Here is a list of news from CeBIT regarding yellowTAB's Zeta 1.0:
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YAyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can't wait to try it.
a brand new kernel?
This should be biggest step ever done in Zeta's life cycle.
althoug is hard to believe certain things about the kernel and stuff like that.
30% improvements kernel speed??? and they just hired one kernel developer right now! come on!
anyway, cebit was supposed to be the event for Zeta 1.0 launch but now they are telling us that it will be in may, perhaps june, that pissed me of, weve been waiting for more than 3 long years....
more info in spanish on my web page
http://www.sposito.org/sitio.php?seccion=noticias,news
Check this out: http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=223&slide=1...)+screenshots
Definitely some positive steps. I'm interested in hearing more as details become available.
1- the 'new' faster kernel. This indicates either some expert kernel hacking, or access to BeOS source code?
2- fewer apps by default. Excellent.
3- Overcome RAM limit. Either a RAM-limiting boot mod, or serious kernel improvements?
-Bob
- probably Net+ will be removed, when FireFox is able to print
- no flash, java, OpenGL, OOorg
Let's summarise it:
- Firefox is still unable to print
- Still no competitive Office Suite
This is a nice try. When will there be the next one?
Well those improvements, if true, are good enough for me to buy it. I had a hang up over the memory limitations. If those are resolved, I'll plunk my money down in support of the OS.
of TY and also of that Cebit booth http://www.saarcor.de/
> 3- Overcome RAM limit. Either a RAM-limiting boot mod, or
> serious kernel improvements?
Whether legal, or not... I'm willing to bet they have the complete BeOS R5.X source tree which was leaked by some narked Be employees prior to Be selling up to Palmsource. It's *so* obvious. The Loon has hinted on this before, and I believe him.
If you have the source, it would take an experienced developer a hour at most to remove the 1GB RAM limitation. It was apparently just bad assumptions and hardcoding.
"It was apparently just bad assumptions and hardcoding." I dont think it is, since it is probably related to the 32bit 4gb limit...
As someone who bought the RC1 as soon as it came out. I can say that while it will not be a "killer" at R1 I will be happy as a Zeta user. Yes, it has been three years but how many people ever thought they would really get this far? I would like to see Flash and Java as soon as pratical. I would rather that they aquire the rights to continue devlopement of Gobe Productive rather than port Open Office. Just my opinion having used both...
I say, good for them!
I can't wait to see how it runs on my 3ghz 1.5meg Ram box!!
Now onward to 1.5!!
Zeta would be a good fit for one of these motherboards (assuming Zeta and the m/b work together): http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS7109201579.html
Use passive cooling and put it in one of these cases (assuming it fits), and the only sound you'll hear out of the case is the hard drive: http://linpvr.org/scythe1.shtml
Re: NiceTry
Quote: "Still no competitive Office Suite"
I thought that Zeta was going to include a licensed version of Gobe Productive? While it's a long way from MS Office or OO, it'll meet the basic needs of most users.
Re: M
Quote: "Whether legal, or not... I'm willing to bet they have the complete BeOS R5.X source tree which was leaked by some narked Be employees prior to Be selling up to Palmsource. It's *so* obvious. The Loon has hinted on this before, and I believe him."
But does it make sense that YT would have this code all along and only now begin to make alterations to the main kernel? A hack-and-patch approach could have the same results, and seems more likely.
Quote: "If you have the source, it would take an experienced developer a hour at most to remove the 1GB RAM limitation. It was apparently just bad assumptions and hardcoding."
Is it really that simple? A little time and access to the source? Be, Inc wouldn't have fixed it themselves if that were the case?
-Bob
It seems that YT is focusing more on 3rd party apps then 'real' development.
Where is digital camera support
Webcam support
All by 3rd party, which is years old and can be got from bebits as well
GoBe Productive 2.0, years old, if there was real good word and excel conversion made by YT... OK but just 2.0...
Nice is that Refraction and Samplestudio are comming along, I wonder about Samplestudio though... but again not really YT involved, again 3rd party
Mediaplayer... who needs one? Soundplay is *the* greatest app I know on any platform, if they just updated encoders/decoders and improved the VST interface, one of the little things that suck (a bit) No they had to REinvent the wheel, we have VLC, which *really* works.
I don't know with Be the focus shift was a bad thing but with YT, I get to think, why don't *they* focus shift?!
OK now you say but the kernel is updated, well why didn't they do that years ago??? I just don't understand...
But I'll buy Zeta 1.0 sure, just wait until June... are you kidding? I'm affraid not : (
...so mysterious about whether or not they have the source code for the kernel. Spending more money on Zeta all comes down to that one issue for me. Otherwise, I'll just use R5 and wait for Haiku... and use my Mac and my Ubuntu machine more often.
AFAIK nobody of the BeOS/Zeta/Haiku Firefox/Mozilla devs are working activly on printing so the removal of Net+ is probably quite far of. Unless YT started working on Mozilla themselves.
Keep in mind that we are doing this in our spare time, so the time or interest may be hard to find for a big task like that.
1GB RAM wasn't an issue when Be gave up on BeOS - 5 years ago now. The had no need to fix it...
What does it means by 'new' kernel? A update or rewrote kernel?
GoBe is obsolete since nobody still maintains it. A security flaw in GoBe? -> No fixes. A missing feature? -> No updates. A modification of doc/xls/ppt file formats by MS? -> No compatibility.
Zeta is a nice OS for home users, but it is lacking apps in many places. GoBe works, but is unmaintained. AbiWord works, but has no formula editor and is not scriptable on BeOS platforms. And so on.
In order to avoid misunderstandings: I like what yellowtab does, but it happens very slowly, too slowly in my opinion. OOo is slow and bloated, but it is the only full-featured and maintained office suite that could theoratically be ported to Zeta. yellowtab should do it.
Well, didn't take long for the bashing to begin. Oh, well...
I personally begain to think that they wouldn't get this far. The fact they have and are still in business gives me some hope. Yes, a lot of things are 3rd party. YT is a small company tring to get a useable OS out the door. It is my hope that after R1 and hopefully a decent number of users that they will start more of their own devlopment. I have already bought R1 (well RC1) and my position is to see what direction they take for 1.5. By that time I want to be able to really use it as a desktop OS. If it doesn't look promising by then. I will move on. For now, I am willing to give them the benifit of the doubt.
Exactly. Do they now have the source to the kernel (in which legal ramifications are now present), or did they write a new kernel from scratch?
What the Zeta people (or the Be community) really should do is either a complete GTk port or -- even better -- an X-Window implementation like on the Mac.
This would allow people to use OpenOffice and lots of other applications (since POSIX-compatibility already exists).
Another cool thing would be to finally get a modern Java working and port the Mac's NeoOffice 
It's meant a new kernel compilation, not a brand new one from scracth. And the 1 GB issue is not a ram limiter, but you'll be able to use your ram > 1 GB.
how are they compling then kernel when they supposedly don't have the source?
"Updated" kernel or not, I will refuse to invest money in Zeta until YellowTab clarifies the legality of the source they may or may not have access to.
Hear me YellowTab? I'm sure there are others like me.
"how are they compling then kernel when they supposedly don't have the source?"
The kernel source code was leaked. Anyway they are innocent until proven guilty and the current owners of the kernel haven't complained AFAIK, so...
I agree that Gobe is a poor substitute for MS Office or OO. But for most home users, I think it'll be OK. Print letters and small reports, simple spreadsheet program, etc. Heck, most Windows users could get by with just WordPad. That's quite an accomplishment of MS's marketing - include an excellent word processor with the OS, and still convince millions of users who don't need anything more to buy Office or Works.
For advanced MS Office users, or OO fans, G.P. is definitely lacking. But I see little alternative for YT at this time. Gobe is better than nothing.
MYOB, good point.
Regardless, I'm not buying Zeta until there are plenty of positive user reviews, and I confirm my hardware is supported. I'd take a chance for $20 and live with the results, but not willing to take a $100 gamble.
-Bob
Is it me, or is this announcement about the first (possibly) freshly compiled kernel from YT curiously close to the announcement that Palmsource are planning to ditch the BeOS derived kernel from Cobalt in favour of a Linux kernel?
Just hypothesizing :o)
>>>>Is it me, or is this announcement about the first (possibly) freshly compiled kernel from YT curiously close to the announcement that Palmsource are planning to ditch the BeOS derived kernel from Cobalt in favour of a Linux kernel?
Just hypothesizing :o) <<<<
A conspiracy theory that seems to fit the bill. If the rumored source-code leak did in fact happen, this could've been sitting on the back-burner. Equally, given that Palm is less interested in their BeOS kernel... perhaps some agreement or purchase was made 'behind the scenes' and N.D.A.?
Either way... like many of the posters here, I want to know. I will not consider purchasing something that could, inevitably bite me in the butt a few months down the road. The SCO lawsuit, even tho it's probably just a sham, has raised the "alternative OS" consumer's awareness. YellowTab should not ignore that.
Wouldn't be surprised if Palm just said fsck it and doesn't care if Zeta is using the kernel source anymore, since it's technically obsolete.
Too bad that Palm didn't care 5 years ago.
how are they compling then kernel when they supposedly don't have the source?
Who said they don't have? Anyway, it looks like the issue will most likely be cleared in the following month or so.
Well, we might have to just settle for the "no comment" that we have been getting.
I feel that if Palm wanted to sue YT they would have had to do it by now in order to have a solid case.
YT have not been quiet about selling their product and there is no secret that it is based on BeOS. I think Palm would have a hard time proving that they didn't know about the YT product. The longer they wait the harder it will be to prove that they were harmed, if indeed that is even the case...Who knows.
They would have a hard time explaining why they waited this long and until X number of copies were sold before starting legal proceedings...
Those are things that would be taken into consideration.
But I am far, far from an expert... Just my personal thoughts. It would be nice to get some "offical" statement.
If they had the source, and told us they had the source, I would have bought a copy long ago - and I'm sure I'm not alone.
Who handles their marketing?
But maybe they were negotiating with Palm all the time, hence the "no comment" thing, and now they finally settled and have access to the source... who knows! 
I personally don't care for either MS or Ooo products. Maybe you've never tried to duplicate the pretty unique facility in Gobe Productive which allows live data to be reflected when any embedded-object is edited externally. Embed a spreadsheet into a document, then edit the spreadsheet and the document changes, live. I've never managed to get this to work properly in either MS office or Open Office, and it's incredibly useful to me.
The footprint of Gobe Productive is FAR smaller than either MS or Sun products (I personally hate Open Office's bloat) so for most people it's "lite" feel will be much like Apple's "Works" product, it's there and it works.
Well done yT, I hope I can get back to using (and being) Productive!
I don't trust the company or the person running it.
And I don't like what they've done to the software either.
wouldn't be weird that they are running a business with a stolen source code, without palm suing?
You are absolutely right. Who cares about compatibility? People should simply create their documents using GoBe exploiting its pretty unique facility and save them in a format that nobody can read.
It is extremely important to embed a spreadsheet that has an embedded presentation into a text document, then edit the subembedded presentation and the spreadsheet will change as well as the text document around it.
Nobody has ever managed to get this to work properly in either MS or Sun products, which renders them unusable since this is the only relevant thing in contrast to being able to share documents with Windows users.
Let us exploit the FAR smaller footprint of GoBE, let us forget that it is outdated and unmaintained and let us believe that compatibility with the rest of the world were of absolutely no importance at all.
By the way, let us forget the fact that BePDF cannot open PDFs that were created by Acrobat 7 since nobody out there uses it anyway, GoBe works very well so let us convince the rest of the world to switch to GoBe instead of asking for a decent PDF viewer.
PS: Please set the irony tags yourself!
Well i can wait to try it, i've always been more of a Haiku fan than Zeta, and want to let others test the new kernel to see if it's buggy before i try it, but i give yellowTAB cudos for trying.
http://bitsofnews.com
honestly....i thought that they were not going to make it
this far but i am glad to know that BeOS is back again.
I don't care how they came up with a new kernel. if it works fine, that is plenty for me.
i will get a copy in June....
thank you,yellowtab!
-2501
Linux fans are REALLY afraid (rightfully so :-)
I purchased Zeta Deluxe RC1, mainly as an act of support than a serious need to use Zeta. My motives were to show developers that there still was an active buying community, and knowing that Zeta will provide my daily dose of BeOS fix until Haiku arrives. I didn't expect much from YellowTab, and so far they've been very good, considering the growing pains there going through. Their heart is in place, and in time, their marketing / business sense will adapt to what the community actually want. By the time Haiku is ready, we'll have a very good distributer to ship it.
Bernd and Co. have had to deal with a lot of negativity (mainly from Linux crybabies who wouldn't pay for any software). As I said, my money was more of a donation so that I may be assured that at least one company would be ready for Haiku. YellowTab suprised me by making Zeta actually useful. I think that Zeta is a worthy distribution similar to what BeOS R6 might have been (minus 5038.mp3).
Java is on the horizon (have you guys checked out the christmas video showing Java running under BeOS?) and waiting for Sun certification. Flash 4 support is available via 3rd party, and there is community work on Flash 7. Gobe Productive is more useful for me than OpenOffice, and we'll even get OO.org eventually once the Java port is released (I hear that OO.org needs Java to build). So the future isn't as bleak as some Linux fanboys make it seem.
Go YellowTab!!!
Yes, we're all glad to hear that the BeOS will finally ride again, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Linux is still FAR ahead of BeOS in certain respect such as having a multiuser enviroment and hardware support. However, who's to say there isn't enough room for both in the world. For the record though, I'll be picking up my copy of Zeta in June.
>Linux fans are REALLY afraid (rightfully so :-)
Well, they should be afraid...you know, 5 years ago, when BeOS was uber cool and very modern.
Now, 5 years gone by, Linux improved by huge amount, but BeOS didn't move a notch.
>Bernd and Co. have had to deal with a
>lot of negativity (mainly from Linux
>crybabies who wouldn't pay for any software).
I don't agree. Almost all negativity came from ex-BeOS users (like me). Generaly speaking, Linux users don't care about BeOS (or Zeta) at all. Why would Linux user care? I'm Linux user now, I don't care about Zeta. Ubuntu works great, has all software that I need, and it is activly developed.
>Java is on the horizon
It was on horizon for 5 years. How meny times it was anounced?
>Gobe Productive is more useful for me than OpenOffice
Maybe, but I still can't understand why Yt didn't get someone to work on Abiword BeOS port. It is very nice app, small footprint, works great with MS documents. I am not huge fan of Ooo.
Zenja,
Pozdrav iz zaledjenog Novog Sada na debelom minusu :-)
Even if Linux improved a lot in five years, it still sucks in drivers management and you need to install always the OS foundation (the KERNEL) to take care of last functionnalities !
BTW, BeOS add-ons is impressive..... modeles not. Simple even for my grand mother.
its here
http://www.yellowtab.com/news/article.php?id=121
Mannheim, Germany -- yellowTAB is pleased to unveil the details of the upcoming Zeta 1.0 now being showcased for the first time at the Cebit 2005 exhibition being held in Hannover, Germany. Zeta 1.0 includes a long list of fixes, enhancements and some new exciting features, such as an updated kernel and virtual memory manager, WiFi support, greatly expanded printer support, and updated scanning software. All in all, Zeta 1.0 will offer both first time users, as well as power users and developers a much improved user experience.
"On the video card front, numerous video drivers have been updated to support more modern hardware. Also, the nVIDIA driver has been enhanced to have support for DMA acceleration, providing a speed increase that can provide a performance that is up to three times faster depending on your hardware configuration. This driver also adds support for PCI-Express bus video cards, as well as some new GeForce 6600 and 6800 video cards."
thats is mr rudolf cornelissenīs work and they announce it like they doit... not so good....
Hummm.....
Looked at the article at yT:
http://www.yellowtab.com/news/article.php?id=121
If they can deliver on this it is a significant accomplishment. Lots still to do but IF they can deliver on this announcement then they have exceeded my expectations.
i think this zeta is not as good as when R4 or R5 came out, so I dont see the point, when I bought R4 i was like woooooooowww this is a desktop. But today it doesnt make a lot of sense. Too many limitations... no flash yet... huh... its been a long time since flash... i just dont see the point of paying for this... Prefer to stay with Haiku when it comes out. I prefer to use at this point Ubuntu and on my mac OSX. Everything has its time... oh.. another thing I miss from Zeta is aesthetics, that horrible blend of Amateur graphics and the original Be graphics just kills me... comon' did you see the style BeOS had ??? Zeta is so horrible... just the logo alone explains everything. 
Just my point of view
relax, and dream of the next thing coming. What is it ?
Well, judging by their latest update, things seem to be interesting...
- addon space expanded from 32MB to 256MB
- updated virtual memory manager (reason for speed increase)
- programs can use > 1GB (therefore dispelling myth of hack to apply ceiling).
- support of modern CPU optimisations - what does this mean, is it Hyperthreading / Dual Core / SSE2 support??? Or an updated compiler???
- NDIS - YEAH Nice to see this implemented - we will significantly increase the number of 803.11g wireless cards working on the platform.
- OpenVPN - nice.
-CUPS and SANE - nice, this will greatly increase the number of supported printers and scanners.
- USB2 stack update. Nice.
- Partition manager which supports disks > 120GB plus nondestructive resizes NTFS. About time.
- Better localization and Asian font support. Good.
The number of updates seems much larger than what I originally thought yT would provide. Pleasant suprise.
Message to Nikola - Gde si Nidzo, upravo sam se vratio sa puta oko sveta (najvise sam se zadrzao u Juznoj Americi. Cucemo se
i'm here at cebit. I talked to Bernd Konz, saw the YT stand. The held a presentation today at about 12 o clock. little stand, just near linux world.
You are absolutely right. Linux guys are very afraid of Zeta because there is no recent software for their OS, but for Zeta there is.
Zeta is the OS that the future belongs to because nobody needs permission management anyway. Let us forget the sucking permission management that can be found in both Windows NT and UNIX variants and let us go back to good old DOS practices: Everybody is allowed to do anything on Zeta.
Linux crybabies do not pay for any software (Hum, how did I get my last distro? Anyway...). Java for Zeta has been on the horizon for years (Who needs Java anyway?), Flash 4 support is available via third party for only 20$ (Who needs a recent and free player from Macromedia anyway?) and there is a website that states that somebody is working on Flash 7 (Who needs Flash anyway?) which will never be ready for use, like everything on Zeta.
GoBe is much more useful that OpenOffice (Who cares about security and feature updates anyway?), so let us go back to the roots and use software that has been unmaintained for years and let us tell the world that nobody needs the missing features of Zeta anyway.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Most Linux developers don't know about this...
And if they did, they wouldn't care in the least!
Zeta IN NO WAY impacts Linux.
There aren't any new apps for Linux??? BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Linux people don't pay for software??? BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
There are so many mths and just outright lies in all of these messages it's amazing!
Before we start imagining "Linux Guys" wetting their pants, lets wait to see it YellowTab actually releases something....
And even if they do, I *doubt* ANY real Linux Developer is going to do more than yawn... If in fact they have a negative reaction at all...
Unlike the denizens of /,, these forums and fanboys in general...
MOST people *LIKE* when someone else does something good in the Computing space...
It makes computers more fun for us all when a new OS comes out...
That's why OSNEWS exists!!!
Get a grip!
A new version of BeOS will NOT be negative news for ANYONE in the computer industry...
It probably won't even make a ripple...
BeOS was superior to Windows AND MacOS 8/9 and BeOS STILL went out of business...
Many here are behaving like stupid kids.
Go stand in the corner and shut up if you haven't something usefull to say.
Morons
This was supposed to be irony. Sorry for not marking it as such.
Would you losers stop posting if you have nothing valuable to post? Enough with the "irony" bullshit. Stop bringing up linux, that goes for the pro-beos users and linux users alike. ITS NOT AN ARTICLE ON LINUX. Christ, grow up.
I was there yesterday and talked to one of the developers.
According to him yT is working together with haiku and using parts of it in zeta (and will give back improvements).
so they must have the code.
It war realy nice too see in action, but the stand is on a kind of hidden place on the cebit ... not too many people there. And the price is MUCH two high. they seem not too expect, that their product will spread and gain more fans. So the money must come from the rather small BeOS user-group.
they should try something else:
work together with a big company and use zeta as os for a settopbox, tv-set, dvdplayer or any home entertainment system.
and open as much code as any possible!
ps: a kind of user mode linux running on top of zeta would be nice too! and wine ...
it's really an impressive long thread...
Anyway, YellowTAB is on the right way.
Delivering a live Demo bundled in a 500.000 Readers IT-Magazine community is also a definitive way that they 'learn' how things has to work in Business. They surely got reasons why they didn't before (an RC is an RC).
For me yT made a great way. It's their 3rd Appearance on worlds biggest IT Expo CeBit - the booth this year is really huge and impressive!
With a minimum of ressources they are now on a point Be never was considering sold Licences.
They tripled CeBit Exposition, which is a huge investment for a small company - Be never reached this, too, (correct me if I remember wrong).
Their new Kernel Development is going well. Some vital parts are solved (Printing, SSE2 support) or on the way to be solved (Browser Printing, Web Cam Support, Hyperthreading Support, 64 Bit EMT Support, etc.).
The Paragon Partition Manager works flawlessly, like the one we were used at 'Be times' with the special Edition of PowerQuest's PartitionMagic on the Pro Edition CD of R5.
There is a serious userbase in Germany, France, Japan and China....
And: YT's Mr. Korz' target for sold licence at the end of 2005 is: 1 Million. And he is on the the way to truly reach it.
Any serious Software Company shouldn't be (and isn't) so dumb to close their eyes for that Development (and as far as I could see on CeBit there are hundreds of Software/Hardware Company officials on the yT booth in talks with yT).
As long as they don't start a 'FOCUS SHIFT' (hint, hint), don't 'surprise' their Reseller Channels with a 'Free Beer Version' of Zeta (gosh, what a mistake of Be) and keep being closed source in vital parts, they simply keep being interesting for Companies.
If there are still some lamer on this thread, it must be because of their personal problems. Zeta R1 itself is impressive..
Some really insider's hint:
- watch out for the next Version of Trolltech's "product" ;-)
My take: a brand new 64 Bit MU-Kernel for the next Zeta Release (1.5) is on the way, yet maybe at the End of 2005 - Be's Kernel will be obsolete.
Btw - Laming is obsolete...
I'm really surprised that no one else has picked up on Kancept's comments concerning BeOS and PowerPC... Dano for PowerPC exists. This is no BS, I've seen it with my own eyes. Kernel was compiled at the start of this year, and the only major omission is that there's no BONE.... but I gather that Be stopped compiling BONE for PowerPC very early on after the big switch.
Late, but for the record:
In 2000, 1GB of memory was unfeasable... 512MB would have seemed a lot!! Most people have 128MB max...
JBQ made the "experienced developer" comment... He was a former Be employee and IIRC did some kernel programming too.
