I have BeOS Pro 5 here. I bought the whole thing years ago. Basically I got all of this in one package:

BeOS Pro Edition 5.0 Box (Came with a BeOS installation CD, a BeOS book that is really nice, and some other stuff)

BeOS Bible (HUGE book that has like everything you could imagine about the OS in it).

I'm probably the only person on AO who not only used it but LOVED it. BeOS was special to me, and when I found out a few years ago they went belly up, I was more than sad about it.

I'm not saying I'm the only person here who used it, but I am probably the only one who really liked it a lot.

The design of the OS was smart, and the way it was done was totally awesome. BeOS was made in a manner that not only was everything ran in it's own protected memory, so that if something crashed, all you had to do was refresh that section of memory and keep going, and, not only that, it was designed so that you could either run with JUST the Command Line / Shell, OR you could ONLY use the GUI.

The GUI and Shell it used were made in a way that you only had to use one; I don't mean like in Windows 9X where you could reboot into MS-DOS mode, I mean that everything you did, could either be done by just typing the commands, or, you could do the same thing by clicking on menus in the GUI.

The GUI and Command Line were made in a way where if you didn't want to ever use a Command Line, you didn't have to, and if you didn't want to use the GUI, you could load a Shell and do everything like that too.

It also had a Bash shell built in. And not only did the OS have it's own commands, but it also accepted DOS and Unix too. So if you knew DOS and wanted to work with the command line in BeOS, it worked, you didn't have to re-learn anything!

And if you were a Unix or Linux user, you could type Unix or Linux commands, and it worked too. Again, you didn't have to re-learn anything!

The Capabilities of BeOS when it came to multiprocessor Machines is STILL hard to beat.

The BeOS crew said basically "Why spend top dollar on a Computer with a super fast Processor when you can just buy an older machine with more than one Processor that can go just as fast for way cheaper?" and that's what they did.

The GUI in BeOS was amazing looking. The overall look reminded me of Window Maker / AfterStep, and it's own thing.

The MultiMedia capabilities were also amazing.... MP3 players, Encoders, video tools, everything, all of it installed out of the box without ANY problems.

BeOS also happens to be the ONLY OS I haven't ever gotten to crash. And I've tried.

I had BeOS installed on a POS machine with very few resources, and I'd load up all the demos they had for it that would do 3D, and all kinds of Special FX and stuff to REALLY push your processor, and I could NOT make this thing crash.

To be honest, if I had a Network Card and a machine that was older that it could recognize the hardware of, I'd have it installed RIGHT NOW!

The File System was the first I'd heard of that could handle an entire Petabyte sized file. Most File systems back then that were for PCs, had fairly large, but not SUPER large file size limitations.

The Maximum File Size, of a single file, in BeOS, was a PETABYTE! This is on an OS that was NOT ever meant to be a Server in any way shape or form (The BeOS people recommended Linux for Servers and BeOS as a Desktop system) yet it could handle files a Petabyte in size.

BeOS booted in less than 20 seconds too. And mind you this is on hardware that was like.... Well, just as an example; a 200 MHz CPU was enough to boot in 20 seconds or less.


To Metguru:

The Security.... don't know about Haiku as I've never used it before.... I do plan on grabbing it once I have another machine working and everything, but I just don't have another test machine right now I can let go of.

But for what it's worth; BeOS, the REAL one, was actually pretty good with security.

Also, the look of the desktop was amazing, and I REALLY do wonder why no Window Manager hasn't picked it up in a serious manner considering it was one of the better designs for heavy use / lots of **** open at once.

Oh, by the way; The old AntiOnline Theme, the Yellow color JP did, was actually taken from it. Even the weird Yellow / Squares we used to see here, all looked like BeOS.

Anyway, for whatever it's worth to whoever is looking:

I'd use BeOS on most of my machines if I could. I literally just can't because the oldest machines I have, are either broke or being used as a Server, and I'm not going to even TRY installing something like that on a brand new machine where it won't be able to recognize most of the hardware in it.

That's really all that's stopping me, because even now, I STILL miss BeOS. It was like something special to me, because I saw it one day at BestBuy for sale, and thought "Oh wow cool! An OS I haven't ever heard of, and it's not based on Windows, or Unix, or Linux, or BSD, or Mac OS! This is something totally different all on it's own!" so I bought it.

Once I installed it, I was like WOW! It's to this day something I think they did right in the OS world.

They weren't trying to lie and say it was what you should use on every machine; They were Honest, and said BeOS was NOT a Server OS, and they didn't even recommend that....They would say BeOs is meant to be a Desktop / Workstation OS, and that Linux is better suited for Servers than BeOS.

It came out of the box with tools to actually resize a Windows Partition, and would actually tell YOU how the best method would be to run the system, and even make it's own partitions for you and show you what it was going to do... MAN I miss BeOS....

I'd recommend the original BeOS to anyone... I really and Truly would. It is STILL in my opinion one of the BEST OSs ever done. Only the Unix World has topped it.