“As of today Magnussoft has started shipping the first Zeta 1.5 cd’s to their customers. Although 1.5 is almost a month delayed the developers did add lot’s of features in the last phase of development. These include an Abiword port, drivers for PCL6 and Radeon, and others. With 1.5 being shipped, Magnussoft also introduces ‘MZSP’ or Magnussoft Zeta Service Packs. MZSP’s will be freely available in the future as downloads. To install MZSP’s you will need to have your Zeta version activated, and they will only install on the most recent version. Alongside the MZSP’s there is also an update application planned so you can keep your system up to date automatically.”
On the Magnussoft website, they are only selling an upgrade to Zeta 1.21.
There is no full version of 1.5 for someone to buy if they have never bought Zeta before.
That seems odd…
Maybe they want to avoid having to pay license fees?
I love operating systems… I love to try them out… I reinstall so often it’s crazy to most people. Yet I can’t seem to justify spending 99 Euros on an operating system that is so … I don’t know a good word… marginal? Obviously people are buying zeta though… can someone tell me why?
I guess the best answer is this: Its just a pleasant OS to use. It has tons of apps, the UI is clean and consistent and the community is really first rate.
Take for example, playing MP3s. Take your file, double click it and it will just play. No hassles, no fuss.
The filesystem is very fast and the queries are a cool feature. Let’s say you have a collection of MP3s and you want to find those by Billy Idol. You can search and have the result then when you add a new Billy Idol MP3 it is added to your query.
that’s understandable. but my main concern is that I’d spend so much money and then the os will disappear…
I know that if I install windows or mac os x, which both cost something near zeta’s price, at least I know microsoft and apple aren’t going anywhere (i.e. they wont go out of business), and I know at least a few people who run os x and more people who run windows so if something weird happens I can call them.
Even with free (as in beer) OSes like linux (any distro) or bsd (any flavor) I know I can find some other geeks that would be able to help me out if something goes wrong and I have a secure feeling (not secure as in encryption) that at least linux and bsd are not going to disappear (regardless of what netcraft says about bsd ha!)
Now I’m not trying to say one OS is better than another… don’t get me wrong… I’m just not sure what I would gain from spending so much on zeta when there are both proprietary and free/oss alternatives that cost less and/or are more popular?
The OS is a pleasure to use. BUT our tons of apps is 50 of the same thing, like image viewers. There are a few choice apps like Wonderbrush. Also, the query system is also available on other OSes, such as OSX now. With better indexing and search and organisation abilities (see apps like DevonThink & yep). BeOS lost it’s edge. It’s getting stagnant and duller by the day. ZETA won’t save it. ZETA is IMHO adding no value to what R5 does- yeah I said it. Haiku is a great attempt, but it’s in the hobbyist zone still.
And yeah, I used BeOS & ZETA. I’m one of the old-timers. Still a beta tester, too. I just need to get around to partsing off my BeOS collection now…
Kancept, hope you’ll return to the scene after Haiku R1 then…?
Edited 2007-03-01 21:21
I would buy this if they had a download version. But I don’t want to pay that cost and then have to wait days to get the product. 🙁
There is a Live CD available for download. Why not try the OS that way?
I have tried it. I would actually buy it and use it on one of my extra machines. Maybe even shop it to my customers if they had a download version.
Like I can buy eComStation by download. (Full version)
They dont do it because they found that people were having too many problems burning it, so they stopped offering a downloadable ISO.
Shipping is fairly fast. I paid for mine and got it four days later.
That burning process needs to be worked out. Or they should offer the download and then if people have a problem then they could come back and opt for the ship method.
I still want to check it out though. I really liked the BEOS and I like the Zeta demo.
I think I will
(i.e. try the live cd version)
Edited 2007-02-28 18:45
I can’t wait to get my paws on an updated Abiword!
but how does it compare with Haiku (which I’m running in a VM)?
Alot more stable. Don’t get me wrong, I love Haiku, but right now its pre alpha and fairly buggy.
Two completely different animals.
Zeta is based off of the beta (alpha?) of BeOS R6 (codename Dano).
Dano was never released or finalized.
Haiku is a complete re-implementation of BeOS R5 (including binary compatability) with a few enchancements (some of the known glaring bugs were fixed, networking is being built as was intended for the Dano release). It is open source and distributed under the MIT license.
It’s more complete. Haiku is a hopefully-soon-complete reimplementation of BeOS R5, where Zeta was started on the unreleased BeOS R5.1 codebase years ago, which is why you can do a few things that you can’t do with Haiku right now – switching it to a different language, burning CDs, creating multiple user accounts, etc.
Will there be a Zeta 1.5 LiveCD? It’s very important, as with no hardware compatibility list, people won’t know if the latest version runs better than the last. I want to check if my Intel 945GM graphics and 3945ABG wireless work in 1.5 (I know an Intel Extreme driver was in the works towards the end of last year)
Their naming system is also rather confusing, as this is Zeta 1.5 Professional upgrade. Why 1.5 and Professional? Will we see Standard and non-upgrades called Zeta 1.5?
Edited 2007-02-28 19:10
Torrent link please.
Haiku (still alpha)
http://haiku-os.org/downloads#images
Zeta
Commercial: if you want it buy it! Magnussoft team does communicate and contributes code to Haiku, so it does help move the os forward
I would like to know how many people will buy this. Just to get the facts and to compare against Linux Distros, OS X and so on.
I really like BeOS. But I don’t like Zeta too much. The want 15€ for an update, for service pack 1. That means I should pay for the bugs they made?
And I testet Zeta 1.0, unfortunatly it was not very stable. I would like to try 1.5; but imo it’s too expensive.
Which update do you mean? According to IsComputerOn, “The Service Packs will be available free of charge to every registered user”
Version 1.5 includes multi-user capability for the first time, which is comparatively bigger than any of the improvements you’d pay for Vista or Leopard IMO.
of course that’s a _bigger_ improvment. But it’s nothing new. You’ll pay less for XP Home and get multi-user capability, too.
Maybe I’d feel differently if I’d bought Zeta before (it wouldn’t work on my machine) – it’s your money at the end of the day – but I’d rate value in terms of what was in the previous release. If I considered it a pre-requisite, I wouldn’t have paid for version 1.0.
People have issues burning the image because it contains a BeFS image… and most wankers cant wrap their head around it
Ok, I went to Magnussoft website and first time around I didn’t find any reference about Zeta.
Second time around I noticed that tiny link to Zeta in the left sidebar.
Looks like some kind of games are their main products and Zeta is not advertised much.
The information is rather slim on their website.
And the website is kind of weird design, so is the community forum.
Price at 99 euro is high for an OS that’s trying to break into the market.
And I understand it needs activation?
If a company wants to attract customers in an already saturated market then it needs to give away the product for free, at least as an introductory offer, and make it so it’s as little hassle as possible for people to install and use, i.e. no stupid activation.
So who’d be stupid enough to pay them 99 euro when there are so many far superior and free (both beer and freedom) alternatives like Linux and BSC’s?!
This company is soooo set to fail.
I ordered all products (except Wonderbrush) and I am going to start a full review as soon as I get them.
This is what I ordered:
Zeta 1.21
Zeta 1.5 Pro update
MediaFire Pro
Amiga Classix Gold
Airline Tycoon Deluxe
Robin Hood: Legend of Sherwood
note: The reason I didn’t order Wonderbrush is that I already own copies of Refraction and Pixel32 and I believe a third drawing program would be an overkill.
Edited 2007-03-01 10:32
All I need is a beta of Max4 😉
Wonderbrush is a different to refraction and looks like the best of them all.
Hi, Ive been trying different OS’s for 10 years now and beos was the only i really loved using, osx which ive been using i just sold my mac cos i thought it was a boring os to use and never really liked linux. Beos feels like Amiga OS nice and clean and simple and looks nice
Iam goin to try this new Zeta intill haiku comes out