BeOS Preview Release 2

REVIEW

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Copyright 1997 by Bill Fox

Last Updated: November 3, 1997

My copy arrived last Tuesday courtesy of Be, Inc., which fulfilled PowerComputing's commitment to supply the BeOS to purchasers of Power's computers after mid-November last year. I decided to spend some concerted time on the weekend putting this version through its paces.

As background, several months ago I purchased PR1 with the final issue of MacUser Magazine. I also downloaded and installed Update 1 and Update 2 fairly easily. Earlier I had obtained a copy of the BeOS DR8 from MacTech but it only worked on my 8500 so I just fiddled a little bit with it and watched in awe at the finder's speed. In DR8, crashes were common and there were no real software applications to try out, not even the ability initially to make a PPP connection to the internet. PR1 works on my PowerBase 180 and with greatly increased stability, especially when the two updates were installed, the latter finally allowing the video preferences to be remembered between sessions. The finder had changed from displaying colorful activity icons down the left sidebar (as on Be's site) to a simple rectangle, the "tracker", in the upper right corner leaving a nearly clean desktop. One could also make a PPP connection to the internet and there was nearly useful but mostly beta software in addition to simple illustration demos. I figured out how to use NetPositive to surf the web and used several of the early betas of write, paint and spreadsheet applications. However, I never did spend enough time with PR1 to get the hang of downloading, decoding and installing software. The process is so arcane that what I accomplished was by brute force and sheer luck--I really didn't know what I was doing. Otherwise PR1 was fun to try. It instilled hope for a useful and very fast OS but was otherwise still relatively difficult to use for this non-engineer Mac user.

PR2 installed easily and quickly over PR1, especially since I had installed the BeOS twice before. I trashed all the Mac-side stuff first and then selected the option to replace all of the old files with the new. I didn't do a clean install or reformat my BeOS partition on an external hard drive. Virtual PC is installed in the other partition and I didn't want to risk messing it up.

PR2 is essentially the same as PR1 with the two updates consolidated on a single CD. There are many bug fixes but no really new features were added. There are more application demos, including several games and BeatWare's BeBasics and BeStudio so I didn't have to download them this time.

• NetPositive is the BeOS' integrated web browser. It is minimalist but seemingly quite fast. Pages loaded quickly and movement from site to site was even quicker--backing up and loading cached pages was impressively instantaneous. Web surfing is a joy and one of the BeOS' strengths.

• BeatWare has two sets of productivity applications, BeBasics and BeStudio. BeBasics has Write (a word processor) and SumIt (a spreadsheet). BeStudio has Paint. These three applications are like MacWrite, the original Microsoft Excel and MacPaint. However, they add real functionality to the BeOS even if they are fairly primitive. There are bugs, like changing font size from a large size to a smaller size leaves text in both sizes until the new overwrites the old.

• Abuse II is a typical shoot-the-aliens and move-to-different-levels game. I played until I got to level 3 and was impressed with its speed and smoothness.

All in all, the BeOS remains an impressively fast operating system as it progresses to a commercial product. There are now enough "real" software applications for the BeOS to do actual work in it for lengthy periods of time. Moving from the Mac OS to the BeOS is simple, just use the BeOS Launcher. Moving back still requires a restart. This is something that Be should fix in the next release if it wants Mac users to give the BeOS more of a workout. If the capability existed, I think I might switch to Be and back to surf the web. The other major area needing attention is downloading, decoding and installing software--it is possible that it is just me but I find downloading/installation to be extraordinarily arcane and difficult. Still, I strongly recommend that Mac users try the BeOS, if for no other reason than to experience how a PowerPC-native operating system performs--it is awesome.

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Copyright © 1997 by Bill Fox.
All rights reserved--no commercial use permitted without my expressed permission.

Of course . . . . . . and I am proud to be an Evangelista! . . .

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