In July 2005, OSNews reviewed the 1.0 version of what was then YellowTAB Zeta. I concluded: “I have a clear-cut impression of what Zeta R1 is: it is by far the best ‘distribution’ of BeOS currently available. The hardware support is, when compared to r5, significantly better. Stability-wise, Zeta R1 is a huge leap forward when compared to older versions. Some areas still need work; but they are mostly minor things, nothing that will stop you from using this operating system as your full-time, primary system.” A lot has changed over the past 15 months; YellowTAB went belly-up, Magnussoft took over the development of Zeta, and to top it off, Zeta went multiuser. Not too long ago, Mangussoft released Zeta 1.5; here is my review. As most of you will know, I am a huge fan of the BeOS. I still find that, relatively speaking, the BeOS is the best operating system ever designed. The addition of ‘relatively speaking’ is of course vital, since there is no way the original BeOS, Haiku, or Zeta can stand up to the behemoths of the desktop operating system world like Windows, OS X, and Linux. Therefore, I find comparing Zeta to these operating systems a pointless exercise; Zeta (or r5 for that matter) will suck compared to these two.
Hence, you must review Zeta in the proper context. The development team behind Zeta is small (I would hazard a guess that the design team behind Vista’s start button is larger), so you cannot expect them to achieve parity with the big ones. So, you must compare Zeta to comparable operating systems; however, which ones would that be? ReactOS? Syllable? SkyOS? That would be unfair to those projects; they are much smaller than Zeta in both userbase as well as developerbase. The conclusion one can draw is that Zeta 1.5 must be compared to its predecessors, like the 1.0 and 1.21 releases (as well r5). This is exactly what I will be doing in this review.
Installation and hardware recognition
Since I received the 1.5 update, I used the 1.21 install disc to install a fresh installation of Zeta 1.21 on which I could apply the update. Zeta’s installation has changed little between 1.0 and 1.21. It still uses the Paragon partitioning engine, with the same limitations as before: you can only resize partitions when there is unpartitioned space, and you cannot delete partitions either. In other words, you are forced to use a pre-existing partition. You can tweak the installation to only include those packages you want, but the defaults are in fact pretty sane (earlier versions of Zeta had a habit of installing lots of useless packages).
When the installation is done, you can reboot in order to apply the 1.5 update. The update uses an installer to perform its duties, and it works like a breeze. You are properly informed of what is going on (although the messages in English could use some love; the English is horrible), and during the installation you can continue to use your computer (by the way, for better-safe-than-sorry reasons, I would advice against doing that). When the actual installation is done, you are asked to enter a ‘root’ password, after which a reboot is necessary.
Hardware recognition is getting better with each release. Drivers are continuously added and improved, and Zeta is still the best ‘distribution’ of BeOS when it comes to getting it to run on your hardware. When it comes to peripherals, however, it is a different story. My printer works (as it did in Zeta 1.0), but sadly, my CanoScan LiDE 30 still refuses to give any sign of life in Zeta 1.5. My new digital camera (Pentax Optio 50) would not work either, for some mysterious, unknown reason. It is a standard camera, nothing fancy. The worst problem, however, remains Zeta’s inability to properly work with USB hubs. I have two of them (one 1.0 and one 2.0) but neither of them work. Zeta recognizes them; they are visible in the USB panel, but devices connected to it will fail to operate (i.e. my USB mouse which works fine when connected to my computer directly, but not when connected via a hub).
Applications
Another new application I found more interesting: Audiotagger. This application allows you to transfer information found in .mp3 tags (such as artist, title, album) to BeFS attributes (on a per-track basis, or just all files at once). This is very important since BeFS can only find information stored in attributes. So, after transferring all information from tags to attributes, you can find your music using BeFS queries. The application also allows you to edit track information without copying between the two resources. The interface can be a little confusing at first sight.
The other major roadblock is the lack of a decent office suite. Zeta 1.5 still ships the 7 (!) year old GoBE Productive, which is hopelessly outdated. I do not see this situation improving any time soon, since GoBE has no interest in BeOS anymore, and porting OpenOffice would mean little for me, as OpenOffice does not belong on the BeOS (that is the BeOS purist in me speaking). It is slow and heavy, and a port to Zeta will be riddled with bugs, rendering it even more unusable than it already is (you guessed it, I am no fan of OOo). Even though AbiWord was supposed to be in the 1.5 release, all I can find are its SVG icons; the actual application is not there.
For other tasks, Zeta comes equipped with enough applications to get you going. It comes with the BeAM email client, Firefox 2.0.2, as well as demo versions of Refraction, Wonderbrush, and Pixelshop. It has an iPod sync utility, as well as various audio editors. In the video department, it of course comes with YellowTAB’s own video editor as well as DVD Player (VideoLAN Client). Magnussoft has “integrated” VLC with Firefox, so that when you browse to a video file online, it will play in VLC when clicked. Oddly enough, they also set .sfw files (Flash) to be played with VLC, even though VLC cannot handle those.
Magnussoft also included a few emulators (including graphical frontends) in this release, two of which I want to highlight: DOSbox and Qemu. Using the DosBox emulator, I was able to play some old DOS games (Keen!), even though I had to edit the DOSbox config file in order to get some decent performance. The QemuVM frontend had problems in that it would not work correctly when using physical disks instead of image files.
WilmaCon is the application used to mount SAMBA shares on the Windows network, but sadly, it was unable to connect properly with my shares on my Vista machine. I blame this inability on Vista, by the way; I am assuming Microsoft has changed the way SAMBA works on Vista, and that Magnussoft has not yet had the opportunity to fix the issues.
Multiuser
In the Preferences application, you can create new users, which will have their home directories in
There are things that do work, correctly. The desktop of the new user is indeed personalised, and the same goes for the Tracker and Deskbar settings. You also cannot edit/write outside of the new user’s home directory, but no messages appear when trying to do so; it will just not work. An alert of some sort would be appreciated.
In other words, multiuser in Zeta 1,5 still needs quite some work. This is certainly understandable (it is the first release, after all), but still, I do experience it as a slight let-down. A slight one, only, because I never really needed multi-user anyway. I mean, I am the only person who uses this computer.
General impressions and conclusions
Overall, stability has improved in ZETA. Especially Firefox does not crash every ten minutes anymore. The new applications are all stable (no crashes yet); the black sheep, however, of Zeta 1.5 is the Preferences application. In my Zeta 1.0 review I already complained about the fact that yT had chosen to create one Preference application, instead of the several individual panels used in r5. In Zeta 1.0 and 1.21, Preferences was fairly stable, but in 1.5, it crashes. A lot. Especially the Keyboard and Backgrounds sections are crash prone.
Slowly but surely, it feels as if Zeta is coming together. With each release, it is getting better, with better drivers and improved stability. Magnussoft and Bernd Korz are obviously listening to user feedback (the Communicator and multiuser being the prime examples of this), and on top of that, they are finetuning the amount of applications installed by default.
They are really trying to make the system as user friendly as possible, evidenced by the fact that even a major update such as 1.5 can be installed on an existing installation, without the need for a fresh installation. The service pack which upgrades zeta from 1.5 to 1.51 also installed in a breeze.
Is Zeta 1.5 a worthy upgrade over 1.0 or 1.21? I would say yes; the stability improvements, the multiuser support, and the new applications all add up to added value over previous releases. I would advice Magnussoft to make a full release available as soon as possible, instead of only the upgrade release. After the big ones (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, BSD) Zeta certainly is the most viable alternative operating system.
Upon reboot the first thing you will notice is that the artwork of the boot screen has been altered; newer icons, as well as the Magnussoft Zeta logo instead of the previous YellowTAB one. when booting is done, you are presented with a login screen, which supports user pictures. Since no new user had yet been created, it only showed the ‘root’ user. As a long-time BeOS fan I would have preferred it if the root user was called Baron, by the way. Bernd Korz also sent me a beta release of the first Zeta 1,5 service pack, due in the coming weeks. It fixes a few bugs found in the 1.5 release, and upgrades Zeta from version 1.5 to 1.51.
A few new applications have been added to Zeta, one of which is the CD burning applications MediaFire, which is based on the UNIX tools cdrecord, cdrdao, mkisofs, and so on. The “base” version can only write CDs, the “pro” version (which costs EUR 19,-) allows you to burn DVDs. This application does what it is supposed to do, and does it well.
The most important new application, however, is Communicator. In my 1.0 review, I stated that Zeta seriously failed in the instant messaging department; I advised YellowTAB to take a look at the famous im_kit, and they did. They gave im_kit an easier to use interface (im_kit required some BeFS query experience in order to be used properly). It can connect to AM, MSN, ICQ, Yahoo!, Jabber, GoogleTalk, and IRC. The application still needs some serious love though; I could not connect to my ICQ account, while MSN support is abysmal, at best (some messages do not arrive at my friends’ computers). The AIM protocol is well supported though. Since this is the first public release, I suppose it will get better over time. It has already improved a lot since the earlier beta versions I have used. In any case, I am anxiously waiting for it to get more stable because IM support was one of the two major roadblocks for me.
The big new thing in 1.5 is of course the support for multiuser. Contrary to poular belief, BeOS was not a strictly single-user operating system; for POSIX compliance, a rudimentary form of file permissions was included. However, every file was always owned by ‘Baron’ (you). PhosphurOS, an illegal dano distribution, offered multi-user on BeOS in 2004, and now, Zeta offers the same functionality. Sadly, though, it does not seem to work as it should.
/boot/users. You can then log out and log in as the newly created user.
There are numerous problems though. The file properties panel of a file created and owned by root says the file is owned by ‘thom’ (the new user) while this is in fact not true. There are more things that do not seem to make any sense. When you click the ‘home’ shortcut on the new user’s desktop, it will take you to root’s home, instead of the new user’s home directory in /boot/users (see the screenshot).
If you would like to see your thoughts or experiences with technology published, please consider writing an article for OSNews.
Thanks for the overview of 1.5 Thom.
A few points:
I would disagree with you on the point about what to compare it with – if one intends to use Zeta as one’s primary OS then it must be compared with Windows, Linux, BSD and OSX. I see what your point is, but I think that if Zeta cannot stand on its own merits against these, then it remains a secondary OS/hobby OS for most users. Which is fine in itself if that is what is wanted.
Having to pay for DVD burning is a bit of a downer, especially given the price of getting Zeta in the first place. Again I understand why this might be (rewarding the devs!), but it could be just too much to ask. Maybe not.
“After the big ones (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, BSD) Zeta certainly is the most viable alternative operating system.”
Well, the same could be said of eComstation. It’s not as pretty, but it has the WPS, OpenOffice, MySQL, Apache, fairly recent Java, etc, etc. I think that what is best is going to be very subjective, so I would have to disagree with the “certainly” you used. Users of other OS’s will have their own favourites.
Other than that though, a good read with good illustrative screenshots. Thanks.
thanks
I would guess the vast majority of BeOS/Zeta users are using multiple computers anyway so the fact that BeOS can’t do everything yet is not really a serious problem although the Office side is the weakest link for me, Gobe does look pretty old today.
Perhaps the USB hub problem was a not enough power issue for unpowered hubs. I have a USB1 hub that works fine with R5 with KB & optical mouse but fails on another W2K PC, KB demands too much power, maybe the R5 PC puts out more current than the W2K PC, who knows.
Perhaps the USB hub problem was a not enough power issue for unpowered hubs.
My hubs are externally powered.
Shame about BeOS – if Be had managed to keep it going I might be using it even now instead of Linux.
Personally I’m putting my hopes behind Haiku but Zeta could eventually merit serious consideration for someone who doesn’t care about FOSS software.
I don’t care about FOSS, but I’m still gunning for Haiku. Why?
Zeta seems very far from viable.
Thanks for the review! I’m still behind the times at Zeta 1.2, haven’t made the upgrade yet to a Magnussoft version. Any chance you could try if it boots on an Intel Mac? When I tried the 1.21 LiveCD it went through all the icons in the splash screen and then just sat there.
I am with you I am still running 1.2 myself. I am hoping to get the upgrade in a month or two.
Is it possible to install 1.5 from scratch with no upgrade?
I remain committed to seeing Haiku succeed and become the standard for carrying on where BeOS left off. If Haiku could shape itself into an ARB and their code be viewed as a reference implementation, I’d be pretty happy with that. It would allow proprietary solutions to thrive on the “added value” of Windows, navigate past the elitism of OS X, and nuke the ego fragmentation of Linux. Win-win-win.
Waiting for Walter?
Well, the wait will be long. I’ve been following Zeta since its release, but even leveraging the Dano codebase it hasn’t gone very far. Overpriced, badly managed. Berndt at least communicates with the Haiku folks, but it comes off as an attempt to tread water.
Glad to see the original Be code alive in some form, but I still wish some “benevolent force” (read: wealthly geek!) like Shuttleworth would purchase the Be IP rights back from Access (and Zeta from Magnussen) and turn it over to the Haiku Foundation. Someone needs to keep funding Axel (and a few others); adding the Zeta developers would certainly help R1 see release form before the end of the decade.
With hardly any commentary on this article (where else is Zeta routinely discussed?) and practically zero buzz about Zeta, I wonder what the value of this particular venture is in real currency anymore.
BTW, I’ve read a top ReactOS kernel dev is getting picked up by Google, MS or Apple. How long until a key Haiku dev or two are paid what they’re worth in the free market?
/gripe off. It’s been nearly 10 years since we first saw BeOS. Think about that.
Can’t say I’m impressed by Zeta’s management or the IP ownership claims. So far, the whole thing just looks like a money pit to me. Positioning Haiku as an ARB could help attract more vendor interest, as a way of routing around Windows and Linux issues.
In any case, the big problem of Microsoft’s vendor contracts still exists. Banning them from lock-in, discounting, and advertising sponsership looks like the way ahead, but that requires action at a regulatory level.
I’m surprised Sony never picked up BeOS for the Playstation 3. Haiku and the Playstation 3 would go well together, and getting a company with their clout and resources behind Haiku would be useful.
Funny you mentioned Sony, did you ever see their joint project eVilla, didn’t work out so well (discussed here years ago). They were in the computer store around here, nobody noticed it.
I don’t think any large company or benefactor can ever support BeOS unless it is completely free of Windows involvement so no Sony. Just realized MS also means Mark Shuttleworth.
I don’t think any large company or benefactor can ever support BeOS unless it is completely free of Windows involvement so no Sony.
Sony turned down Microsoft as a supplier for the Playstation 3 OS, if I recall. In any case, I’m sure Sony has plenty of ideas boiling away of their own. I guess, we’ll just have to wait and see.
BGA is already working for Google, so there is at least one Haiku dev there
Were it not for BeOS, I wouldn’t have the job I have now.
I’m not involved in any BeOS / Haiku development at work, but the skills / knowledge I gained from expiramenting with it and learning to program for it (I taught myself C++ after having been taught Java in school) have brought me to my current job.
Had I not spent a weeks part-time pay in high school on the R5 Pro / Bible bundle, I may not be sitting here today. I consider it the best $80 I’ve ever spent, bar none.
So while I may not have time to work on Haiku nearly as much as I’d like, I still follow it, lurk on the lists, and occasionally commit a line here or there. I wish I could get paid to work with Haiku. I really wish I could. That’s just not a reasonable goal right now.
But who knows? A lot can change in a year… or 10.
torrent link please
What’s wrong with login screen and wallpaper resizing? It looks really crappy to me… is it so difficult to make it properly?
Hi Thom, I can’t find out what your preview is good for. I guess there are enough of happy Zeta-OS users, who are not willing to see that this system is far behind its predecessors BeOS in many points.
Until today I haven’t found an official statement at the Zeta-OS-site where AbiWord is or why it is not delivered as promised. In the Zeta-OS forum I found that the sources are out. But it seems that no one get it running caused by missing libraries. Bernd asked in the forum for developers – again I have to ask: Where is an official statement or invitation for developers.
Apologies that MultiUser isn’t working perfectly yet I found somewhere in the forum too (for me these informations are not official if I have to search for it).
Sorry, can you tell me why these informations are hidden? I tell you what I guess, the reasons are: Zeta-OS wants our money. But sorry I don’t have enough of it to waste for promises and/or dreams.
If I think a project is worth to be supported with my money I like to be kept clear.
For example I’m also a registered SkyOS user and I can’t remember someone tells me: we did this and it’s working perfectly. In SkyOS progress it’s more transparent, you know what’s going on (Java, mySQL, etc. are included in a better states as they are in Zeta/haiku/BeOS). The fact is, no one offers me one upgrade after another for cash. I payed once to be involved in the developing releases and got the final version 5 when SkyOS will be finished for free.
Sorry but Zeta nor the upgrades of it aren’t worth the price they demand. I can’t see where Zeta is going to. (Will it be a haiku distro when haiku-os r1 will be out?)
Why don’t you like OOo but Firefox and AbiWord? As a purist of BeOS you should still work with NetPositive.
And Firefox (BTW. version is 2.0.0.2 not 2.0.2) is as I read in the forum far away from stable (in zeta multiuser environment) and it’s not developed by magnussoft/Zeta.
WilmaCon: Because I haven’t read it anywhere else before, and I guess it’s important to say, WilmaCon is just a samba CLIENT there’s no server yet (problably later). So you can access from Zeta to SMB-shares but not in the other direction.
For your problem with WilmaCon and Vista probably this article helps you:
http://www.builderau.com.au/blogs/codemonkeybusiness/viewblogpost.h…
My conclusion:
I agree with your comments about MultiUser. MultiUser was one of the reasons I ordered the upgrade for, I find out it’s unusable as far as I understand MultiUser environments.
Another reason to upgrade was AbiWord, but it isn’t included. There are no official informations and I have to ask you, what did we get for the money?
For me Zeta-OS is currently more in a state of an HOBBY OS, like Syllable or SkyOS, more than BeOS was in its days. And I think it’s far away from “Professional” how magnussoft/Bernd T. Korz titles the Zeta-OS 1.5 upgrade.
The comunuty have the AbiWord 2.x source
http://dev.osdrawer.net/projects/abiword/
I noticed with 1.1, 1.2 etc. that there are a lot of things broken especially concerning some apps. I had major crashes of the OS while useing wifi, I had to connect multiple times to get an ip adress (DHCP has always been a PITA with BeOS). Lack of ACPI made it a PITA on my laptop in general, it would become extremely hot as well.
Thom, a few questions;
Have they finally made DAE over SCSI?
Does mp3 playback from NTFS become slugish when you quickly seek with Soundplay and/or SP crashes?
Are it’s (icon) file loading times still as slow?
I hope they’ll do some serious QA and maybe after a few years I’ll use it again 🙂
So there is a severe lack of usable software, a lack of hardware support, some major bugs, you have to pay for the OS and then extra for basic functionality like DVD burning.
Apart from that are there any disadvantages to using this OS?
I bought Zeta from Yellowtab, but I still have not upgraded to the Magnasoft version. They make it such a pain to prove your a customer…. send CD in, customer number, money,fingerprints, DNA sample, doctor certified stool sample…. Okay, maybe not that bad, but everytime I go to Germany, they lose my luggage. How do I know they won’t lose all proof of ownership?
Even worse, I’d like to purchase some of the games they are producing for Zeta, but they are only for the Magnasoft version of Zeta.
well, some people have arrived at their OS nirvana already. It sounds as though you are totally happy with your OS of choice whatever it is (you didn’t say).
However, you really should’nt knock other peoples choices or the product that they choose simply because the criteria for making that choice doesn’t match yours.
Personally I’m delighted that you seem to want for nothing in your OS world, but bear in mind others might want something else in theirs.
Cost, bugs, hardware support, software availability are synonymous with platform/OS development. Some people are more than willing to accept the above frustrations in their search to find an ideal OS for their exact needs, sheesh! I’ve been looking for 10 years and have come close only once or twice.
I know I’m responding to potential flame-bait but youpeoplepissmeoff…each to his own.
Torrent link please
Cute. Didn’t think you all deleted posts. Ill just have to be more aggressive
This software isn’t free, douchebag.
Nah, it’s not free–it’s stolen! Same difference….
–bornagainpenguin