Project: OpenBEOS Reviews

Be my OS - a journey through BeOS5

By Anurag Phadke <cbca@mantraonline.com>
Posted: ( 2001-08-10 08:06:18 EST by Ramnath )
What happens when you try to combine the user friendliness of Windows with the snazzy features of Mac? Read on to find out more...

BeOS 5.0 Pro Version

Contents: 1 Be-OS CD (Bootable).
1 Manual.

System requirements:

Pro Edition: Pentium-class computer; 32MB RAM; dedicated partition or hard drive of 550MB or more.

Windows is undoubtedly the most user friendly OS available today and Mac the most handsome hunk or the sexiest geek girl that exists around. So when the "Be" think tank came out with the idea of blending these two features together into a single OS, everyone liked the new idea, at least for some time. Driven by curiosity, I installed it on my system and was more than disappointed with what "Be" offered me.

Friendly Installation procedure:

Finally, after a long time, a Linux type OS is simple to install. No more hostile "fdisks" or "diskdruids". A GUI based Partition Manager is included in the BeOS distribution with a provision to install the OS as a single file. Run Partition Manager and the rest is a simple click-n-click process towards a new Operating System.

The same however didn't work when I installed BeOS on my Linux partition. Even after having 1GB of free space, the software formatted my Linux partition giving me an error that it was unable to transfer my data. The details of the error were however not given. Just be careful at this stage, for though BeOS says that it can install itself over your windows, there are not many warnings or messages whilst partitioning and a few wrong clicks can erase your data even before you realize what you are doing.

Users who custom partition their drive using "fdisk" and "diskdruid" cannot do the same in BeOS. Mainly because the partition manager can install "Be" on any partition but cannot modify/create partitions.

The remaining part of installation is a breeze. Just sit back and relax. "Be" is installed in less than 20 minutes, just as promised in the installation manual.

"B (Be)" means Blues:
During installation of most Linux distros, the main trouble is getting the OS installed properly. With "Be" it's exactly the opposite. The trouble starts soon after the OS is installed. Once the OS was completely installed I had a smile on my face, happy that I shall had a wonderful OS with snazzy graphics just as they described in the glossy BeOS manual. The experience was however very short lived. "Be" told me that my Display Card was not supported and it will be using default "640*480 pixels" in 8 bit grey scale mode. Though it did convey to me politely saying this is not the way Be is intended to be seen, I was directed to do some research on the CD or on the Web.

So a quick few hops thro the web to find the drivers only made me return empty handed. Nobody had taken the trouble to write drivers for my Matrox MGA 200 display card. Impressed by the visuals of the OS imprinted in their manual and with the spirit of "Never give up", I borrowed a display card that "Be" supported, from my friend only to be stunned and amazed by the wonderful visuals and icons that it displayed.

The Journey alongside "BeOS":
It took me a few clicks here and there to get adjusted to the Mac-type interface. And then, a heavy bunch of loaded software greeted me. Ranging from popular games, image editors, audio players, mpeg decoders and even a cd-burner software. "Be" seemed to have covered almost everything under the sun. But again, there was utter disappointment. "Be" didn't support my soundcard and I was running out of friends who could lend me hardware. Reluctantly, I preferred to have an OS that didn't speak much.

Setting up an Internet connection was a breeze with comprehensive help for setting "ppp" also available over the net. But if you happen to have a DSL modem or cable Internet, chances of being able to connect to the net are fairly slim.

Some of the features that come with Be are really commendable. The Internet Browser is a snazzy piece of art, BeCommander manages files very well, can be configured using hot keys and has an integrated FTP client. An InSite Designer is a trialware WYSIWYG HTML editing tool and AbiWord is Be's competition to StarOffice for Linux and Word for Windows. Support for USB devices, OpenGL Symmetric Multi Processing (SMP), chip in to add to the plus points of Be. Plus you can play multiple instances of MP3's on this multimedia OS, though the karaoke version of Jackson's "Black or White" and Britney's "Ooops! I did it again" did sound absurd on my PC.

Should I grab a copy of "Be" today?
"Be" has a bundle of impressive features but it is extremely selective when it comes to hardware support. If you don't have the appropriate hardware you will be stranded with an OS that's just a showpiece in a small corner of your hard disk. "Be" is a colorful OS but it's use is fairly limited. The excitement over "Be" is slowly diminishing and there are not much coders interested in writing drivers for it. Even the Be.com site is undergoing a few changes and at the time of writing this article, a fair bit of links were missing.

To round up, Be is more of a fancy looking OS, extremely selective about hardware and not much of a choice in software. With competitors like RedHat and Suse coming out with KDE2.0 and Kernel 2.4, the future seems to be rocky for "Be". Recently, an ICQ version for BeOS has been released, but it seems to be a case of too little coming too late.

Other articles by Anurag Phadke

Current Rating: [ 3.54 / 10 ] Number of Times Rated: [ 278 ]

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