Can it challenge Windows? (BeOS 5.0)

Member Name: cjkace

Product:	BeOS 5.0
Date:	26/05/01 (524 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's a free operating system, designed for multimedia use

Disadvantages: Very little software for it, it's running out of money so might not be around much longer, driver support is a little slack

BeOS is a legacy free operating system designed by Be Inc. Unlike the many versions of Windows which have developed from Dos, and to a certain extent still sit on top of it, BeOS was designed from the ground up. Focussing mainly on the video and multimedia markets Be have created an operating system that is very stable while still being very fast. The early releases of BeOS were released for the retail market, but with version 5 Be changed direction and offered a downloadable Personal Edition for free, preferring to make money from the intenet appliance market. With Sony now licensing BeOS, it may even find it's way into the as yet un-confirmed Playstation 3.

BeOS 5 PE is the desktop version and is downloaded from either Be's servers or multiple locations around the world and is a 45Mb download. There are also two updates available which can be downloaded from Be as well as the software development kit. Other applications (both freeware and commercial) can be seen at www.bebits.com. It is a very good idea to check out Be's site to see if the OS supports your hardware as driver support is patchy from the major component manufacturers.

Minimum System Requirements

A BeOS Ready processor and motherboard chipset. (check the site for more details)
32 megabytes of RAM.
An IDE or SCSI hard disk or hard disk partition with 200 megabytes of space (or 600 MB of disk space free on C: for BeOS 5 Personal Edition)
An IDE/ATAPI or SCSI CD-ROM drive.
A graphics card capable of VESA graphics. (check the site for more details)
USB, PS/2, or serial connected mouse and keyboard.

My System

AMD Duron 750Mhz (running at 795Mhz on a 106Mhz front side bus)
Soltek SL75KV+ Motherboard using the VIA KT133 chipset
256Mb PC133 SDRAM
Quantum Fireball 40Gb hard drive
Leadtek Winfast S320ii graphics card (nVidia TNT2 Pro)
Creative Soundblaster 1024
Freecom 24x2x2 CD Writer
Hitachi GD-5000 DVD-R
om Drive
Hauppauge WinTV Primio TV-Card
Canon BJC-4400 printer
AGFA Snapscan 1212P scanner
US Robotics V90 External Voice/Fax modem

Installation

Having downloaded the main program plus it's updates I was now ready to install. My only worry was the motherboard as it wasn't specifically supported according to Be's website, but I decided to go ahead anyway. Free space on drive C wasn't a problem, but just to be sure I made sure that I had backed up my important files onto drive D (e-mail, game saves, documents etc) and double-clicked the install icon. Installation was quick and easy. It's a very good idea to create a floppy boot disk, as although you can load it via a link on your desktop, some of the drivers for Beos may not load properly. Once you have finished you are prompted to re-boot and away you go.

Usage

Although I have had no major problems as such using BeOS, some of the hardware I have doesn't have a driver loaded, so I can't use it. Notably these are my scanner, printer, and TV card. None of these are strictly necessary so I was ok. Once the OS has fully loaded which takes about thirty seconds, twenty of which are taken up by loading the system files from th floppy you are presented with a desktop that looks very bare compared to Windows. There is no taskbar at the bottom and the clock defaults to the top right corner of the screen.

When you first start up there is quite a lot to configure. You have to tell the system which disk drives you want accessable (mounted), re-size the desktop etc. I haven't delved too deeply into it as yet, but I am finding it so much different to Windows. Whatever anyone says about Microsoft, Windows is very user friendly and easy to get into.

There are numerous applications that are auto loaded when installing, including a music player, movie player, cd burning software, text editor, un-zipper and TV software to name a few. Unf
ortunately due to lack of decent driver support I have found problems with most of it. I can't get a picture in the TV application is my TV card isn't supported, movie playback is very dis-coloured (probably a video card fault) and I can't log-in to my ISP. Whether this is because I'm not using the proper driver for my modem or because my ISP (BTInternet) doesn't accept connections from BeOS I don't know yet.

The help files are very little help I've found, dealing only with minor problems that may arise, but then this is a free version, designed to whet the appetite enough for you to buy the Pro version.

Summing Up

While BeOS is undeniably quick, and has a lot of features built in, poor hardware support from manufacturers is holding it back. If you have 500Mb+ hard disk space free and fancy dabbling in something new, give it a whirl as it doesn't cost anything. There is plenty of help on the net, so I'm going to persevere, and hopefully I can get all my problems ironed out. It isn't the easiest operating system to get to grips with, falling halfway between Windows and Linux, but I have a feeling that delving deeper will bring it's own rewards.

With the cost of Windows spiralling, and the so-called great features of WindowsXP (auto-update, product activation keys specific to your hardware) it's time to look at viable alternative's. Will it be BeOS or Linux? Hard to tell at present, but if I can't get on with BeOS then I don't think I stand a chance of being able to use Linux, so I'll be left with Windows and reliance on Microsoft (scary thought).

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