When I first heard about BeOS several years ago, I was interested to see how much it would improve over the years, and if it would even be around. Be initially sold BeOS through its website. Currently they offer a slightly limited personal version for free. This is the one that I am currently using as a nice alternative to Windows.

The Good Things:
First of all, BeOS was designed from the ground up, so it doesn't have any of the bloat of the more popular systems. Though it's not a Linux variant, it does offer adequate Posix support. My roommate tells me that this is very useful for his programming classes. In addition to the stability, the OS is very fast, even on older systems. It handles copying and moving of files better than most of the Windows systems do. Initially, it seems that you there's really not much you can do with the OS when you get it. A quick visit to www.bebits.com will give you plenty of software to use. The included web browser is okay, but others are available. In addition, many Unix applications have been ported over to the BeOS. The BeOS also has several interesting features for dealing with different types of multimedia. While some of these features are not directly supported in current applications, support is expected fairly soon.

The Not So Good Things
The BeOS does not come with an included word processing application which is a minor setback if you are intending on using it for anything other than experimentation. I wasn't able to get my printer to work because it doesn't support postscript. There was a hack available for this, but it offers a tedious process as the fix. There is little development happening for the BeOS. I haven't seen any major applications come out for several months, and it looks like interest in the OS may be waning. Hopefully this won't just turn into another "hobby" OS.

Worth It?
Well if you just want to use it home, the personal version is free. Free is definitely worth it. I personally wouldn't go out and buy the OS, and I would wait for more features before deciding to do so. Overall, the OS is fast and reliable, buy is lacking application suites and some important hardware support.



Recommended: Yes