BeOS 4.5

["Paul Sims" <nospam [at] wulfric7.co.uk>]

I installed BeOS 4.5 this morning - very interesting software, very, very
poor hardware support. For instance, to omit the 3Com 3C509 (Etherlink III)
from the list of supported network cards is baffling  (I believe from a
review a few months back that the developers are having trouble with the
drivers). The CMI8330 audio chip, common on PC Chips boards, is also
apparently unsupported - even though the system id's the chipset no audio
devices are available. This chipset can be set up as SB16 & WSS.

I would have felt very badly let down had I paid money for this - if it were
labelled BeOS Beta 0.45 I could understand the lack of hardware support, but
Be have been selling this as a product.

My original plan was to pass it on to someone interested in multimedia
work - not much point since it won't support most of his kit.

I'm going to try it out on the box currently hosting FreeBSD - at least the
network card is supported (DEC Tulip). At the moment, you'd actually have to
build a box around BeOS to make it worthwhile.

Plus points - pretty to look at, quick to install, seems fast in use.

Anybody want a BeOs CD ?



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