liked BeOS cause it had well written and nice documented API, graphics were implemented the other way than X in linux resulting in fast graphics and multimedia, package manager, friendly installer, various config tools, dozens of usefull applications (compilers, dev tools, players, editors, chat, email, games, etc...) all these in combination with very sexy look and feel and yetit was very resource saving.

Though there where not so many drivers for that OS those days and it used to crash sometimes, but community was growing around BeOS, and I believed that one day BeOS will be very strong alternative for other OS's. BeBits.org then was the resource that I checked daily for new goodies

One day when I launched browser and navigated to www.be.com I read the news that Palm bought BeOS team with all staff for 12M$, and there is no "Be incorporated" anymore and be.com domain is for sale

Palm did not just buy the project in order to continue it under Palm management, they closed the project and hired BeOS developers team. Another ass hole company yellowTab continued to develop BeOS under new name ZETA, product is only commercially available and it's not so cheap I have to say. Without community it's almost dead. I used to check their website and did not see any great news since the time they first decided to continue commercial version of BeOS.

Why did I write this post? I'm just sorry that such a cool project like BeOS that I liked was suddenly closed, even these days I used to colorize KDE in BeOS color scheme. Rest in peace, BeOS...

Please, share your comments, those who ever used BeOS in their daily work are greatly appreciated

**techieMoe** · 08-31-2005

You're not the only one to have that sentiment. I never used BeOS, but there is quite a cult following for it thanks to the internet. A few companies have tried releasing newer versions of the last free BeOS release, and others have tried coding a new OS that works like it. I don't know how much success any of them have had, but one project that's working on it is Haiku.

**RustamB** · 08-31-2005

Yes, there is an OpenBeOS project at sourceforge, I checked it out, but it's not so popular these days, and is not growing the way BeOS did before, when Be incorporated existed.

Another thing that comes to mind is distro size. BeOS installer was only 45MB exe!!! All goods listed above in 45MB installer! Though disk space is not critical these days, but such economic space utilization in comparison with what this OS could give to end user and developer is impressing.

**ThoughtVelocity** · 08-31-2005

Stay tuned Haiku will be on it's way

Not soon enough though.

http://www.haiku-os.org/learn.php

I had a discussion around here a while back about BeOS. There are not many OSes that have/had the "magic" it did. *sigh*

**valan** · 09-01-2005

I tried BeOS at one time. When I installed it, it didn't have any partition tool, so I had to boot Linux and use fdisk. There were very few install options. The bootloader wasn't so special either. Once it was installed, it worked pretty good, but I couldn't use it much because it's screen was a couple inches offset from the monitor so that the bottom and left sides were not visible. Couldn't find a way to fix that either. But all that aside, the little I did use it, it did seem kinda quick (quicker than Windows, but not any moreso than Linux the way I got it all set up) and it could have been a nice, polished OS. That was before Be Inc went away when I tried it. Haven't really cared enough to try out one of these new Be like OSes, but maybe one day I will.

**xxqq** · 10-30-2005

There is a new free ZETA 1.1 LiveCD on Yellow Tab website:

http://www.yellowtab.com

http://download.freenet.de/archiv_z/...e-cd_7560.html

What is the comparison between Linux and ZETA 1.1 LiveCD?

**genesus** · 10-31-2005

I do also, I tried it when it first came out way back when I was in undergrad, I was always quite impressed with it, as for the fastest...naw...that goes to minuet, it fits entirely on a floppy disk and boots superfast

**a thing** · 10-31-2005

Didn't really get into computers when BeOS was around. But I'm confused about these things in the FAQ:

Is Haiku based on Unix? Is it a Unix-like operating system?
Haiku is not based on Unix in any way. There are many design principles that are the same, as there are between any modern operating systems. Adding to the confusion, Haiku is POSIX compliant, so many Unix and Unix-Like programs can be easily recompiled and run for Haiku.

How can it not be Unix-like and be POSIX compliant?

Will Haiku be multi-user?
R1 will very likely be single-user, just as BeOS R5. As for Release 2 and beyond... we shall see. The Glass Elevator project is dealing with the possible strategies and ramifications of going to a multi-user system.

Doesn't POSIX have something about being multi-user?

***Dapper Dan*** · 10-31-2005

Originally Posted by xxqq

There is a new free ZETA 1.1 LiveCD on Yellow Tab website:

http://www.yellowtab.com

http://download.freenet.de/archiv_z/...e-cd_7560.html

What is the comparison between Linux and ZETA 1.1 LiveCD?

Downloading it now! This is gonna be fun...

**winter** · 10-31-2005

Originally Posted by a thing

Didn't really get into computers when BeOS was around. But I'm confused about these things in the FAQ:

Is Haiku based on Unix? Is it a Unix-like operating system?
Haiku is not based on Unix in any way. There are many design principles that are the same, as there are between any modern operating systems. Adding to the confusion, Haiku is POSIX compliant, so many Unix and Unix-Like programs can be easily recompiled and run for Haiku.

How can it not be Unix-like and be POSIX compliant?

posix is just a api

Thread Tools

Display

I miss BeOS

Posting Permissions