It was shockingly performant, especially with anything graphical.
The difficulty was no apps.
Brings back fond memories, nonetheless.
(Disclaimer: you can pry my still-functioning BeBox from my cold dead hands.. okay, I admit, I only use it a couple times a year just to be sure it still boots..)
Related: I've been enjoying, the Designed in California podcast [1]. Link below is "Part 3" wherein Apple is circling the drain in the mid 1990's (when I started at Apple, BTW) and is desperately looking outside Apple for the operating system they hope will save the company. Be (and Jean-Louis Gassée) look like they will win:
Everytime I have to re-find all of the adapters for the keyboard, mouse and monitor. Always amazed how fast it boots when I do get it going.
Ended up using Linux, but it was a great OS for its time.
I was able to find a decent number of apps on BeBits but a lot of stuff was missing.
I had the same experience.
Only few things came close since: QNX, my M1 MBP when it was new and a fresh MXLinux installation (no idea how they do it, maybe some low latency scheduler?)
Those felt similarly instant GUI-wise as BeOS did, while unfortunately current MacOS and Win11 feel glacial compared to it.
Well, how fortunate we are now, being able to do simplified coding through LLMs. AROS and Haiku and MenuetOS (etc.) could get a boost in software availability soon.
This was my Pentium III.
My 486 was the machine immediately before my Pentium III.
I installed BeOS when I got my new Pentium III in 1999/2000.
Can you expand? What works well, what may need more work, what is not there...
It's not great for running virtual machines, but then it's not Linux.
On my laptop it's not great at power management and it doesn't suspend when I shut the lid.
So far there isn't video editing package, so really it's just down to sticking with Linux for DaVinci Resolve.