yellowTab Zeta What do you think of it?

[MG]

Zeta, developed by yellowTAB, is actually 'BeOS' with a lot of extra functionality and support for modern day hardware. From the various reviews I read, people were very positive about it, especially speed-wise (in particular booting times!)

The developers of the open source "BeOS MAX" have stopped development, mainly to not take away any marketshare of Zeta, which is also interesting.

What I hope, some day, to see something like BeOS becoming big. I mean, it'd be better for people doing typical graphical, 'desktop', work than Linux - with all the many different distributions and associated problems (dependencies; incompatibility). At current, I have to say, Linux has been getting on my nerves. Sure, Linux is better than, say, any kind of Windoze - but, what isn't?

What I hope to see, some day, is something as certified (read: compatible), standardized and fast like the old AmigaOS or IRIX, but then for x86 platforms.

What do you think?


By the way, I saw 'our' Szymon (Szymon Masiak) at ZetaNews, he made some wallpapers

[hoknamahn]

BeOS was interesting system, especially on hardware native for it. It was utilized well available hardware. It seems me, the first, what it ruined - the closed nature of the code of system. The attempts to restore BeOS deserve respect. But there are several "but":
1. Are you ready to wait for the Zeta release? (by that time other operating systems they can be pulled out far forward).
2. System with the limited collection of software is necessary to you.
3. Do you like a single user systems?
And so on and so forth.
It seems me, much more interesting and perspective is HURD. Actually things are much simpler. We have a Linux, which is not ideal, but which is very good and perspective
IMHO.

[MG]

hoknamahn, on Mar 19 2005, 02:44 PM, said:

BeOS was interesting system, especially on hardware native for it.

You mean the PowerPC-powered system that never reached the masses?

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It was utilized well available hardware. It seems me, the first, what it ruined - the closed nature of the code of system. The attempts to restore BeOS deserve respect. But there are several "but":
1. Are you ready to wait for the Zeta release? (by that time other operating systems they can be pulled out far forward).

Zeta is already released, you can already purchase it.

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2. System with the limited collection of software is necessary to you.

Well, that's my whole point: I'd love to see something like BeOS, or Zeta in this case, become big; software developers and hardware manufacturers supporting it. I remember that there were several companies, back in the day, interested in developing for BeOS (including NewTek).

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3. Do you like a single user systems?

I'm not sure if Zeta is single user, but I heard that they also have a network version of Zeta, with a special (64-bits) networking filesystem.

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It seems me, much more interesting and perspective is HURD. Actually things are much simpler. We have a Linux, which is not ideal, but which is very good and perspective
IMHO.

It seems interesting, although I'm not all to sure yet what to expect of it...

[hoknamahn]

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You mean the PowerPC-powered system that never reached the masses?

Yes, I mean BeBox with two or four (don't remember) PowerPCs.

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Zeta is already released, you can already purchase it.

Yes, I entangled it with OpenBeOs (HaikuOS).

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Well, that's my whole point: I'd love to see something like BeOS, or Zeta in this case, become big; software developers and hardware manufacturers supporting it. I remember that there were several companies, back in the day, interested in developing for BeOS (including NewTek).

What software for Zeta accessibly now?

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I'm not sure if Zeta is single user, but I heard that they also have a network version of Zeta, with a special (64-bits) networking filesystem.

BeOS was a single user system (like Windows). Maybe Zeta is multiuser, I don't know.

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It seems interesting, although I'm not all to sure yet what to expect of it...

HURD is interesting by it's micro kernel architecture. But what from it to await is worth awaiting generally... Possibly it will play the role of test platform and not more.

Simple conclusions:
1. Absence of software for Zeta
2. Limited support of the hardware?
3. Closed nature of the program code?
4. Single user mode?
5. Price of this system.

Today goes battle "Windows vs Linux" or "closed solutions against open
source". Hardly many they will want to expend resources to Zeta. Although possibly it will find its place in different embedded systems.

[MG]

I know what HURD is and I never said that Zeta is better than, say, Linux nor that there are many programs available for it yet; all I said is that I hope it becomes big some day (since I'm tired of having to deal with the many different distributions, library dependencies and poor support of modern hardware in Linux).

I'm not interested in web-serving or whatever, I want to use programs like Houdini with very tight graphics acceleration, similair to IRIX and with the availability and flexibility of the old Amiga's. I think BeOS could've been that kind of OS, but it failed; my hopes are now on initiatives like Zeta. Also, don't forget, Zeta hasn't been around for that long yet.

[hoknamahn]

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I'm not interested in web-serving or whatever, I want to use programs like Houdini with very tight graphics acceleration, similair to IRIX and with the availability and flexibility of the old Amiga's.

I still remember that days when I was the BeOS fan That was hard days - wanna working an OpengGL acceleration on your NV hardware? - Search the drivers! Wanna working UDMA66? - Search the drivers! And many other thing like that.
But I'm also remember what on Cel 500 under BeOS you could see two video streams in different windows without slowing down. And under Windows on the same machine you can't see one stream without slowing down (I mean video in DivX or similar formats). It was great.
But BeOS was not very flexible. One kernel, one desktop manager (and graphical mode is necessary) etc. Standard but not flexible things.
But I wish to guys the success. It's good when we can choose from several systems

[MG]

hoknamahn, on Mar 20 2005, 08:26 PM, said:

I still remember that days when I was the BeOS fan That was hard days - wanna working an OpengGL acceleration on your NV hardware? - Search the drivers! Wanna working UDMA66? - Search the drivers! And many other thing like that.

I think BeOS didn't live long enough to be able to fix/improve that. This is, naturally, not something I hope for (in the case of Zeta)...

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It was great.
But BeOS was not very flexible. One kernel, one desktop manager (and graphical mode is necessary) etc. Standard but not flexible things.
But I wish to guys the success. It's good when we can choose from several systems

Flexibility, I should've probably said reliability - because that's what counts for me, and can be traditionally found among SGI's and Amiga's.

To be honest, even if there's one window manager, if it works really well I'd have nothing to complain about. I don't need more than one anyway, I usually just use one.

[Szymon]

Man, old good days.... BeOS. That makes me cry I love this system. Zeta is just bigger and better BeOS. But I think it has no future if there will be no commercial software... like Houdini In the meantime I switched to MacOS X Really awesome stuff. I hope SESI will convert Houdini to that platform soon.

Yeah, I won wallpwaper competition some time ago You were right MG.