While development towards Zeta OS 1.0 advances at a steady pace, yellowTAB has decided to do an interim release called Zeta Neo, so that users can enjoy the many enhancements incorporated into the Zeta OS so far. Zeta Neo has a long list of improvements over previous versions of Zeta, including two new applications, updated and new drivers, support for IDE hard disc drives larger than 120GB, redesigned Preference panels, improved and expanded localisation support, updated development tools, and an expanded Zeta Manual.
yellowTAB releases Zeta Neo
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Had almost forgotten about them. Too many OS’es to handle..
I just bought a new fire extinguisher, shiny and red.
I wonder if they are able to fix the memory limit by the time 1.0 comes out. I hope so.
Do these people even have access to kernel source code? How many people are even spending money for this?
I never knew about that orignal BeOS is limited up to 120GB.
Yes, and BeFS pre-BeOS 5.0.1 had a limit of 64 GB. Remember, we are talking about an OS that wasn’t updated since 2000 (the IDE driver Zeta uses is a newer one, but it was also first written 3 years ago). Even my Apple Cube’s BIOS can’t see above 120 GB either. It was normal of the time. That’s why it’s imperative that OSes have support behind them and getting updated constantly.
This is great to hear. BeOS is more alive today than it has ever been the past few years. Haiku progress, Zeta progress; it’s all great.
BeOS, for me, is the best OS ever made.
> (the IDE driver Zeta uses is a newer one, but it was also
> first written 3 years ago)
I hear the Zeta driver was written pretty much from scratch.
Yes, and BeFS pre-BeOS 5.0.1 had a limit of 64 GB. Remember, we are talking about an OS that wasn’t updated since 2000 (the IDE driver Zeta uses is a newer one, but it was also first written 3 years ago).
Right, it hasn’t been update for years but I was kind of confuse about that BeFS should support more than 64GB, because of 64bit filesystem. I didn’t know that IDE driver will reply on size or not driver, just somewhere different place? Am I way off base? 🙂
@bsdrocks
This was purely a limitation of the mkbfs tool used to create the file system. The file system itself has no such limitations; as it uses 64-bit addressing it can support a lot larger volumes than that.
What you can do if you’re on R5 is to get hold of the R5.1 (Dano) mkbfs and use that on your system.
The updated IDE driver is unrelated to that.
Since Zeta 1.0’s release was immenent two years ago they have managed to call Beta’s RC’s and now even invented a whole new category of pre-release software. I am sure because they don’t want the numbering to get to like RC6.
I bought RC1, paid for RC3 and now will wait for V1.0 which will be shipped in like 2010. Slow and steady wins the race after all.
So is RC3 Neo?
Only RC3 is listed in the store… I would like to support these guys as whether they’ve got the kernel source or not they’ve still made a version of BeOS that runs on modern hardware – and that’s gotta be worth some cash
Wasn’t the RC3 suppose the be the last version before the R1 ?
No RC3 was out a long time ago. Neo is new and they have managed to release a press release without the product being ready or mentioning when it would be.
>Zeta Neo is available as of today. Registered users of
>Zeta can upgrade to Zeta Neo for 10 Euros plus shipping
>from their reseller. Due to the many changes in Zeta Neo,
>a service pack is not planned at this time.
Palim, Palim.
I would!
The only problem is that I do not like to play around with betas (for “serious” work), that is why I bought the $20 MacOS X Beta back in 1999 (or was it 2000?), and I did not use it much. I did not buy 10.0 or 10.1 for the same reason. I would *gladly* play $20 for it, but not $100 for a beta!
I guess I will be waiting
I think that Zeta is overpriced.
Maybe they intend it to be this way to keep their support costs down. Because only the real BeOS Zealots will buy it at this price.
But I think at half the price, they will sell MORE than twice the number of copies. But… That will double their support costs as well.
Perhaps when the OS is more finished, and will need less support they can consider lowering the price.
It may simply be that this is the price point that gives them a balance between sales and support.
Haiku just announced that their Input server works as a drop in replacement for R5 now and it’s time to crush bugs… another big step for Haiku….
Um…how can they have an “interim” release when they don’t even have …A RELEASE?! They made several release candidates available, but haven’t actually had any real general release to make this an “interim.”
If they are still adding features, then why are they still making “release candidates?” RC’s come after beta products, and, in my mind, should be stabilizations only. If the first RC doesn’t have identifiable bugs, it should be the release! If you are adding features, you’re not out of the beta stage and shouldn’t be making RC’s.
Anyone agree?
This is like tongue jewelry: why?
> RC’s come after beta products, and, in my mind, should be
> stabilizations only. If the first RC doesn’t have
> identifiable bugs, it should be the release! If you are
> adding features, you’re not out of the beta stage and
> shouldn’t be making RC’s.
>
> Anyone agree?
I think everyone (except maybe yellowTab) agrees on that.
So basically if Matt Lacey is write and he could only find RC3. I myself say a banner for RC3 on the front page, then the press release is wrong/misleading or they plan on getting it up by end of day Pacific Coast time.
Sorry, I am a little disenchanted with Yellowtab. I generally support any attempt to create choice on the desktop which is why I bought RC1 and RC3 in the first place. But because of the glacial pace of development and lack of honesty around the product I’ll take a rain check and wait for a finished product to transpire.
Something tells me the IDE driver is probably Haikus one – IIRC it, if compiled for Dano and not for the Haiku bus managers, can do >137GB HDD’s.
Ah well, not very relevant. I’m now down to using only Be-provided graphics (VBE2), network (eepro100) and USB bus manager drivers, and a Be kernel and app_server. Everything else is a replacement, almost all opensource, almost all Haiku.
…is that they needed a better version than R3 with new apps and bugfixes and all that for new bundled PC’s they sell in Germany and Japan. So that’s why they had this “extra” edition.
If you had enough with updates, by all means, wait for R1, that’s absolutely understandable.
Seems to me every time these guys need to scare up some new cash, they release another RC – or change their naming scheme so that it doesn’t look like an RC any more.
They shouldn’t rush to release unfinished software, they should just be honest. Sooner or later people are going to grow tierd of the hype.
GJ
I think, and hereby going to speculate a bit, that Yellowtab choose to package their latest achievements into Neo because they could be sold preinstalled in PC’s.
You could say its a RC4 but that naming would not justify the improvements and additions. The name RC4 implies more bugfixes than features galore.
“Neo” does sound more compelling than “RC4” and gives the reader an immediate feeling that something serious is under the skin of this Zeta package.
So the next of 4 days much news will be gathered and spread over the internet regarding Zeta Neo.
I’m eagerly awaiting the reviews and looking forward to their improvements to the final release or even beyond.
Hardware OpenGL!!!!!!!!
You could say its a RC4 but that naming would not justify the improvements and additions.
That’s the point: you CAN’T say RC4 because it’s not an RC. If they are adding new features, don’t pretend it’s an RC.
People are getting upset because Zeta is pretending that they are close, and using terms like RC, but they keep tinkering around but never finally release a final version. If they are at release candidate level, release! If not, don’t jerk us around. Go back to 0.7 or whatever the numbering should be.
If they are *selling* Zeta preinstalled, as a consumer, I don’t want a damn release candidate, I want 1.0.
I see nothing about them removing this limitation yet, so Zeta, to me at least, is worthless.
I’ve said it before, and I’m here repeating myself: Until this limitation is removed, or a work around devised, Zeta is effectively as dead as BeOS to me, and many others.
It’s interesting to see what takes priority over this issue, in Zeta’s eyes… Or does this lead us back to the old arguement of “Do they have the source”?
Don’t get me wrong… Zeta looks neat, but that 1gb memory limit really makes it them look bad, and/or outdated. I can name lots of “Hobby OS’s”, which is really what Zeta’s up against at this point, which do not have such a limit.
I don’t get their business plan. I think its flawed. BeOS is basically a few years out of date and lacks new hardware support. If you want the customer satisfied, you fix that, not features. Why didn’t they update the drivers and hardware support, release a version which has that, then concentrate on features and start a new release cycle. Makes much more sense for make it just work
Aome kind of statement on wether they got the original sourcecode YES or NO would make sense too. Makes the customer more at easy, you see. Its a proposition: they either have legal access to the original source code, or they don’t. One could argue they’d say so when they’d have access… which means they don’t have access. In any case, this cloud doesn’t speak in their advantage. Perhaps this release takes so long because they have to rewrite some parts from scratch. Would they have the source, they could use that, and don’t rewrite from scratch. Would save time too.
From the looks of it yellowTAB has been following the advices of the same consultant that Amiga Inc. has.
The redesigned Network panel now features a Network Guide that makes it [a] breeze to setup network profiles for fixed IP, DHCP, PPPoE and dialup Internet connections. Users only have [to] follow a few simple steps, and the guide sets up the Internet connection for them.
Can you say Wizard? I liked the fact that BeOS (like MacOS) relied on an intuitive interface rather than Wizards. Maybe I am wrong here (I have been before), but I hope they don’t start adding Wizards all over the place. I feel it is avoiding interface issues rather than facing them.
> It may simply be that this is the price point that gives
> them a balance between sales and support.
Clever man – I’d never thought of it that way.
I’m both anxiously and patiently awaiting the final release of Zeta myself. I do think that a responsible corporate plan has to be able to work against the presupposition that no one will buy an unfinished product – i.e., begin the project with the resources necessary to finish it at some minimal acceptable spec. Beta sales should only be used to supplement that nest egg and build a product that is however much better than the minimal spec.
I’m encouraged that, though it is taking YellowTab a very long time to get Zeta finished (as Eugenia is famous for pointing out, this is to be expected*), they seem to be hanging in there and finishing it rather than folding up shop.
(*Begging pardon to twist the upshot of her sentiment.)
Of course, only time will tell. In the meanwhile, it’s good to know that other high-performance alternatives to Windows are in the works (though if you ask me, desktop Linux and BSD* is about as mature as Zeta, admitting different strengths and weaknesses). (*MacOS excluded, of course.)
What with the Kernel source code, Zeta’s position on BEOS IP. And something that does not make sense to me even now is what is palm doing with the BeOS source code. I know they are horrible with releasing Palm OS 6. And what is a Desktop OS doing in Palm version. Granted they can use BeOS source code however I have not yet seen any major development in PalmOS since 2000. Its not like they have improved Palm OS with rich multimedia threading capabilities. I still have to figure out why Palm bought BeOS to kill the development of such a beautiful OS.
But then again BeOS should have been more careful in releasing their PE edition. I remember their 500MB limit and how easy it was to overcome.
If they’d never released the PE I would never have tried it, and that means I’d probably have never started looking at other alternative OSes. I was gutted when I tried Linux after trying BeOS – I thought they’d all be nicer/simpler/faster than windows.
I do like Linux and the BSDs and run them myself, but they are best for server setups and BeOS was definately better for the desktop. I look forward to using BeOS properly again – I still use it occasionally but I just need a newer version with more hardware support!
Will Zeta Neo run on AMD Athlon CPU’s higher then 2,1 GHz? I heard about a booting bug which affects those CPU’s and cannot be fixed with existing boot disks as well?!?
Besides this: Great to hear that there’s still progress on Zeta OS!
Nope, the problem that exists is, with CPUs running above 2.1GHz (real speed, not the AMD rating of 2100+), the clock is a bit faster, and it can affect the playback of videos for example, though there are fixes for it, search BeBits.
It boots on those CPUs just fine.
I am so glad I didn’t throw away any money on Zeta…
I still have to figure out why Palm bought BeOS to kill the development of such a beautiful OS.
They didn’t buy BeOS, they bought Be Inc. and all of its intellectual property (BeOS and BeIA).
They weren’t interested in BeOS, they wanted the programmers.
I will absolutely not invest in Zeta until they come clean on exactly what source they have and what their relationship with Palm is. If they can’t do this because of some technicality, then too bad, because I will not shell out $100 for a product that is guaranteed to have very little future ahead of it.
<<They weren’t interested in BeOS, they wanted the programmers>>
This is repeated often, but I think that it is only a small part of it. The programmers were not owned slaves that could be bought and sold. If they really just wanted the programmers, they could have used that $11 mil to lure them over. The programmers could easily went elsewhere as many did.
>>>This is repeated often, but I think that it is only a small part of it. The programmers were not owned slaves that could be bought and sold. If they really just wanted the programmers, they could have used that $11 mil to lure them over. The programmers could easily went elsewhere as many did.
Then they have to deal with non-competes and chinese walls. They were already years behind their OS release schedule.
Granted they can use BeOS source code however I have not yet seen any major development in PalmOS since 2000. Its not like they have improved Palm OS with rich multimedia threading capabilities.
So what do you call Palm OS 6? THey have added a BUNCH of stuff to the os. its almost a complete rewrite. Loads better multimedia support. a bunch of multithreading(which, btw, palm os 1.0 had though not as much) stuff. It even has a form of multitasking….
Let’s remember that the drive size limitation does NOT apply to SCSI drives. I’ve been running a 180GB SCSI drive for over a year on BeOS 5.03.
I’m looking forward to buying the NEO upgrade from Daniel at the ICO Shop when it’s available.
So I guess people have nothing better to do than blast a product without even trying it? Typical.
Well let us put Palm OS 6 vs other competing Os’s , if BeOS Programmers meant advantage to Palm OS one would see Palm OS stand out in Mobile OS market. However the case is not so compare it with POS or even linux and it seriously lagging behind. Recent case in point Sony dropping POS in favor of **possibly** POS or Symbian. So what did former BeOS add to Palm OS “NADA”. I guess I could correlate it with a Car Factory taking over a Airplane company on the excuse that the airplane engineers will value add to the cars. I think Palm should do something like AOL/Netscape did and release BeOS under a Free license like Mozilla. Not only will this add to their reputation but they can also benifit from the updates that would be done by Programmers worldwide. And yes this is a practical approach look at the helix project and how fast Real Player for linux came around.
I’m looking forward to buying the NEO upgrade from Daniel at the ICO Shop when it’s available.
Buying what? Did you bought the previous version? They didn’t deliver the previous version. People bought it, in advance, buying the actual final version. It never delivered as of now. Its not as if… yellowTab is fundraising for some ‘new’ version right? Pulling the same trick again? Asking people who bought the old version to buy the new?
I’d be weary to buy anything from these people. They are too vague when it comes to stating facts and assuring customers. That is:
* When will the first stable, final version come out based on the rc3 tree.
* Does yellowTab and/or one of its employees have legal access to the BeOS R5 professional source code? If so, which sourcecode and via what way?
* Whats yellowTab’s financial status?
Because they used the term “Release Candidate” when they really meant “Beta”, now that they have an actual release candidate they have to come up with new terminology…
Give me a break…
-Bob
I think it’s obvious that YT does ~not~ have the source code. What evidence is there otherwise? I can’t figure out why people are still asking about it…
-Bob
Why would I pay such an unreasonable price for an OS that is still in testing?
I am thinking the same thing already for a long time. I first would like to see that R1 get’s there and that it is actually worth to buy. Until then… I will not buy a RC and pay for every little upgrade.
Pulling the same trick again? Asking people who bought the old version to buy the new?
If you paid for the full version, these releases are available at a small price. I paid US$12 (& $7 shipping) for the RC3 version, and I’m going to presume that this NEO release will be roughly the same cost.
It would be nice to see actual reviews, rather than just press releases from these guys – just so we can see if it has actually improved since the last time Eugenia looked at it (I seem to recall her not being all that impressed)
Yeah… you are right. You only hear things they say, but never see a review of it. Personally I would like to see some more and new reviews of Zeta, after reading the last one.