Submitted by YellowTAB has released Zeta 1.2. “The moment has come: yellowTAB presents the latest version of yellowTAB ZETA 1.2. So many items and features have been improved or changed that is is almost impossible to mention them all. Read on below to find out about the new and exciting changes we have made to yellowTAB ZETA 1.2.”
really! … everything sounds to good to be true. But I will not pay for it.
sure, paying for software is soo yesterday. it’s not like they depend on sales.
” But I will not pay for it.”
then you dont get to use it. its that simple
You are new to the internet, aren’t you?
hehe
YwllowTAB?
or
YellowTAB?
Oh its just yet another OS advertisement
Imagine that! An official press release from the OS developer on an OS news site! With that kind of logic I’ll never understand why this site is called http://www.OSNEWS.com
So can I play my games on Zeta?
What makes Zeta INNOVATIVE?
Edited 2006-04-27 18:34
How is playing games innovative? Computers have been playing games since their inception. The PDP played space war to show off its’ power.
Don’t be too ignorant all at once.
So can I play my games on Zeta?
Yes, you can play many games with open sourced engines or open source reimplementations, like on Win/Lin. For example Doom/Quake/Transport Tycoon/Civilisation. There were also a number of games released for BeOS in it’s hey-day. Don’t know which ones again, it’s only a handful. But play Windows games? That’s a silly question.
What makes Zeta INNOVATIVE?
-The fast and responsive interface, no matter the workload; something Gnome/KDE/Enlightenment/OS X/Windows haven’t quite mastered yet, especially not on older boxes.
-The database-like filesystem, with advanced and flexible, searchable, attributes, something only Mac comes close to.
-The codec system, where once a codec for a media format is written, every program, if designed for it, can handle those formats. Amiga had that, Windows/OS X/Linux only seem to have videocodecs (correct me if I’m wrong though). Either way: BeOS/Zeta does them right, having them clear and centralised.
-The interface semi-inspired by Amiga, which some people seem to prefer over the modern-day alternatives, with shiftable tabs (Zeta did reimplement them in 1.2, right?).
-The object-oriented API, which means it’s easier to reuse code, reuse other people’s programs (for example: a number of programs were simply fancy interfaces for mediaplayer) and generally do cool stuff programming-wise. OS X has object oriented API, Windows XP still doesn’t (Vista will though..when it finally gets here).
-Mostly bloatless programs. Some might argue this is because of a lack of major league programs, but I do get the idea that the programs that do exist, are extraordinarily compact for their functionality.
-Spunk.
Maybe the latter isn’t a form of innovation, but it’s something missing from most of the rest though 😉
Nah, on OS X if you do it right you have access to every audio codec supplied to Quicktime as well.
Of course, what is rather cool is the way this can be extended to what is not strictly video, e.g. Quartz Composer files
why are still the 1.1 screenshots on their website ?
give us some shots!
I remember waiting a year for the first release of Zeta. Now I’ve been waiting for the i915 video driver, Open Office, and hopefully irq sharing. Well the i915 driver is in this release the changelog didnt mention OO and I havent even heard whispers of irq sharing. Oh well being the Beos enthusiast that I am I’ll probly shell out the loot for it. It would take me to long to count the years I’ve been waiting for Haiku. It must have been 99 or 2000 when I first started waiting for openbeos, thinking a release would be shortly as in a year or two.
I haven’t been paying near enough attention. ZETA is amazing if it has half the features it claims.
Am I to understand that you can do video editing under ZETA? And since it’s BeOS-based, you can run things like BASH, Ruby, etc?
Does anyone know if it can be installed under xen?
No, Xen requires kernel changes and the Zeta kernel only runs on i386.
There are versions of Xen for Intel VT and (the unreleased) AMD-V which allows Windows, BeOS/Zeta etc. to run unmodified but these only work on specific CPUs
yes it includes a video editor which I have yet to use but is meant to be quite good (it looks nice 😉
BASH 3 is used for the Terminal application and many *nix programs are ported (check http://www.bebits.com)
Can I run this in VMWare? What about a demo Image or CD i can run in VMware.
Edited 2006-04-27 18:37
There was a live cd image they released a while back. I didn’t have much luck in getting it to run on my systems due to incompatible hardware. Here is the link if you want it, maybe they will do the same for this release.
http://www.yellowtab.com/news/article.php?id=167
Yep, unlike R5 although VESA graphics are a bit slow
“Design:
This is the most obvious and massive change to the whole system. The GUI has been reworked from the ground up, buttons, sliders, tabs, icons, menu bars …. wherever you look, we have changed and improved it. This is the beginning of a new standard in yellowTAB ZETA. All menus of preinstalled applications have been changed. To the left of any applications menu bar you will find an icon, identical to that applications icon. Upon clicking it you will always see About | Settings | Help | Quit. This new standard is intended to improve usability. For instance, to find out the version number or author names of the application you will need to click on the icon in the menu bar and then select ‘About’.”
Now this is sounding interesting. Part of this must stem from the wonderful fact Zeta has an object oriented API. But a generic ‘Settings’ button, must interface with the program in a specific way, right? So I wonder how they did this. Can anyone knowledgeable confirm wether access to a setting menu in BeOS programs was standardised via the API, or wether this is an ugly hack, or wether the settings simply refer to general settings like ‘Window on top’ or something?
Can anyone knowledgeable confirm wether access to a setting menu in BeOS programs was standardised via the API, or wether this is an ugly hack, or wether the settings simply refer to general settings like ‘Window on top’ or something?
Well, it’s their API to hack.. one could assume they have been adding to it to give App developers this consistent approach.
(AboutRequested was a very novel idea at the time.. but no, r5 BeOS never had this)
I’m quite impressed that they have (what appears to be) a properly licensed Yahoo chat client. To me this seems quite a serious accomplishment for such a company.
What is PodSync?
Also the reworked interface sounds interestin, and a little Mac-like (it’s a good thing!) with regard to this new menu structure.
Looking forward to seeing some screenshots.
“Can I run this in VMWare? What about a demo Image or CD i can run in VMware.”
Yes! but not using an .iso or a cd burned from an iso. So a bought pressed cd will work fine or a cd with the first track boot.img and the second track zeta.img or something similiar. People might disagree but I’ve tried it in vmware hundreds of ways and those are the only two that worked for me.
I wonder what impact has the insolvency had in yellowtab’s resources. At some point in time yellowtab claimed to have 15 or so engineers. Did they have to let some (many?) go? Although their press release
http://www.yellowtab.com/news/article.php?id=192
sort of claims it is business as usual, if they were put under insolvency proceedings, it must be because they have not been fulfilling their obligations for quite some time.
I like zeta, but I am inclined to think that yellowtab’s days are counted.
> What is PodSync?
It is an app to use ipods in zeta; don’t how well it works though.
I’m always happy to see progress on any Be-related project (I also admire it’s ‘spunkiness’). It’s difficult for many BeOS users to get used to the idea of paying for a copy of the OS, after Be Inc. distributed free versions of 5.0.3 many of us were addicted to the ‘freeness’ of it. Using Max Edition and bebits.com also lead to the ‘leecher’ habits that have hindered yT. yT didn’t seem to forsee this nature of the community, and that’s probably why they’re having such a hard time.
But I for one, have already ordered myself a copy. Even if it doesn’t run on every single machine I have, I’ll at least get the satisfaction of knowing that I’ve helped the platform’s development (which desperately needs it). Everyone interested should do the same instead of waiting for yT to go belly-up. Bankruptcy doesn’t help development much, and Haiku depends on yT’s progress more than people think.
“But I for one, have already ordered myself a copy. Even if it doesn’t run on every single machine I have, I’ll at least get the satisfaction of knowing that I’ve helped the platform’s development (which desperately needs it). Everyone interested should do the same instead of waiting for yT to go belly-up.”
I remember saying something like this in the year 1999 (or was it 2000?) about some other company (guess which one?). No thank you, went there already, did that already.
I was thinking the above aswell (buying a copy of 1.2), but I’d hate to see the donation wasted if yT folded.. then again, Haiku needs more than money right now 😐