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First Look at YellowTAB's Zeta

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the i'm-not-quite-dead-yet dept.

Gentu writes "Great news for the BeOS fans. After Be sold its IP to Palm, many said that the BeOS was no more, but a new startup company from Germany, YellowTAB, was able to get hold of Be's source code and form the future of the never-released BeOS 6 ('Dano'), under the name 'Zeta'. YellowTAB added a lot of new goodies to the OS and brought it up to speed. OSNews features the first ever preview of Zeta with a lot of good information, along with some screenshots."

74 of 356 comments (clear)

  1. This Just in by N3WBI3 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Redhat announced tday it would skip the 9.0 release and go right to 9.1

    --
  2. A Time-Saving Hint by jimhill · · Score: 5, Funny

    If it's a Eugenia Loli-Queru review it can be boiled down to this: "It's not BeOS. It sucks."

    --
    Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
  3. I still think SuSE is better by gotr00t · · Score: 5, Informative

    Mandrake may be "user friendly" but I think that compared to SuSE 8.0, it is much less robust in features and hardware support. SuSE has much better support for most of the hardware that I use than Mandrake 9.0, which actually took me a while to configure my ISA sound card. I hope that this distribution will change that.

    1. Re:I still think SuSE is better by leviramsey · · Score: 5, Funny

      Mandrake dropped automatic detection of ISA cards for a good reason: ISA sucks. There, I said it. ISA sucks big fat hairy moose cock.

      Join the 1990's!

  4. Who is Eugenia, and why do we care? by Gothmolly · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Who are these people to review anything, if their review consists of skimming the surface and focusing on their pet peeves? Thats how flamewars start - bickering over window managers. Let's talk REAL functionality, things like auto-detection of hardware, capabilities of the install kernel, etc.

    --
    I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
    1. Re:Who is Eugenia, and why do we care? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Eugenia used to write reviews on BeOS. Since it was such a small community, she rose to the top quickly. Then she started installing a bunch of different OS's (btw, none are as good as the BeOS), and started OSNews. She got some help with the noninstall stuff, and got a popular site up.

      Then, when she was in charge, she'd lash out at her readers (look at her webpage). She was the editor, but didn't speak good english, so she had many spelling and grammar mistakes. But don't correct her, that'd just make her superpissed.

      Basically, Eugenia is a self absorbed angry woman that got popular through the BeOS community, and now we can't get rid of her.

    2. Re:Who is Eugenia, and why do we care? by FortKnox · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Actually, Eugenia's reviews are usually "this is a journal of what happened when I installed this non-BeOS OS." Its just a collection of thoughts. I'd call it a journal entry more than any objective review (but that's what OSNews boils down to).
      Yes, I don't read anything from OSNews, because I want objective reviews, not a livejournal dedicated to operating systems.

      --
      Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
  5. My 1-item wishlist by aridhol · · Score: 4, Interesting
    When updating from 7.2 to 8.0, I had the fun of not having enough disk space. So I went through the package list, and tried to remove some stuff. However, it could not be removed because it was already installed. What I'd like to see is the ability for the installer to remove already-installed packages. Instead, I had to boot into the old system, remove packages, and re-install the update.

    I sent this request to the Mandrake developers at 8.0. As of 9.0, this feature was still not available. Probably won't be there for 9.1, but I can hope.

    --
    I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
  6. I love Linux 9.0! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    All my friends and family use Linux 9.0, and now, Linux 9.1 is even better!

  7. The phrase that could define OSNews by Quarters · · Score: 3, Insightful
    "The review is actually pretty bland, skimming the surface to linger on some of Eugenia's pet peeves."
    You could change that to, "OSNews is actually pretty bland, skimming the surface to linger on some of Eugenia's pet peeves." and it would still be a 100% valid statement.
  8. KDE and GNOME "Galaxy" theme by tyrann98 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm glad that a common theme between KDE and GNOME was also implemented by Mandrake. Competing and incompatible desktops is going to really hurt Linux for a while, especially if a user cannot switch between computers and get work done easily. Things such as the Start Menu, Control Panel, background, screensaver, and System Properties have been somewhat standardized in the Windows world. Even newbie users can get these things done on a Windows 95/98/ME/2000 and even XP desktop easily. They are different by close enough to make it a smooth transition. Linux is still not there with competing Bluecurve/Galaxy + KDE/GNOME camps. While the core should still be as configurable like the hacker wants, work should be done to have a standard interface (which can be changed) and standard "desktop configuration" utilities across the major distributions/desktop environments. We have the GNOME control panel, KDE control panel, Red Hat utilites, Mandrake utilities, etc... (include almost every major distribution out there) for everything! Everything is different and everything has a slightly different interface for the same tasks. I even get annoyed sometimes when it takes me a couple extra tens of seconds to find an app due to different menu layouts. And I know lots of other users that really get messed up even with simple things like changing the background or GDM/KDE icons on Linux.

  9. Slashdot: Eugenia's big troll tool! by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 4, Insightful
    You know, thanks to my devotion to Slashdot, I ended up reading many Eugenia stories. Am I the only person who noticed that she has basically written only one story in her life, and just substitutes some names and version numbers? Think about it.

    I am frankly sick of her crap. She has become the Jon Katz of interface design analysis. If Slashdot insists on licking her ass every week, they should make an icon of her, so I can put the topic on my ignore list.

  10. here we come... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    YellowTab's site traffic has jumped to the phenomenal amount of 51 GigaBytes (GB) this month. We attribute this increase to the growing interest in the upcoming release of ZETA, the next generation of BeOS.

    ...and /.

    1. Re:here we come... by locknloll · · Score: 4, Funny

      let's see their next bandwidth bill... hope that it doesn't burn too much of their startup capital...

      --
      -- Power corrupts, but PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
  11. Uh oh by ergonal · · Score: 2, Funny
    YellowTab's site traffic has jumped to the phenomenal amount of 51 GigaBytes (GB) this month. We attribute this increase to the growing interest in the upcoming release of ZETA, the next generation of BeOS.

    We have upgraded our webspace from 500MB to 1000MB and traffic allowance from 25GB to 50GB. This is the largest package that our host provides. In order to be able to add more features and functions to our site (especially for developers) we will soon have our very own server.

    I think you might need to up your traffic allowance once again.. BAM!

  12. Looks interesting... by Noryungi · · Score: 2, Interesting


    But I have to ask the question:

    Who still cares about BeOS?

    This is not a troll or anything. I am just curious.

    I was never able to use BeOS on my 'puters, since none of my graphics were supported, and, once I started using Linux and *BSD, I never looked back.

    So, Be fans, what makes BeOS so special?

    --
    The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
    1. Re:Looks interesting... by mirko · · Score: 5, Informative

      So, Be fans, what makes BeOS so special?
      I used to code for BeOS : the API was stunningly easy to learn.

      I only found such pleasure with the Zaurus Qt API... a long, long time later.
      (BTW, I've also heard that AtheOS was similarly "coder-friendly")

      --
      Trolling using another account since 2005.
    2. Re:Looks interesting... by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 5, Interesting

      > Who still cares about BeOS?

      I for one, since I was lucky enough to have it run on a couple of computers.

      The problem with Linux and *BSD is that I just don't the time to config them. (Allthough it's cool that the Linux router "just works" -- has been for years.) Win2K is "OK" (would be good if it wasn't for the dam memory leaks), and I *hate* the Mac. GUI (pre OSX). BeOS is "sexy", blazingly fast, VERY well designed, and I really liked that it felt like a great blend of the Win32 and Mac. GUI, but designed by a person with REAL concern for users -- newbies and power uers alike. The only problem is that BeOS never gained "critical mass" like Linux. KDE 3 looks REAL sweet, but I have a dual 550 box just for Be. :)

    3. Re:Looks interesting... by Bastian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Nice clean interface - in fact, it has the only Drag'nDrop GUI I've ever seen that I would be willing to call uncluttered. Amazing API (if you program). All sorts of tiny little details that you can't really put your finger on

      I like BeOS because, in my opinion, it is well-concieved. It has all sorts of problems with drivers and application support, but then again that's how every OS starts out. BeOS had something that can't be added later - generally well-thought-out design. You can't add that in as an afterthought.

    4. Re:Looks interesting... by bumby · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Who still cares about BeOS?
      I do :)

      So, Be fans, what makes BeOS so special?
      Last time I tried it was some years ago on my 400MHz. It was goodlooking, felt very quick, and overall nice. It is easy to move from Windows to BeOS. As my dad now uses the old 400MHz:er, with Windows of course (he refuses to use anything new), I thought that he maybe was willing to use BeOS. Linux with GNOME or KDE is way too slow on his old comp.

      The lack of programs is the problem. What he needs is:

      A office-like collection of programs (word, excell, etc)

      Mozilla :)

      A image-editor like Gimp

      --
      Hey! That's my sig you're smoking there!
    5. Re:Looks interesting... by MikeFM · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I used BeOS (as I try to use all popular OS's) enough to be pretty familiar with it and I had a roommate that was a BeOS cult member.. I still never quite saw it as anything much. Sure it didn't suck as much as Windows but that isn't really saying much and it didn't have much in the way of drivers or applications. It booted fast but with proper tweaking I can make Linux boot just as fast. I never really cared because I reboot maybe once or twice a year so what difference does it make to me? It looks pretty nice but no better than I can make Linux look. It had some interesting filesystem features. In the day it's journaling was quite the feature.. but today Linux and Windows both offer that. It still has some filesystem features that neither Linux or Windows has but I never really figured out why you'd want the filesystem to do those things anyway. I think BeOS did have a good sound service that both Linux and Windows could still learn from but other than that I can't think of anything I really liked about BeOS.

      BeOS also has the oddest installation problem I ever suffered. Whenever I installed BeOS on a certain one of my systems it'd disable the soundcard in Windows which was also on that computer. After the BeOS install I'd have to reinstall the soundcard driver in Windows. :)

      --
      At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
    6. Re:Looks interesting... by dr_dank · · Score: 5, Informative

      So, Be fans, what makes BeOS so special?

      BeOS was demonstrated to me during my senior year of college. The guy giving the talk played upwards of two dozen mp3s, a dozen or so movie trailers, the GL teapot thing, etc. simultanously. None of the apps skipped a beat. Then, he pulled out the showstopper.

      He yanked the plug on the box.

      Within 20 seconds or so of restarting, the machine was chugging away with all of its media files in the place they were when they were halted, as if nothing had happened.

      Damn.

      --
      Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
    7. Re:Looks interesting... by mdwh2 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Who still cares about BeOS?

      Who still cares about, say, MacOS? I was never able to use MacOS on my 'puters, since none of my hardware was supported, and, once I started using Windows, I never looked back. So what makes MacOS so special?

      Well, you get the idea. This question seems to come up at every BeOS (and Amiga, come to that) article, but I never bother to ask the question on every Apple article, even though it applies just as much to me.

      As to graphics hardware not being supported, I guess this is sadly a problem with all non Windows OSs (eg, several Linux distributions I've tried have all had trouble with my graphics card - sort of working, but displaying flickering pixels).

      I like the way that BeOS is extremely good at recognising the hardware it does support - it seems to install the drivers it needs transparently and quickly. It doesn't throw a wobbly and spend ages reinstalling stuff when I upgrade the motherboard.

    8. Re:Looks interesting... by Timesprout · · Score: 4, Funny

      some mention of why Be is better than Windows/Linux/BSD/sex/God.

      Actually since I met Eugenia at a party one night she has taken sex out of that list.

      --
      Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
      What truth?
      There is no dupe
    9. Re:Looks interesting... by malfunct · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I would say that BeOS had critical mass if it were an open source project. Linux would have died long ago if it was a commercial venture, luckily it started out as a hobby and had time to reach its maturity instead of getting its venture capital cut off in version 1.0 when it sort of wasn't too good.

      --

      "You can now flame me, I am full of love,"

    10. Re:Looks interesting... by Bish.dk · · Score: 5, Funny

      I used to code for BeOS : the API was stunningly easy to learn.

      ... And not without humour. I remember a function named isProcessorOnFire(). There was a quite detailed description of when it would return true in the API-reference. Apparantly, smoke coming from the processor was not enough to warrant a return-value of true. :)

    11. Re:Looks interesting... by drgroove · · Score: 2, Interesting

      BeOS was turned down as MacOS10, because the Be staff became greedy, and wanted more $$$ from Apple. Instead, they went under, and were bought out by Palm for less than one tenth of what Apple was willing to pay for them.

    12. Re:Looks interesting... by Bulln-Bulln · · Score: 3, Informative

      The lack of programs is the problem. What he needs is:
      A office-like collection of programs (word, excell, etc)

      Like Gobe Productive?
      I'm not sure, but I think it's part of Zeta.

      Mozilla :)

      http://www.bezilla.org/ or http://www.bebits.com/app/2715. Shipped with Zeta.

      A image-editor like Gimp

      OMG, hopefully not. GIMP's UI sucks. BeOS/Zeta has Refraction (closed source), ArtPaint (open source) and a few others. At least shipped with Zeta Deluxe - not sure about ''plain'' Zeta.

    13. Re:Looks interesting... by axxackall · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Nice clean interface

      What *specifically* makes it more cleaner than Gnome or KDE?

      in fact, it has the only Drag'nDrop GUI I've ever seen that I would be willing to call uncluttere

      What *specifically* makes DnD in GNOME/KDE cluttered?

      --

      Less is more !
    14. Re:Looks interesting... by joe_bruin · · Score: 2, Interesting

      heh, funny, i ran pretty much the same demo for a friend of mine a few years ago. 10 movies, 10 mp3's (at differing play-speeds), copying a few files around the harddrive, and *yank*, pulled the power cord. he nearly had a heart attack.

      the machine was a dual celeron 333 overclocked to 480, 128mb of ram, with scsi discs.

    15. Re:Looks interesting... by fredrik70 · · Score: 3, Informative

      yeah, if the computer was on fire, it returned the temperature of the motherboard, otherwise it returned a random value.

      Not to be forgotten was the mighty is_computer_on()
      which returned 1 if the computer was on, otherwise the returned value was undefined.

      --
      if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
    16. Re:Looks interesting... by Herr_Nightingale · · Score: 2, Informative

      How is BeOS cleaner than KDE or GNOME? That's an easy one.

      A) EVERYthing is multi-threaded, so the BeOS GUI remains responsive at ALL times. Xfree, on the other hand, runs in a single process, and all X apps running must share a timeslice with X, which is neither guaranteed nor, in my experience, acceptable - hence the nasty GUI latencies of X. This is one of the biggest things keeping me away from Linux right now. Of course, unless you've used BeOS, you're probably not even aware that you're being killed with the death of a thousand cuts.

      B) There's no X server!! Bonuses here include low latency, low overhead (yes, X is a pig) and no window manager process running on top of X running on top of the kernel. In my experience Linux is like a chain of dominoes - just about anything can crash X, so all the programs vanish too, and I've lost my work. Whoops. BeOS isn't so fragile.

      C)BeOS boots in less time than KDE or GNOME take to load. On my laptop, it takes less than half that time.

  13. OpenBeos by hutman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What does this mean for open beos people?? I would hope the YellowTAB people could keep their source somewhat in the open ala OSX at least.

    1. Re:OpenBeos by bunyip · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah, we all love the idea of open Beos...

      But maybe there's at least 10 or 15 lines that look vaguely like some code SCO that probably took from BSD in the first place.

      I wonder how much SCO could extort from the Beos community? Gotta be at least $3.

      Alan.

    2. Re:OpenBeos by teamhasnoi · · Score: 4, Informative
      Zeta's not fully open because much of the code is licenced from Palm, especially network and backend gui code. What this means for OBeOS people is all good (as soon as it's released).

      There will be more interest, apps and support for BeOS. Right now the community consists of people who use it, and people who want to. Zeta will bring modern driver support, networking, and to BeOS, and that is something that has improved greatly in the last year. BeBits (in my sig) is somewhat like a sourceforge for BeOS, and the number of drivers written recently are all posted there.

      You can also try BeOS out on most modern hardware by grabbing BeOS max (link in my journal), a distribution with most necessary included.

  14. Re:Ahh, BeOS zealots by Lussarn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Amiga at least was something sometime.
    BeOS still is a "never has been".

  15. wait a sec... by Alpha_Nerd · · Score: 5, Funny

    You're telling me I have to pay for my operating system??

  16. BeOS was cute by GnuVince · · Score: 5, Informative
    It had a very nice GUI, it was fast and responsive, it was very light. I liked its design and feel, but I sticked to Debian due to the eternal problems that plague most new OSes:

    Lack of 3rd party apps

    Lack of drivers

    Lack of documentation

    Lack of some useful features (multi-user for example)

    This Zeta looks nice, but it won't be successful as long as it carries these problems.

  17. First look? by DeathPenguin · · Score: 4, Informative

    Hardly. Below are two links that have video coverage of Zeta at CeBit2003:
    http://ddanneels.free.fr/Zeta-CeBIT200 3.avi
    http://gravity24hr.com/mirror/zeta/BeOS-Zet a-Prese ntation-CeBIT2003.avi

  18. Zeta? by h00pla · · Score: 4, Funny
    Bad name. I can see Catherine Zeta-Jones sueing. But as long as they don't take her picture, they should be all right.

    --
    I've been swashdotted -- Elmer Fudd
    1. Re:Zeta? by Strike · · Score: 2, Funny

      No kidding, it's a good thing she hasn't decided to litigate the Greece school system!

      Say it with me kids: "alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon, zeta (trademark 2003 by Catherine Zeta-Jones), eta, theta ..."

  19. And in SCO news. by MongooseCN · · Score: 5, Funny

    SCO declares that YellowTABs OS "BeOS" is infringing on SCOs IP. According to SCOs CEO Darl McBride: "We ran the BeOS through a machine code debugger and found sections of 10-15 instructions that are the same as those used in our product." SCO says that people need to stop using the new BeOS or face lawsuits.

    Darl McBride also said that if YellowTAB were to buy a larger license, like the Entire-SCO-Company "license", the problem may disappear. When asked how a fledgling startup company like YellowTAB could buy SCO, McBride replied: "Right now even a few dollars is better than a counter lawsuit, besides I have my golden parchute. Hahah. Wait, is that tape still recodi...."

    --


    Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
  20. Germany? by Flabby+Boohoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why do the old systems go to Europe to die? Arn't the Germans responcible for keeping the Amiga alive?

  21. Re:OSNews...OSSpews by smittyoneeach · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Because, if you read the article, it was actually a detailed review by someone who is familiar enough with the subject to peer into the nooks 'n' crannies, yet critical enough not to tout it.
    In a day when 4 out of 5 dentists surveyed said reviews are merely ads in disguise, this is a breath of fresh air.
    Still trying to figure out why you'd use BeOS. Is there any security value in running, say, a web server, on a niche OS, so that the would-be cracker makes an ignorant blunder and exposes himself?

    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  22. Re:Ahh, BeOS zealots by pork_spies · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's the people who you describe as zealots who are on the verge of transforming the IT industry and thus our world - who but a zealot would write their own operating system after all?

    Maybe BeOS hackers don't have the same transformative potential and Linux kernel hackers, but don't knock it, one of these days you could be running a bit of software they helped devise.

  23. Now includes dead replicants! by Croaker · · Score: 2, Funny
    ... Other than that, the first boot in this beta version of Zeta greets you with two dead replicants, but that's easily fixable (as long you understand what a replicant is, which is a concept that new users have trouble with).

    Oh "understanding what a replicant is" is easy once you administer the Voit Kamph test...

    And which dead replicants show up, anyhow? Zora and Priss?

    1. Re:Now includes dead replicants! by qubex · · Score: 2, Informative

      BeOS has the unusual ability to embed one application inside another, these embedded applications are called "replicants". If you shut down the parent ("container") application, the replicants stay running, and even persist over reboot (think of it as "fork off and die" on steroids). In this case, I guess two replicant applications present themselves but are DOA for some reason.

      --
      "Place me in the company of those who seek Truth, but deliver me from those who believe to have found it."
  24. BeOS advantages over Linux, Windows, BSD? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The GUI which was interesting 5 years ago no longer is unique - it's now a commodity in the days of KDE/GNOME. So what market is this OS appealing to? Businesses? No apps. Home users? They won't pay. Embedded Systems designers? Possibly, although Linux is free. I'm not trolling - any idea?

    1. Re:BeOS advantages over Linux, Windows, BSD? by teamhasnoi · · Score: 2, Informative
      Anyone who requires/demands resposiveness. Linux and OS X, user input takes a back seat to what's going on 'behind the scenes'. (Windows is sligtly better)

      BeOS has always been about instant reaction to the user, no matter what else was going on. Although most programs (with the exception of Mozilla/Phoenix) load too quickly to be intercepted...

      If BeOS stays true to it's roots as a media OS - musicians, video artists, animators and their ilk would switch from the ever more bloated, less free(DRM) windows. BeOS needs media, like media needs BeOS.

    2. Re:BeOS advantages over Linux, Windows, BSD? by rifter · · Score: 2, Interesting

      BeOS has always been about instant reaction to the user, no matter what else was going on. Although most programs (with the exception of Mozilla/Phoenix) load too quickly to be intercepted...

      If BeOS stays true to it's roots as a media OS - musicians, video artists, animators and their ilk would switch from the ever more bloated, less free(DRM) windows. BeOS needs media, like media needs BeOS.

      You know what, I like a lot of things about the BeOS, and I think that Linux could learn a lot from them. But I never understood this argument about BeOS's responsiveness and the claim that it is a "multimedia OS."

      Yes, I found it responsive, useful, and user-friendly. There were even many free-as-in-beer (and as in speech in some cases) applications. But none of them seemed to be multimedia applications; neither did I see any for sale.

      Maybe it is a Multimedia OS by 1990 standards, where pictures+sound with a CD drive means multimedia. But nowadays I would see a multimedia OS as a viable platform for creating and recording music, editing video, etc. I never saw a single application that would do these things. There is no animation software for BeOS, either.

      So if the BeOS is really popular with multimedia firms, what in hell do they run on it? NetPositive?

      This is not meant to be a troll. I really and truly would like to know because I want to like the BeOS, but I think it would be more useful with some applications that actually take advantage of the capabilities inherent in the OS. Unfortunately everyone who advocates the BeOS says it is great for multimedia creation, and neglects to mention a single application with which one could create multimedia which runs on the OS. AFAIK there are not any.

  25. Y Tu Gentu? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's amazing how every single story about something on OSNews is submitted by Gentu.

    I have no idea how Eugenia got a free pass with the /. people, but I am pretty sure it isn't the quality of her writing, or her tolerance for dissenting views.

    Seriously.. this is ridiculous. Save for one story submitted by "Worried" on April 19th, I had to scroll back to March 28th to find one not by "Gentu." And even back that far, the Gentu thing is still the name on almost all of the stories. Its just stupid. Anonymity in story submission only works if you don't choose the same handle each time, sweetie.

  26. BeOS was great in its time by be-fan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As you can tell from the nick, I was a BeOS user back in the day. Technically, it was way ahead of anything at the time:

    1) The kernel was extremely low latency, and the scheduler was superbly designed for user responsiveness. This was at a time when the low-latency and preempt kernels simply didn't exist, and we were putting up with the 100ms+ second latencies of kernel 2.2. While Linux today has caught up with and surpassed the latency targets, it (even in 2.5) still hasn't managed to reach the same quality in the scheduler.

    2) The GUI was very fast and responsive. The theme I use today (dotNET on KDE) is probably similarly complex to Be's native look, but BeOS was still faster, even though I ran it on a lowly 300MHz PII, and I run KDE on my 2GHz P4. It was heavily multithreaded, which made a world of difference for a machine under heavy load. In BeOS, an app's GUI would never freeze up while the app did some background task. This was at a time when GTK 1.2.x and Qt 2.x weren't even thread-safe! Even today, KDE and GNOME have yet to make use of multitheading as effectively as BeOS did half a decade ago.

    3) It had a very fast journaled filesystem, with attributes and live queries and everything. This was at a time when ext2 would nuke your installation after a bad crash.

    4) It was pretty. It was simple, without being austere, and had a colorful asthetic. It had fully-antialiased fonts back when we had Win9x's "font smoothing" and Linux user's were just happy to be finally able to use TrueType fonts.

    5) Long before OS X came around, BeOS had the power of Unix with the simplicity of a Mac. The shell was extremely well integrated with the GUI, and you could even script GUI events from the command line.

    6) The API was awesome. It was simple, well designed, and well documented. This was back when GTK+' s documentation consisted of source code.

    Of course, these days, Linux has come a long long way from what it was then. It's got a kernel much better than BeOS ever did, KDE and GNOME are catching up in the GUI department, XFree86 has fully accelerated OpenGL, and is getting nifty features like XRender and Xr, FreeType/Xft has some of the nicest looking antialiased fonts out there, etc. But BeOS has stagnated for years, and is much the same now as it was then. It's still quite impressive, but not as shiny as it was in its heyday.

    --
    A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    1. Re:BeOS was great in its time by cK-Gunslinger · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think the coolest thing that wowed me about BeOS was when I loaded the GL-Teapot demo, watched it spin, then kept adding more and more and watched as they each *gradually* spun slower and slower. There was no locking up, none of them stopped, and the gui still responded just as fast. I didn't know a whole lot about programming back then, but I was impressed with how the whole system *scaled* usage.

    2. Re:BeOS was great in its time by be-fan · · Score: 3, Informative

      So BeOS has better scheduling than O(1)?
      >>>>>
      Algorithmically, I would be surprised if it was even O(1). Probably O(n) give that it puttered out at about 400 threads system-wide. However, the scheduling for a high-thread count server load is very different from scheduling for a medium-thread count desktop. Basically, desktop use requires the scheduler to be able to give best service to the applications the user is working on at the moment. This is something of a black art, and BeOS did it better than anyone.

      Multi-user support was, and is, lacking. So it had the power of a Mac, combined with the simplicity of a Mac (before OS X).
      >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
      Multi-user support is hardly the defining feature of Unix, especially a UNIX intended for the desktop. BeOS had a UNIX-y filesystem layout, was reasonably POSIX complient, and had a whole lot of ported UNIX software, like gcc, vi, X11, emacs, etc. I can hardly use the terminal in Windows, because Cygwin is too laggy (on small apps) for my taste, and the Windows FS layout is hardly amenable to CLI navigation. In BeOS (when I used it) and KDE (now) I use terminals for most of my code editing and file management.

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
  27. What about the PPC version? by kommakazi · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I looked all over their site and cannot find anything about a PPC version, this is rather disappointing. Anyone know if they plan on continuing it as well?

  28. France by aspargillus · · Score: 2, Informative

    IIRC, BeOS originally came from France. (Old Europe at work here...) So it rather returns.

    1. Re:France by qubex · · Score: 5, Informative

      As a matter of fact BeOS' only connection with france was the nationality of Be Inc's founder, one Jean-Louis Gassé. However the OS (and the beautiful BeBox) was entirely developed in the USA. It is true that Be Inc later opened its european regional offices in Paris, but this is a far cry from "being born in europe".

      As for why old systems "go to europe to die", as a european, I guess it is down to a general appreciation of solid stuff that works as opposed to newfangled stuff driven by the corporate sphere... or maybe that's just me...

      --
      "Place me in the company of those who seek Truth, but deliver me from those who believe to have found it."
  29. links by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
  30. It might be the greatest desktop OS ever... by skryche · · Score: 3, Interesting
    ...but nobody's going to use it when there are alternatives that are cheaper, more free, with more apps, and are better supported.

    Without the GPL or, say, a Win32 emulation thingy, it doesn't seem viable.

  31. Re:Off to a bad start by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 3, Funny

    Oops... attributed her with an excuse she didn't have.

    Guess she's just dense.

    --
    -1 Uncomfortable Truth
  32. Yeah, what about for us BeBox users? by torpor · · Score: 2, Interesting


    No fair. I wanna play with Zeta on my Bebox too.

    --
    ; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
  33. Re:Off to a bad start by Ed+Avis · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's Eugenia Loli-Queru! For years now, new distributions have been reviewed on OSNews, a story gets posted to Slashdot, and one of the first comments is that 'Eugenia hates anything that isn't BeOS'. But now we have an official BeOS, or as close as possible, reviewed on her site and she still runs through a long list of complaints. Which seems to demonstrate that she's not that biased after all.

    --
    -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
  34. Wasted efforts? by teslatug · · Score: 2, Interesting
    But it is a great help that Zeta is the true and only direct BeOS descentant, so they are currently years ahead in development than the other teams who try to reproduce the BeOS, like OpenBeOS, B.E.O.S, BeFree and Cosmoe.
    Damn! Just how many BeOS clones are there out there in development??? Also, what's up with adding Zeta all over the place. Most people who will buy this are familiar with the name BeOS. Does Palm own the trademark?
  35. num-lock??? by mydigitalself · · Score: 3, Insightful

    i found this a bit of an odd request...


    6. No fix for the numlock bug which makes BeOS to not remember if the NumLock was set to ON in the previous booting. Sounds trivial and stupid but really annoys a lot of people.

    now i don't know about you, but i generally don't know the state of Num/Caps/Scroll lock every time i reboot my computer. the behaviour i DO care about is that they are consistant every time. numlock status is a CMOS-level (its been there for YEARS!) consistant feature.

    so i read the whole review with a pinch of salt if somebody wants their numlock status to persist after reboot, really...

  36. From the review.. by PS-SCUD · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Non rectangular window support."

    Now that would be interesting, round windows. Would be difficult to read text in lol.

    --


    "Much work is lost, for the lack of a little more." -Edward H. Harriman
  37. Re:Who *EXACTLY* are "yellowTAB"? by no+reason+to+be+here · · Score: 5, Informative

    YellowTAB are a German group, completely separate from the original Be, Inc. Before Be went belly up, but after it had become obvious that they had put all their eggs in the Internet Appliance basket, yellowTAB approached them about licensing BeOS so they (YT) could distribute it. The nature of the contract between the two apparently made it still valid, even after Be, Inc.'s sale to Palm.

    --
    my pet machine
  38. Blue Eyed OS by Jack+Comics · · Score: 2, Informative

    Your wish was already granted. Take a look at Blue Eyed OS, a relatively new take on BeOS. It uses the Linux kernel with BeOS APIs. BeOS apps will run on it, so long as they are re-compiled. It combines the best of both worlds... Linux's stability, network capabilities, and far better device driver support, and BeOS's user interface, among other things. A bootable CD was recently released a month or two ago. You can get it from the web site if you want to try it out.

    --
    "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde
  39. audio mixing is Be's forte by DABANSHEE · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Ever heard of the Edirol - Roland UA100, the iZ Tech - RADAR 24 & the SX-1 Integrated Audio Production Station? They all use BeOS

  40. This reminds me of something... by Lord_Pain · · Score: 2, Funny

    I know!
    AmigaOS! That OS is the poster-child for zombie OS'es! And now BeOS will join it. A few people will attempt to drag it's lifeless corpse around in hopes of reviving it but not have the drive, skill or money to make it happen. It'll keep going on and on in limbo.

    Too bad. This was a clever OS (Amiga and Be).

    --
    -- What's this '-r *' file doing here? -- Oh well, a simple 'rm' should do the trick.
    1. Re:This reminds me of something... by teamhasnoi · · Score: 2, Interesting
      AmigaOS is tied to expensive PPC hard(vapor)ware, whereas BeOS works with what you've got - crappy old x86 pentium 120 machines. ;) Anyone can try it, or use it.

      So don't count it out yet - there are a lot of tireless crazies out there who are working hard to make BeOS into the next Linux (only better)...

  41. Re:interesting... by jovlinger · · Score: 2, Interesting

    RH 9 has a woefully sucky kernel, and it WILL cause skipping under consistent IO load.

  42. Why steal from that corpse, too? by RatBastard · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Don't you guys steal enough from others already? Every damned GUI I see for Linux always wants to look like something else with Windows XP and OS/X being the top two cloned interfaces.

    I remember when Be Inc. went under. The largest reaction in the OSS/Linux arena was "so what?", the second was "Will they release the OS under GPL so we can rape and pillage their IP?"

    This isn't a troll, this is a serious concern of mine. Don't copy BeOS, don't copy Windows XP, don't copy Mac OS/X! Do something ORIGINAL! Do something new that is Linix/OSS from the ground up. Stop playing catch up and take the lead for once!

    --
    Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
    1. Re:Why steal from that corpse, too? by sultanoslack · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Don't copy BeOS, don't copy Windows XP, don't copy Mac OS/X! Do something ORIGINAL! Do something new that is Linix/OSS from the ground up. Stop playing catch up and take the lead for once!

      This is just pointless hubris. To quote Igor Stranvinsky, Good composers borrow, great composers steal.

      This is to say that doing something original is pointless; building upon what has already been learned is the direction of progress.

      All of these desktops have common elements for a reason -- it's a pretty decent way of navigating through a computer. Yes, of course innovation is nice and sometimes you want to temporarily ignore some of what you've learned to try a new angle on things, but the most certain way to fall out of any meaningful cometition is to start ignoring everything that your competitors have done right.

      If you don't think that original ideas are coming out of the Linux desktop (and subsequently being copied on other platforms), then you aren't watching very carefully.

  43. Roy's gonna be pissed! by visgoth · · Score: 2, Funny

    Other than that, the first boot in this beta version of Zeta greets you with two dead replicants Good to see Decker is still taking out the trash.

    --
    My patience is infinite, my time is not.