BeOS 5 Personal Edition (BeOS 5.0)

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Product:	BeOS 5.0
Date:	28/06/00 (172 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Small

Disadvantages: lack of hardware support

Free, free, free. Linux and FreeBSD started the trend, then Sun's Solaris joined in. Now Be
Incorporated offers its BeOS 5 Personal Edition--at no charge--to anyone with the time and
bandwidth to download a 42MB file. Unfortunately, this version takes up a whopping 512MB of
disk space and doesn't install on non-Windows computers. Personal Edition is worth a try, but
only to get a feel for this Mac-like platform. Otherwise, stick to your old OS or upgrade to the
Pro Edition.

Multimedia Maven
First, the good news: As all versions of BeOS have been, Personal Edition is designed from the
ground up for multimedia manipulation. It includes powerful media tools that audio and video
developers will appreciate, such as built-in support for a variety of audio and video encoders
(Cinepak, Indeo 5, and MP3, for example).

Easy Setup and Familiar Interface
And it couldn't be easier to get started with BeOS 5 Personal Edition. Just download a single,
large file (42MB) and click Run, just as you would with any Windows application--no need to
partition your hard drive or work through complicated installation routines. Next, double-click the
BeOS 5 icon, and the system restarts, running BeOS instead of Windows. To get back to
Windows, just restart your machine.

Plus, Personal Edition's interface is a piece of cake, thanks to two handy desktop tools that
keep your files and programs within reach. Tracker, the BeOS desktop, works much like
Windows or Mac desktops: you just double-click icons to start programs and open files.
Similarly, Personal Edition's DeskBar tool, a pop-up list of programs and desktop settings,
looks a lot like Windows' Start menu and conveniently stores a list of the applications and
documents you've used recently. And since both of these features are open source, you ca
n
make your own enhancements to the Be interface if you have the time and inclination.

Windows Only
Unfortunately, BeOS 5 Personal Edition won't run on anything but Windows machines. And
unless you boot from a floppy disk every time you restart a BeOS 5 Personal Edition machine,
you'll automatically return to Windows. While this setup makes Be easy to install, it's too
inconvenient to make Personal Edition a good choice as a day-to-day OS. (The Pro Edition will
run on dual-boot systems with Windows and Linux, and it will run as a standalone OS on
systems with Intel and PowerPC processors.)

Software and Hardware Headaches
BeOS has another big problem: its software shortage. The only big-name games we found for
Be were Quake II and Civilization: Call to Power, and as for office tools, the BeDepot.com online
store offers a measly 13, only one of which is a productivity suite (Gobe Software Productive).
And to make things worse, Personal Edition ships without many of the high-end tools that come
with the Pro version, including RealPlayer G2, HP ink jet printer drivers, and MP3 encoding
software.

And Be's hardware support is spotty. Our Diamond Monster Sound MX300 card caused
problems for the MIDI player that comes with BeOS. Nor could the OS initialize our 3Com
3C509B network adapter or take advantage of the 3DNow graphics features of our AMD
processors. (If you want to try Personal Edition, save some downloading time by perusing the
BeOS Ready List before you download.)

If you're curious about Be, then Personal Edition 5 is a decent way to introduce yourself to this
OS, but it's too inconvenient and lacks the high-end tools you would want in your primary OS.
We suggest you wait for the $69.95 Professional Edition, which is scheduled to ship in
mid-April.

Summary: