Hi, Carlo
> What sort of OS is BeOS?
It's more of an alternative consumer OS, very much like OS/2 was to Windows
before. Its sort of the average of UNIX and Windows (or Mac) � offering a
good fast GUI with the stability of UNIX, and multimedia power.
Be claims that BeOS is a completely new operating system written from the
ground up. As the BeOS FAQ states,
The BeOS is a new desktop computer operating system, written from
the ground up to provide new levels of performance on consumer-class
(i.e., inexpensive) hardware.
The BeOS is optimized for, and is especially adept at, manipulating
broadband streaming media (such as digital audio and video) in
realtime, on inexpensive hardware."
Take note of the word "new."
> Who uses it, and why was it created?
When it was first announced in 1997 for the PowerPC platform, it served to
offer an alternative to the Mac OS on the PPC platform after Apple had
failed to ship a "modern" operating system. BeOS preview 4 back then offered
protected memory, preemptive multitasking, true virtual memory system,
system-wide multithreading, symmetric multiprocessing, and object-oriented
design � something which the Mac OS wasn't.
So they started to make an OS that would run on PPC machines (they called
theirs the BeBox). Be, Inc. boasted that BeOS would be the be-all-end-all
multimedia platform. True enough, the preview I used three years ago could
play four of 320x240 Cinepak-encoded QuickTime movies without dropping
frames. Though multimedia support was limited then, it gave people a glimpse
of great multimedia capabilities.
Today, BeOS supposedly caters to people who do multimedia. I'm not sure if
this is the right analogy, but its Linux without much apps but with robust
multimedia capabilities.
> Is this a UNIX-like system?
Again, from the BeOS FAQ:
No, but BeOS has been influenced by many operating systems. You may
notice a lot of other-OS-isms within BeOS. Our engineers come from
lots of backgrounds, and we have implemented the ideas we like best.
In relation to UNIX, our system sports bash from GNU as a command line
interface, and a POSIX compatibility library. With many of the GNU
applications ported to the BeOS and available from the bash command
line, we have what for many people is a reasonable replacement for
UNIX.
We're hoping that enterprising developers will port and distribute all
the other whizzy UNIX-derived commands we don't get to. We have a
nearly complete POSIX layer to make this easier.
Many of our graphic interface elements are based on interface
component ideas we had while using other operating system
environments, and some concepts come from ideas started on other
operating systems.
A terminal app gives people access to a CLI, which uses bash as the shell.
Standard UNIX commands are present. In contrast with UNIX/Linux, however,
more of the tweaking is done through the GUI than with CLI commands.
However, the current BeOS (release 5, I think) is not a multiple-user
machine. I'm not sure if they even have plans to incorporate a multiple-user
approach, too.
BeOS uses their own 64-bit file system called Be File System (BFS). Largest
possible hard disk support on the current release is somewhere in the
petabyte range.
Some Thoughts:
- There's not much pre-compiled apps for BeOS. There've been some reported
problems with compiling code on BeOS � some are successful, others aren't.
- BeOS multimedia delivers as promised. I'm not sure if they've added
support for the latest formats, like DivX;-) or MPEG4.
- BeOS is stable, just like Linux.
- BeOS runs on all Intel and PPC platforms except for the Mac-G3/G4 series.
- BeOS has lightning-fast queries on searches, since the file system is like
a live database of some sort.
- OS-wide object oriented design allows developers to easily write apps.
- Linux has more support for a wide array of peripherals.
- Linux has more developer support.
- Linux (*BSD too) is a better server platform than BeOS.
I've not used the newer releases of BeOS because it no longer runs on newer
PPC hardware. I've yet to try it on an Intel/AMD box. However, I can say
that BeOS on the older PPC hardware was waaaaaaay faster compared to the Mac
OS.
hope this helps,
gino ledesma
ateneo cervini-eliazo networks
http://cersa.admu.edu.ph/
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Philippine Linux Users Group. Web site and archives at http://plug.linux.org.ph
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