The thought of leaving the Windows world holds a certain appeal to a large number of people. Microsoft Windows often tries too hard to be everything for everyone. This often causes it to fall short on many accounts. While great as a "Swiss Army knife" operating system, it lacks the robustness of a single-purpose OS.
December 27, 1998
For years, Apple's Macintosh platform has been "the" operating system for media designers. Windows has never quite matched the friendliness and robustness of the Mac, and the media development packages have sorely lagged behind the Mac. Many media developers have found themselves wishing for an operating system as useful as the Mac, but able to run well on inexpensive Intel hardware.
With the release of BeOS 4 for Intel, media developers may finally get what they've wished for. Designed around a Unix-like kernel, while retaining the friendly look-and-feel of a Mac-styled OS, BeOS is a strong contender for the "big thing" in media development.
The BeOS is an easy system to install and get started with. I tested it on my Cyrix PR233 with 64 MB of RAM, which is already running Windows 95 (OSR/2) and Redhat Linux 5.2. The installation took less than 30 minutes and required very little by way of manual configuration. The BeOS boot-loader quickly and correctly set up all boot options, allowing me to choose which OS to load at boot time.
With this release of the BeOS comes a much wider variety of device drivers for hardware and peripherals than those available previously. While greatly improved over previous releases, support for popular hardware on the lower end is still lacking. For example, my Diamond Stealth 64 2001 video card was not supported. Although this card is not the newest technology, I had hoped for decent generic drivers for it. Alas, I was forced to use the generic monochrome card driver for part of the testing. While you can find a few Web sites with home-brewed drivers, there is nowhere near the amount that you'd find for Windows or even Linux. If you're going to try BeOS, make sure to pay a visit to the BeOS Hardware Ready List first at: http://www.be.com/products/beosreadylist.html
Hardware issues aside, the BeOS is a ready contender for the desktop OS title. Menus, taskbars, and applications are all as easy to open, move, minimize, and maximize as they are in Windows, allowing new users to grasp the OS quickly. Applications rarely crash thanks to the 64 bit file system, preemptive multi-tasking, and pervasive multi-threading. The stability of the BeOS is quite impressive and I never once had an application crash that took down the operating system. In truth, I rarely had an application crash at all, which speaks volumes about the quality of the OS and its applications.
For Web developers, the BeOS comes with "Poor Man," a configurable desktop Web server, which is excellent as a testing platform. While I did not test its CGI capabilities, I was able to give it a mild beating by making several hundred page requests over several hours. Never once did Poor Man crash or show signs of slowing down under the load. Currently, newer Web servers for BeOS are available from the Be Web site which are designed for heavier use and stronger CGI implementations.
The NetPositive Web browser and integrated Dial-up Networking allow users to get online quickly and painlessly. The Dial-up Networking configuration is simple to set up with the only real issue being the creation of custom modem strings. This involves opening the modem configuration database (a simple text file), and editing/creating a new string. While this is simple for seasoned OS veterans, it's bound to leave new users scratching their heads.
Application support for BeOS is still underway, with new apps being released almost daily. As of yet, there are still no integrated development environments (IDE) for Web applications that would compare to Microsoft's Visual Studio or Allaire's Cold Fusion. A quick trip to http://www.be.com/beware/index.html will give you an idea of the hundreds of freeware/shareware and commercial applications available.
As a whole, the BeOS is a very tight package that is going to give the Macintosh and Windows operating systems a good run for their money. Being designed from the ground up gives Be a leg up on the competition, allowing them to eschew the baggage that comes with being forced to integrate legacy applications and hardware into a new OS. For those in media development looking for a very strong tool, BeOS may be it. For everyone else however, the BeOS may be a tad too task-specific.
BeOs Resources:
Be, Inc: http://www.be.com
BeDope: http://www.bedope.com
The BeHive: http://www.zdnet.com/products/osuser/beos.html
Ted Brockwood is the Information Services Manager for a real estate listing service in Oregon. His experience covers Java, Linux, UNIX, NT, Win95/98, Win3.x, and DOS.
