Peter Tattam from Trumpet Software and also the creator of PetrOS wrote in to tell us that “[…] we are exploring the possibility of providing a BeOS layer to PetrOS. This is consistent with our philosophy of providing multiple API support in the OS. I am in discussions with the OpenBeOS group to determine the feasibility of getting OpenBeOS to run in PetrOS. This would involve us writing a BeOS compatible kernel driver, and supporting ELF format executables in addition to the current PE format executables.We will continue our development on the Win32 layer at the same time with a goal of being able to seamlessly run BeOS and Win32 applications on the same desktop.” OSNews recently hosted an interview with Peter regarding PetrOS.
PetrOS to Add BeOS Compatibility Layer
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
A lot of the (fun)ctionality of BeOS stems from the journaling and database-like filesystem, BFS. How would this be offered in PetrOS…through XFS perhaps? Is it even possible to create a BFS clone, or is it a closed specification?
The thing that I absolutely love about BeOS is how it handles audio/video. Would PetrOS be able to supply the same sort of functionality?
We’d also have to do a BeFS driver. Probably not a big deal assuming the specifications are reasonably sane. I’ve done all the variants of FAT and I’ve also got an NTFS driver 75% done. NTFS has some similar features to BeFS regarding extended attributes so we’ll find a way to support these more sophisticated file systems in our FS infrastructure.
Audio/video would be simply a matter of the appropriate drivers – the usual headache for an OS developer. I’ve tinkered with audio & midi for some years – even written my own sequencer under many different operating systems. I’m also experienced with real time programming having built a real time multi tasking kernel over 10 years ago that was used to run psychology experiments. You’d be amazed at the kind of things I was asked to do with a computer – some quite unmentionable on a public forum
I’ve also built the PetrOS kernel to be suitable for real time work by making it the kernel fully preemptible. I’m hopeful that multimedia will work ok as I enjoy the challenge of getting as much out of the hardware as possible.
Peter
Very cool, Peter. I hope to see BeOS continued in some way or fashion…
Thanks for helping to keep the dream alive!
…then you’ll have no success.
PetrOS seems to be a farce. Authors didn’t prepare Win32 layer, but going to develop (even by adapting from mysterious OpenBeOS) another one… Bye-bye, PetrOS… Guys, you’ll don’t see full working alternative of BeOS or Windows…