BeOS is an excellent alternative operating system that is for sale for a very reasonable price now, and will very soon be released for free. It can be (no pun intended) used on almost any relatively new pc or mac. I use BeOS R4.5 for my workstation at home.

I found the installation to be trivial. If you have compatible hardware and don't need to share your Be hard drive with other OS's, it shouldn't be (no pun intended) tough at all.

Some points:

1. BeOS 5 is about to come out, at the end of the first quarter of this year, and Be is releasing it free for personal, non-commercial use. To quote Be's website:

"Thanks to innovative new technology from
Be, you will be able to download BeOS 5 via a
Web browser and store it as a file within
Windows. No repartitioning will be necessary,
and launching BeOS 5 will be as simple as
double-clicking an icon on your desktop."

It also points out that Be is an excellent OS in the areas of audio and video manipulation, which is true. This quote above, taken out of context, has probably raised some questions unless you've already read http://www.be.com/products/freebeos/, which is the announcement of BeOS 5. Go read that next. It has a FAQ. While you're reading about BeOS, I recommend reading www.bebits.com to see some applications written for Be.

2. It is incredibly fast, even on old cheap hardware such as that which I am cursed with.

3. Be isn't yet multi-user, but the framework is being put into place and will be there in a subsequent version.

4. It has a terminal app, and there are already usable secure shell clients.

5. Chicks dig it.

The biggest problem with BeOS right now is its lack of a usable web browser *_with_* proper java support. This is only a matter of time.

Go get Be and the Be bible and decide for yourself, if you are so inclined. If you're the sort of person that would consider doing it in the first place, you won't be disappointed.



Recommended: Yes