Submitted by Magnussoft has just announced that they are delaying the release of ZETA 1.5 Professional from 10 to 15 days in order to add a port of the AbiWord open source word processor, a native PCL6 printer driver and a Radeon x-series video driver. The addition of AbiWord is seen as a move to eventually replace the word processor component of GoBe Productive, a third party lightweight office suite currently bundled with ZETA that is no longer in development. Since AbiWord is released under the GPL, the port is expected to eventually benefit Haiku as well.
Sorry, but I think there aren’t many things to be expected from Zeta any more. They are doing some little releases, all-time delayed, …
They will never catch up. Sadly enough!
Catch up with who and what ?
McVista???
Edited 2007-01-19 09:26
The Competition. I would say, Ubuntu for example.
What is actually missing, except from OO.O and some driversupport ?
Let’s see:
* A good desktop publishing solution
* A good developer environment
* Java
* OpenGL
* Decent X server & ssh
* good Mail app
* good integrated apps in general
* good media player
…
More drivers, more users. An OS like that could not be interesting for general purpose users, at this level of development. I think that having a decent office suite doesn’t help too much in the adoption. They have to “rebuild” the community. For now, I like it. If only Magnussoft could be more wise in fidelizing users…
The problem is that they don’t really look interested in getting much outside adoption. Just look at their website… the english version is poorly written (You end up downloading a “LifeCD” iso) and let alone having Spanish, French or Italian versions.
The OS itself does look interesting and I’m sure it is, but you can’t expect people to buy from someone who can’t really put togheter a website. It’s sad to see BeOS like this…
AbiWord is quite a good tool, the latest versions are highly compatible with MS-Office, supports ODF exports (if the plug-in is bundled). Personally I prefer to use it over OpenOffice Writer for many reasons.
But it is not a sheet manager, neither it is a presentation tool just to come up with the most important issues why it can not be a replacement of Gobe Prouctive or (the dropped) OpenOffice.
jikes, classpath, cacaojvm, jamavm???? Any time frame? How about dotGnu?
Sorry, but Zeta, Haiku, BeOS… the time has been and gone.
Yes it still has its shiny gems of sheer genius but the worlds moved on, and very quickly. Even today Cortex still shows the inate power of the media kit, and yes the new AGG window server is nice.
Someone take a port of *BSD, Opensolaris, or god forbid even the inelegant fudge of Linux and add the good bits of BeOS to something thats still alive. FrankenOS has got to be better than ZombieOS. Better still, get an Intel Mac, its essentially the same experience that Be offered but available and supported now.
Abiword to replace Productives Text component? Don’t make me laugh. Abiword is an also-ran that only offers slightly better .doc importing than the text part of GoBe. I think the Gobe Productive 3 source would be a better avenue to re-re-re-explore.
Lastly as fithisux mentions… Java – where is it, still, like 10 years later!
Sorry, but Zeta, Haiku, BeOS… the time has been and gone.
Yes it still has its shiny gems of sheer genius but the worlds moved on, and very quickly
Then why linux, and Macosx it´s based on a 30+ years technology (based on unix) and windows XP/vista based on 15+ years old technology (windows nt based)?
At least Beos was build from scratch, not based on anything, So strictly speaking any Beos or Beos based OS are more modern and these mainstream OS are those that not moved on
All true.
Yep, they got a lot right with BeOS, but they got a lot wrong. Read around on the Haiku lists and you’ll start to uncover some truths about some of the shortcomings. Particularly around the kernel.
By r5 BeOS had already started to accumulate a fair amount of its own legacy of cruft especially with BONE, the new media kit beta and OpenGL.
Consider this though. BeOS itself is around 15 years old by now.
1. It doesn’t grab me.
2. It’s not in our image.
3. It’s not in our style.
4. It sounds too simple.
5. It sounds too complicated.
6. We’ll never find the time to do it.
7. Sounds crazy to me!
8. We’ve never done anything like that before.
9. Has anyone ever done anything like that before?
10. It’ll turn everybody off.
11. Yuck!
12. That’s not consistent with the way we do things here.
13. How in the world did you come up with that?!
14. Let’s be realistic…
15. Come on…get serious.
16. Great idea-but not for us.
17. People will say we’re silly.
18. People will say we’re reckless.
19. What will people say?
20. It’ll never work.
21. Do you really think that would work?
22. I don’t know…
23. Why bother?
24. Sorry…try again.
25. That’s a new one to me.
26. That’s very interesting, but…
27. That’s fantastic, but…
28. Yes, but…
29. Who’s going to do it?
30. (Silence)
Go away.
“Someone take a port of *BSD, Opensolaris, or god forbid even the inelegant fudge of Linux and add the good bits of BeOS to something thats still alive. FrankenOS has got to be better than ZombieOS. Better still, get an Intel Mac, its essentially the same experience that Be offered but available and supported now.”
What do you see as “inelegant fudge of Linux”? Please elaborate on this. Try Ubuntu, openSUSE, Linspire, Mandriva. If that’s only trolling around, fine. Otherwise I’d recommend trying some Linux distributions first and then commenting on it. Thanks.
Intel Mac with Mac OS X is definetely NOT the same experiene as running BeOS on a dual processor machine then. You really must be joking – or you don’t know BeOS at all.
No, maybe I don’t know BeOS at all…
I was there when Be moved to x86 from PPC. I was there when Java was promised. I was there when r4 came out, I was there when the focus shift happened, I saw Hexen II running at >300fps on beta’d BONE and OpenGL, I was there when it all died.
As you no doubt know, Be was founded by ex Apple and NeXT people, the only place some of the genius lives on is in Mac OS X where it inherited some of its technology from NeXTStep. Sure, its nowhere near as lightening fast given this iMac Core2Duo is only about as fast as BeOS was on a dual PII-400 – damn that eye candy!
I’m sure you too find Linux inelegant after using BeOS, Linux is still a long way from being ready. Quite frankly nothing does come close, but I had to move on as there’s still no media apps for the media OS. All the apps from Adobe and Steinberg that were coming died the day Be shot itself in the foot with the focus shift. That is the sad fact. Theres still so little chance of ever seeing any professional level apps, media, productivity or otherwise.
Btw, you mention Ubuntu? Did you know Mark Shuttleworth was rumoured to be interested in buying the BeOS source at one point? Apparently he only wanted it for the ‘desktop experience’ which would be ported to Linux.
Zeta is only just adding the features that were promised 5 years ago, and to be honest there are deeper problems with the old r5 kernel that really mean its a dead end (gcc 2.95 being one, the RAM limit being another). Haiku is the only way forward, but it too I fear is too little too late already despite the fantastic achievements.
Its a shame, I really did care once as passionately as you do, but as someone posted on here, it too makes me sad to see BeOS in its current state.
I dont can see any information about AbiWord to replace GobeProductive next timem there this infos comes from?
Yes AbiWord are ported to ZETA and it is a good App, but not so good like gobe. It is only a Tool for special things. I hope to convert Word documents better to ZETA, and i hope that AbiWord can read and write gobe documents at later developent sate.
I drove from Edmonton, Alberta to Menlo Park, California to see BeOS and buy a copy many years ago and at the time it was very interesting for me. Today BeOS is gone and Zeta looks very outdated and has nothing to offer me over the more modern OS’s. Vista out of the box does not impress me either but I know what it’s capable of (eg. MS Expression Blend )
Yeah, DRM lockdown. Go Vista go. Where are the MS fanboys.
that’s right. people are sick of being locked in by microsoft and apple. they are also tired of software that’s not easy to use and sluggish. but what are the other options?
I used every version of Zeta until 1.21. The OS itself has come along nicely and is very responsive. Otherwise, not so great. I don’t see driver support getting much better. A driver here a driver there… The audio driver situation is really not very good. Still no 3d hardware acceleration. Firefox is nice but it is clearly not a native app and it shows. Lack of Flash, not to mention many of the audio/video codecs are older versions that really need updating. Lack of apps and it doesn’t appear that many professional apps are going to see the light of day. I think that Zeta had a chance and missed it. I decided to give up on it. It is responsive and I think it is nice looking. But, you simply can’ get much done with it, and don’t try to web surf…that will about drive you crazy with all the websites most people go to on a daily basis that simply will not work.
Zeta is like having BeOS 5.5 (just to note that original BeOS only goes up to 5.1). Zeta is just a modified, somewhat more updated version of BeOS 5, which runs a little quicker & has a newer look & feel to it with some new drivers & programs.
Zeta & Haiku OS would benefit from going to gcc 4.x. It’d make updating & porting applications easier. One less thing to worry about. When gcc 4.x is used, then it’ll be a little better. This is a real hold up (slowing down progress), but Zeta/Haiku will lose some (or half?) gcc 2.95 programs if they switched over.(Haiku was said to be going gcc 2.95 for Version 1.0).
3d hardware acceleration requires OpenGL. Can’t make OpenGL drivers because need to sign NDA with Nvidia & ATI to get specifics for the video cards (only done with mainstream OSes) OR get Nvidia/ATI to provide 3d video drivers. Adobe Flash is closed source. Would require Adobe to provide it for Zeta, otherwise have to use “GNU’s Gnash” until then (port is in the works for Gnash).
Open source applications can be updated for Zeta. Ie: Firefox, but either isn’t because it works OK or may have been altered/workaround to compile with gcc 2.95? Most newer programs ask for gcc 3.0.4 or newer to compile – so, a few applications which can be “directly” ported over are not, because would require rewriting code to make it gcc 2.95 compliant. Going to gcc 4.x will be a “Big Step” & probably happen in 2008/2009.
When Haiku becomes more mainsteam, then it’ll attract more developers. More developers means, more drivers & more Linux/BSD ports, plus additional BeOS applications developed. OpenGL (3D) & Adobe Flash won’t happen for quite awhile though.
Firefox compiles with gcc2.95, although all other platforms use newer compilers. The Bezilla team is working very hard to make sure that it will continue to compile with gcc2.95.
It seems gcc.295 is more strict about syntax than newer compilers, but hasn’t needed any code changes except making a few innner classes friends and making sure static variables are declared. We might eventually hit an obstacle that will not be easily solved with gcc2.95 so Haiku built on gcc4 would be nice.
Maybe the best (the only) solution to keep active development on Zeta is “opensourcing” it.
Uhm, Haiku?
It’s the same ol’, same ol’… being worked on and sold by a different company. It is, in it’s own way, a form of Amiga. 🙂 Just pushed along from one company to the next, endlessly.
Haiku, on the other hand, is written from scratch to be the TRUE successor to BeOS. Zeta is just what was left of the “next version” of the original BeOS and tacked on from there.
yes but Haiku needs Zeta. they need it now because a usable OS today (which haiku is not) means software that will be available for haiku. Without zeta, the beos community would have evaporated long ago and nobody left to care once haiku is ready to take its place.
Haiku needs zeta later because while free distribution is good, Haiku will need paid developers to keep improving it. Haiku in a zeta box means publicity and retail placement and it could also come with patented things like codecs that can’t be included in a free Haiku distro. There’s also needed support.
Will magnussoft become the next redhat? They could if they really want to. Let’s see what happens but haiku won’t depend on it
Edited 2007-01-19 06:06
Linux is still not a good desktop OS today after many years of development and someone still thinks that Abi can replace a complete word processor and some device drivers here and there are full hardware support?
Don’t make me laugh, I love BeOS but I think it’s dead
You know, I TRULY enjoyed reading this thread! ALL of it.
It does re-affirm to me at least, that the Haiku team is RIGHT to pursue their goals and bring the project closer to its conclusion (R1 at least). From there on in, we’ll see all the armchair ceo’s, as they appear to be doing so now, casting their opinions as R2 progresses.
By then, inertia may well have increased the team will have picked up developers along the way. Apps, drivers will come.
Yes, BeOS up to and including Dano had it’s problems. Name ONE OS today that doesn’t have it’s own set of problems.
R5 was a truly awsome operating system experience for its time. I used BeOS from R3->. It was leagues ahead of the alternatives in many, many ways. Time has moved on…sure.
When the OS landscape as it is today is considered, NOTHING excites me that much. OSX is pretty, reasonably well supported, the Windows family disappoints me always…Vista included. Linux, as somebody already mentioned in this thread, is STILL not ready for your ordinary Joe and does seem pretty fudge like.
Quit bitching. Give the team some support, even just a nod to the fantastic job done so far. Sooner or later the general public will have a community owned, maintained, ‘modern’ OS for zeros which is end user orientated, elegant and which doesn’t require in excess of 1Gb ram in order to feel responsive.
Be.Inc is history. BeOS is dead…Haiku is not IMHO, not by a long way. Just my 0.2 grobs and Ducketts.
Thats what I meant to write………
Awww! Shucks! M. Yours was a top comment too!
Given some time and attention by talented (and hopefully soon growing) bunch of individuals, there is no reason that Haiku cannot be up to a very comparable level with other OSes in the near future.
Besides the aforementioned Mac and NeXT influences, BeOS also drew some very good inspiration from SGI and IRIX, as well as Amiga.
It was also the very first ‘Live CD’ that I remember seeing. Not saying it was the first,just that I saw, so cool your flames! It worked very, very well and was availible along about 4.5.2 for x86. I used it to fix more than a few hosed Win9x systems.
As for the detractors here, I don’t believe the RAM limit is much of an issue anymore on Zeta or Haiku, and there has been work done on moving to a newer version of GCC. Don’t underestimate how quickly many of the pieces can fall into place with a system designed along the priciples of BeOS, tightly integrated in function yet modular enough to upgrade without the catastropic updates that MS is so well known for.
I also applaude the Haiku team and the progress they’ve made so far. Not just resting on their laurels, there has been much discussion on the GlassElevator mailing list about the direction to be taken with R2.