Mario and Borg of Polish BeOS Users’ Group wrote a review of Zeta DeluxeEdition 1.0 RC2. The quick and dirty english translation is available here.
Another yellowTAB Zeta Review
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Eugenia Loli
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That’s (sadly) the most fair review i saw :O
Yes and no. I think you have to look at some reviews based on their BeOS experience – are they comparing it to R5 or Windows? Many complaints of “not enough new stuff, just added programs from BeBits, slower boot time, etc.” are aimed more at current BeOS users.
I would think that a user new to BeOS should look at other reviews. Those of us who’ve used R5 know about the speedy boot times and what’s available on BeBits. Brand new users don’t know about this and won’t be able to immediately learn that stuff and have no base of comparison when reading such a review. I still think for a user new to BeOS, Zeta’s the way to go.
That’s not to say that the reviewers don’t raise good points. It’s just that some things might be more important to current users versus things that are important to new users.
My two cents, of course.
I installed a copy of Zeta RC2 of my machine which specs are listed below:
Athlon XP 2200
512MB DDR
Nvidia Geforce 3 TI 220
The installation crashed three times when I tried to initilize a partition with BeFS. Once installed networking support was strangely completetly disabled so I couldn’t connect to the Internet. When I enabled networking support it kept forgetting my settings every time I rebooted.
To me it justs seems exactly the same as the old BeOS, or be it Dano. The tracker is nicer and Zeta has the same responsiveness as BeOS 5, however there are far too many bugs for a Release Candidate, but hopefully that should be ironed out soon.
I gave up on it and they company behind it. They adverise drivers and compatibably that simply isn’t there. Their attitude toward the people that paid an outragious amount for their OS is very, very bad. It is a sad day indeed. And in my opionion Zeta is a complete waste of money.
It doesn’t look good. In fact, it sounds as if I might be better off by keeping R5 pro, than “upgrading” to Zeta.
My best computer is an Athlon Thunderird 1200, and BeOS works just fine on that.
I keep hearing about this OS. What is Zeta and also why is it so good compared to other OS’s? That is what I keep hearing about, in all of these reviews. I would love to try it out, if it is really as incredible as the reviews make it out to be. Is is an updated BeOS? Why was that OS so good? I honestly do not know, so don’t flame me. I have not even tinkered with this OS, but am becoming very intrigued with all of the hype surrounding it.
Though, we know that Zeta contains new media kit over R5, but, probably, there isn’t any application yet to show its specifical advantages. But reason is lack of DanoBook with it’s supposed description of new Media API? So YT is unfortunately unable at moment to use those advantages?
The thing that scared me away from BeOS (R5 or Dano) was that it only supported NE2000 NICs. I used to use BeOS back when I had a NE2000 NIC, but later when I tried it again the OS was essentially useless to me since most of what I need is online. Every OS should come with a compliment of basic drivers. Listen to me talking like I know what I’m talking about.
Are you joking? Or trolling?
This one’s a little dated but should still be valid for Zeta:
http://www.beatjapan.org/mirror/www.be.com/products/index.html
I’ve never used BeOS and was wondering if any version of it supports 32-bit PC cards?
Um… NICs are probably the best-supported group of devices under BeOS. Most 10/100 NICs have drivers available on BeBits, if not included with R5. The largest omission I remember was the 3com 509b – they did have a driver for it, but (IIRC) had to remove it (or GPL all of BeOS) because it was based on a linux driver – not a huge deal, since it’s an old ISA 10bt card anyway.
PCMCIA, wireless and onboard sound chips aren’t as well supported, unfortunately.
Zeta is a dead born OS. Without the sources of the System they can’t patch Dano forever. Other name, 3rd party driver, some things from obos and 2 or 3 own little apps thats what the people paying for. And no they will not come close to the money they will need to buy the sources from Palm.
Why is every body so much against Zeta? What is so bad about it? It installs on waaay more machines than before, it has more drivers, a really really good mozilla (propably the fastest rendering of web pages I have ever seen), it boots and functions A LOT faster in my 1.7 P4 laptop than my 2GHZ main pc wich has 2 80GB SATA disks in RAID0 with WinXP, and except java and games I can do all I want.
Maybe it’s just me, but all things considered Zeta is still better than any OS I have ever used.
And don’t get me started on Linux. I have used RH, Caldera, Debian, Gentoo, Suse, Fedora and Arch. The only one that doesn’t “brake my b@lls” too much is Suse 9.0. But it is SLOW SLOW SLOW. If my hardware was not suporetd then “too bad”.
And who cares if Zeta has the sources or not? As long as they keep updating it untill OBOS gets ready, the so be it.
Well, I read through the review and to be honest: I had EVERY problem they have with their install of Zeta (mp3 problems, media player crashing the OS, etc…) so there is still a LOT of work to be done…
One of the things they mention is that VLC is working great: I agree to some point: I tried for testing purposes to open two XviD movies and 1 DivX one at the same time and this is working great but on the other hand trying to open a movie on a “mapped network drive” crashes VLC and brings you to Kernel Debug land
Some time ago I asked YT if they would release a sliced-down test version of Zeta so AT LEAST one would be able to test hardware compatibility but I guess they’re NOT interested in this
Personally I think this is a VERY BAD decision from YT’s side. Why not release such a version and let us ALL do the testing and give them feedback.
Most of us are addicted to BeOS so helping them out to increase stability, remove bugs, etc… shouldn’t be ANY problem and of course we’ll do it for FREE
Bernd, if you’re reading this: please pay attention to all possible future customers! Let us help testing and improving the system instead of ignoring all questions on e.g. hardware (compact flash card support, pcmcia, etc).
Really sad to say but this will be THE ONLY way to give Zeta a chance in surviving
Of course, that’s just MY humble opinion!
No they can’t keep a closed source system up to date. The 1Gig Limit is such a problem. And Zeta will become more and more buggy because its impossible to only patch the Beta Dano. Imagine Yellowtab want money for a system that they can’t improve. They can’t compile the kernel
If you can do everything you want with zeta good for you but it is not much. The Only things they have done is some skinning stuff. Under the Hood the same BeOS as it was in 2k. Zeta don’t have a native web browser and mozilla is also R5 ready. And the guys from yellowtab travel around the world with your money 😉 promoting zeta
Zeta was promised as based on R6.. I really don’t believe that.. R.5.1d0 maybe…
YT promised so many thing HW-OGL and so.. nothing..
YT makes a bigger mistake than Be, Inc. does when the shift the focus..
YT is giving wrong promisses
🙁
[quote]
http://www.beatjapan.org/mirror/www.be.com/products/index.html
[/quote]
What did Zeta promise that didn’t come true?
all I know is that I have a good TCP/IP stack, full mouse wheel support, wifi, full Gobe , VERY good Mozilla, locales.
Remember it is a beta. Do you think that YT are that stupid?? They heard the community and they are trying their best. what more do you want??
The 5 or 10 yellowtab coders can’t solve problems like the 1GB RAM limit or HWOGL how should they come close to the huge steps windows, linux or macos will do. Also the one SkyOS coder is many times faster improving his system an he has the sources.
Save the 1000 Euro you will pay for zeta update cd’s until R1 is out and you can buy an ibook. Yellowtab is not a wildlife fund, it doesn’t matter if they go away.
What do you mean save zeta?? If I enjoy using my computer with zeta then from what should I save my self from?? Or was it better before when we had 3 BeOS distros?? What is this Linux?? And who really thinks that zeta can/will overthrow Windows or MacOS from their position? All I want is that Zeta/OBOS evolve and show to the people that if you want an alternative (note NOT substitute) for their desktops then don’t choose Linux. Linux for heavy duty work in a business. BeOS/Zeta/OBOS is for lightwheight home/office use hassle free.
You sound like looncraz.
“Save the 1000 Euro you will pay for zeta update cd’s until R1 is out and you can….”
1000 euro ? hahaha, where did you get that info !?
not a info, but if you dont want to patch your system with service packs from RC1 to R1, i bet until R1 we will see RC11 or more. You send your RC1 RC2 … so on every CD back to YellowTab to get the new version for a “clean install”. Have fun with the cd and shipping costs(ok not 1000 euro). Yellowtab will like you and send you an birthday gift.
Every bad press about zeta is answered with “hey its a beta”(of course it isn’t a RC1) but they want 99 Euros for it. Many beos user have a copy of gobe 2 but you can’t get a zeta version without gobe. I call it fast money making with beos fans.
With each released RC, YellowTab is also putting pressure on its own credibility, so it’s very unlikely things will come as far as a RC11 or more.
Anyhow, it’s up to the buyer to say when enough is enough -in terms of buying RC’s. Check out this page:
http://www.yellowtab.biz/cgi-bin/db2www/zet_art2.d2w/report?catname…
where it can be read:
“Final version:Buyers will be able to upgrade to 1.0-Final for about 10 Euros.”
So you might want to buy RC3 and even if things come to RC357 before the full version is released, you pay your 10 euro’s (not 1000 euro’s) and buy it.
Be Inc. had one clear back at 4.5. Put the CD in and run it to check out the BeOS. If I remember right you did not have an option to install.
Unfortunately, I don’t think they will ever do it because it would be like cutting their own throats unless they have some software tricks and goodies hidden WAY up their sleeve. I don’t mind if a certain someone wants to possibly destroy his own credibility and reputation, but it will have an adverse affect on many other people and projects. Even if their intentions are the best in the world they’re going to cast a shadow on everything BeOS related in a lot of minds if they don’t stop the “dog and pony show” soon.
I just want to point out that most of the things positively mentioned about Zeta have nothing whatsoever to do with YellowTab. Drivers, Mozilla, mousewheel support, VLC, the abandonned Gobe Productive and patches for newer CPUs were all done by others and were just packaged. Even the hack to overcome the 1GB memory limit will be developed by others.
This is IMO important to consider when you hear someone bragging about their super-fast browser or astounding hardware compatibility. It’s NOT YellowTab’s achievement, they just sell it as their own.
And you have to wonder how they will repair bugs or extend functionality in the future, because the whole OS from kernel to app_server to BONE netstack has fallen into their laps (without sources apparently) and they lack the talent to do anything with it.
If “you have to wonder how they will repair bugs or extend functionality in the future”, that means you’d also have to wait till “the future” to find out if “they lack the talent to do anything with it”.
Sure. But their track record doesn’t inspire much confidence. They bought the sources to their “main” applications, SVG Tracker and BeTunes, and finishing them won’t be rocket science. Instead of finishing R1 they focus on installing Zeta on a small “MediaPC” with BeTunes, a browser and an yet undisclosed “video app” in fullscreen mode. All that’s no low level stuff.