“The other day something happened that left me a little speechless. A friend of mine brought over a copy of Yellowtab’s Zeta OS RC1.” Read the review at Beta10, but please note that they are reviewing an older version of Zeta, RC1, while RC2+more_patches are already available. Yesterday OSNews featured shots of ZintrO, YellowTAB’s newest work, and ZetaNews has some info as well on this.
Zeta 1.0-RC1 Preview at Beta10
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Firstly they review RC1 when RC2 is available. Then the entire review is based on how much Zeta sucks, how yellowtab have ripped of Dano and how it can never be a true BeOS replacement.
Bad review…
Zeta is what’s bad. If you’re reviewing a good thing than your review is positive, otherwise – what do you expect? That’s the whole point. And thanks to OSnews for pointing that out.
I agree, it’s a lousy review. I don’t know how it made it to OSNews in the first place, this is worse than the bad articles that gets posted here. Just an endless bitchin.
However, I agree with most of what he sais. yT seems to focus on the wrong things and includes way too many applications. They should be more careful about which apps they include and what they are named. They should provide a complete working solution and not an expensive shareware-CD with apps that are there because they are allowed to put them there.
Even if a product is bad you can tell the reader that in a more informative and constructive way. This “review” doesn’t have any depth, it’s badly written and lacks structure. It feels like he tried Zeta for 10 minutes then wrote a small comment about it and never bothered proof-reading or anything.
RC1 is not current, why bother with writing and posting a review to it? IF you think it this way, RC1 is *not* even sold anymore. It does not make anymore sense than reviewing beOS R5 for that matter.
Why on earth publish a review of RC1 when RC2 is already available ? That doesn’t do justice to Zeta nor does it serve anyone interested in the present state of affairs.
a nother? Come on!
The review was alright. It’s kind of sad to see read about what Zeta is doing to BeOS, but the guy _really_ needed to do just a basic spellcheck…
OTOH, I just installed BeOS MAX3 on an old Celeron 400 I had kicking around. It has to be the nicest BeOS setup I’ve seen yet! I’ll admit that I bought 5.0 Pro when it was new, and was rather disappointed at how little extra had been put into it. Max V3 was much better. Now, if only I could get BeOS to work properly on my NEC Versa LX. It kills the mouse after you hit a key on the keyboard. Very strange…
That was the worst software review I’ve read in a while. If the guy doesn’t even know how to use spellcheck and basic sentence construction why is he reviewing a product from a technical field. Saying something “sucks” is uninformative and unproffesional. I plan on getting the Deluxe edition of Zeta this weekend and give it a go. Other reviews of this product have been much more charitable.
The reviewers website is beta too. You keep hitting next next at it changes the pages but diplays the same content.
Yea, that guy seriously needs to run a spell checker BEFORE he puts webpages up, and then ends up having them posted as a link from a site like OSNews.
The guy has just also learnt a serious lesson on installers… ALWAYS check out WHAT the advanced options give you BEFORE you just select the default BASIC option and have your HDD erased.
Bitching about added packages is also terrible IMHO, lets be honest here, yT is up against some very stiff competition; Linux and the BSD’s are not only free, but crammed to the hilt with bundled software, thats an attractive package for not only homes but small businesses alike… being able to download a CD or three, installing and having your whole office up and running in a matter of hours and at NO cost from shrinkwrap software or licenses just cannot be beat.. yT has to come somewhere close to the current offerings in todays market.
Sorry, But I really think this article is not worthy of OSNews reporting.
Sure, might have been a crappy review, but he sure was right about most of it. I have seen no signs from Zeta that they are out for anything other than money. I’m all for OBOS myself.
anyone knowns about plans of a java machine for zeta? (sorry for my bad english)
At some point in his article he said that zeta turned beos into something like linux, like a negative statement. I think it was about the installer. He sais he’s installed hundreds of Linux distros.. Well, hundreds should include Lindows and Xandros and other newbie-friendly distros with simplified installers – so no, zeta’s complicated installer holds a place of it’s own, it can’t become like linux’ installer, because linux installers have evolved tremendously and are very clean these days.
OK, maybe he was trying to compare it to slackware’s text install in terms of complexity and options available.
I hope he isn’t right about Zeta. I was looking forward to see their official release – but at this moment, in my head, Zeta is just original beos with some packages glued from somewhere else and a lot of smoke. Only in for the money.
If I am wrong, and someone is more in the know, feel free to enlighten me!:)
Its sad how the constantly splitting BeOS community has many people that are holding off for OBOS, a ‘product’ that is at best years away from getting anywhere, and at worse will never be completed.
Heck, it would make more sense ‘to be all for Longhorn’. There is a better than average chance that MS will complete it, unlike OBOS.
> Other reviews of this product have been much more charitable
I think that’s the problem
When you do a software review you give equal emphasis to both the positive and the negative. This gives a clear view of the state of things. Nothing is ALL bad.
Oh yes, absolutely, some things might be ALL or 99% proof bad.
Quote
All they have done is to take Dano, put in tons of extra stuffing, make a couple of very small, and pretty bad changes, put there name on it, and now they want to sell it for more money then Windows XP Home.
End Quote
That’s called synthesis: a pretty good summary of YT failure to add any value to a third party’s (noninvolved) alpha OS (Palm’s BeOS Dano), and to pretend to charge for it more than Microsot Windows XP.
The reviewer was right on the money, just add a CD with the extra stuff, try to add valuable extra stuff and forget about using Dano “to make a bookshelf out of mashed potatoes” (D. Hopkins on another disaster). That viral software approach has nothing to do with the clean, simple and fast BeOS signature we BeOS lovers have known and long for.
It’s sad but realistic to me. The BeOS sequel *could be* OpenBeOS, it is certainly not this Zeta. For a slightly updated BeOS I’ll have to stick with the BeOS Developer ed (Beosonline.com).
why the new icon for BeOS stories?
This review was more like a hurried Forum post made while the boss wasn’t looking, or a quick e-mail to the guy accross the hall. How could a website publish that crap? And IMO, OSNews should have ignored it.
Despite the poor quality of the writing, the author does make some good points:
First, there’s no reason why an alternative/hobby OS should cost so much. As much as Windows XP? Ridiculous.
Second, I was under the impression that YT had written original software to be included with Zeta including games, drivers, and tools. This contradicts the review. Can anyone confirm? Zeta does include a licensed copy of the old Gobe Producive. Odd the reviewer doesn’t mention anything it.
If the installer is as cluttered and “ugly” as the reviewer claims (claims, but doesn’t back up with a screenshot…), then it’s a real shame. BeOS was famous for being light and simple. I like the reviewer’s idea on having the add-on software as a seperate CD, not part of the basic installation options.
-Bob
well what I don’t get is the following:
Why would someone still bother to review RC1??
This while we are lots of fixes further and RC2 is out already.
It really doesn’t make any sense to me
the icon is Zeta’s logo and seeing the story is about Zeta then that’s why the different icon i guess.
The review i thought was quite poorly spell-checked and there is actually a fifth page….change the 4 to a 5 when you have finished reading page 4. or http://www.beta10.com/yellow5.htm
And given that RC2 is out i cant see the point of the review anyway.
cheers
peter
If OBOS will never be completed, Zeta will also die, because Yellowtab cant patch closed source software forever. Nobody there can write a kernel. And no, they earn not enough money to buy the sources from Palm.
What I want to know:
you seem to have so much inside information, where did you find the budget of yellowTAB? I want to look at that please…
And how do you know there is nobody there capable enough to work on a kernel?
I did this review, and I know my spelling was really bad. the thing is I made a really really long review. Then once I thought it over I started rewriting it, making it smaller. I tried to post it to soon, and then it was half done. and now it’s all messed up. But as for RC1. thats what I had, and there was not enough to read on it anywhere else. And I wanted people to know the truth. If I would have spent money on it first, without knowing, I would have been really mad. So I thought maybe I could save someone from that. I also put in both updates, so this RC1 should have been more up to date then a review from a month ago.