“Many changes under the hood are being incorporated into this new version of Zeta. The heart of the operating system, the kernel, has been updated and it now allows both installing and running Zeta on hardware with 1GB or more of RAM. It also performs accurate recognition of most modern CPUs, and correctly enables support for their respective optimisations. The new kernel also provides an overall speed enhancement of up to 40 percent, depending on your configuration. Furthermore, addon space has been greatly expanded from the existing 32MB to an eight-fold of 256MB, eliminating the problems that arise when too many addons are loaded at the same time.”
Seems it is possible that they have access to a kernel, either that or have found ways to patch these problems from R5.
If you read the release, it’s not the same thing. Users will be able to use the memory above 1Gig and it’s not a fix for the faster CPU’s – they’ll work as they should.
I don’t see how this could be a modification to the kernel without sources. Everything points to yT having access to the kernel source.
“By the time yellowtab releases its os, Microsoft will have already released their 64 bit windows xp”
And I suppose, at that moment, all the millions of 32-bit systems out there will just magically vanish, leaving shiny new pixie-dust-cooled AMD64 systems powered entirely by happy happy thoughts? No? I didn’t think so either.
As for the yT/Be source code, I hope they make enough off Zeta R1 to just buy the dang Be source if they don’t already have it.
One must try to understand these poor people. They have problems reading and comprehending. The fact that YT has announced that the 1gig ram limit is “Fixed” and you can now use more ram is lost on them. They only see what they want and belive what they want and nothing will ever deter them. They hate YT just for the sake of hate itself. They do not like what YT has done, some of which I agree some I don’t, and they will bad mouth it no matter what happens. It must be nice to live in such a small, small world such as they have. Where facts can stare them straight in the face and yet they can deny it so completly as to have convinced themselves that it is all a lie, a conspirecy(sp, ya I know).
I can see some of where they are coming from. Some of the changes they have announced, the DMA, and others are things that have been done by the community and not by YT specifly. But, they don’t exactly claim that they have done those changes themselves. Though the wording would lead you to believe that if you didn’t already know. I think they YT is a small company trying to give it a shot. If they can pull of some real application support from 3rd party vendors or build their own then I think they might stand a chance. BeOS 5 came with a long list of great software from 3rd parties. Most of which were only trialware or cripled in some way. I don’t think this help Be much. I am interisted to see what YT they can pull off. Heck, really, who expected them to still be around. Who expected them to have any kernel fixes at all for R1? Give them a chance to see if they can make a go it…
> Yes, combined with the CUPS, SANE and BASH they already have Zeta would
> finally be a full.. Linux distro.
What? You mean:
1. Common “UNIX” printing system
2. Scanner Access Now Easy – quote from the SANE site “The current source code is written for UNIX (including GNU/Linux)”
3. Bourne Again SHell – The Bourne SHell is a “UNIX” thing. So too is BASH IIRC!
Linux written all over them – we can see it from here!! Perhaps YT should adopt a “Not Invented Here” approach – then you could bitch about that instead until they drive themselves out of business?
Sorry, but IMHO they’ve made a wise decision by adopting these systems.
> Sorry, but who needs an OS that’s assembled of second-rate ports of
> Linuxware?! Why not use the real thing?
Because it’s far more of a PITA to maintain perhaps? I still keep several Linux servers running debian but I ditched it on the desktop 6 months ago – too flakey! FYI, I now run Mac OSX and I’m v. pleased with it! Looking forward to playing with Zeta when 1.0 launches.
>2. Scanner Access Now Easy – quote from the SANE site “The current source code is written for UNIX (including GNU/Linux)”
>3. Bourne Again SHell – The Bourne SHell is a “UNIX” thing. So too is BASH IIRC!
I knew what the abbreviations mean but it’s still primarly Linux software, just like 99% of all other OSS/Free software. Everyone else gets ports (if they are lucky). Linux is the mainstream platfrom.
Also since when is BeOS a UNIX? IIRC one of the “cool things” about BeOS was that it was so totally UNLIKE UNIX.
For example if you port X11 or even just GTK the responsiveness BeOS is famous for will be gone!
What do you need BeOS for if you just run Linuxware anyway?
Linux “too flakey”? Do you think working with SANE or X11 on BeOS will be less “flakey”?
If there’s one thing the “alternative OS” scene doesn’t need it’s more UNIX..
Now, do they have the source to the app_server so that we might be able to improve the look a little bit? I appologize, but that decor is just horrible. Oh, and does Zeta render text using freetype yet?
“Themes are now fully supported in Zeta 1.0, allowing users to save and use different GUI settings, including colors, fonts, wallpapers, sounds and screensaver.”
I understand they have themes, but it doesn’t sound like they’ve added different decors. I haven’t used Zeta at all, however, so feel free to correct me.
I sometimes think BeOS doesn’t deserve to be saved when I read over and over again these harsh statements. I think it is just great YT is working on BeOS. They seem to have improved it. I don’t know if they have the source and don’t care. If you like beos then you might consider buying Zeta. Sounds like good improvements.
I knew what the abbreviations mean but it’s still primarly Linux software, just like 99% of all other OSS/Free software. Everyone else gets ports (if they are lucky). Linux is the mainstream platfrom.
Most OSS software is POSIX software. Linux uses the POSIX API, BeOS natively supports POSIX. For non-GUI apps, it’s more of a recompile than a “port”.
Also since when is BeOS a UNIX?
It’s a UNIX to the extent that it supports the UNIX API.
IIRC one of the “cool things” about BeOS was that it was so totally UNLIKE UNIX.
One of the “cool things” about BeOS was that it supported POSIX, so you could use all your existing CLI apps. It was also cool how well-integrated the UNIX CLI was with the BeOS GUI, so you could do stuff like send messages to GUI apps in shell scripts.
For example if you port X11 or even just GTK the responsiveness BeOS is famous for will be gone!
It’s not like all your software will be X11! It’ll be like OS X, where most software you use is native, and the occasional needed program is X11.
What do you need BeOS for if you just run Linuxware anyway?
Why switch OSs when you just need to use some particular program? UNIX compatibility in BeOS is a boon. There is lot’s of software that’ll never get a natiev BeOS replacement. Like TeX, for example. Why reboot into another OS just to write a nice-looking paper?
“Now, do they have the source to the app_server so that we might be able to improve the look a little bit?”
Since the screen shots are clearly derived from the post-R5 version of BeOS that we were working on, and we had implemented window decor theming in that, there is no need for them to have the source. We had already written tools for creating window decor themes, preferences for selecting them, and had done a number of themes ourself (of various quality).
On the other hand, the look of the controls (buttons and such) was not themeable. The new look we did at Be, that you see in the screen shots, was at that time hard-coded into the Interface Kit.
I’m with you STU I’m running a Dual boot BeOS/linux systen here and if I had more hardware support under BeoS for my periphreal devices I think I would just ditch Linux because for all it’s beautiful eye candy it’s a slow booting slow running hard to configure PITA to run compared to BeOS,and BTW IIRC there is an X11 port for BeOS and I remember seeing the enlightenment window manager on bebits,but I don’t think that X would run ay faster under BeOS,it was more to get some apps like gimp to run there,
I may bury my R5PRO disks this weekend next to the Hamsters (Taz and Speedy) in the Garden.
I dont hate Yellowtab I paid for the beta of Zeta.
At the same time I doubt very much if these improvements are more than binary patches to the binary kernel images.
Clearly YT would like everyone to believe they own BEOS including the source code.
Anyone who buys an OS deserves to know if the vendor is capable of changing it or is restricted to hacking it about, it may be a boring point that keeps being raised but it is essential to the future of the platform. If Palm just ran the source through the shredder or stuck it in a safe place next to the Ark of the Covenant marked ‘seal forever’ then we should give this great little O/S a decent funeral, pay our respects and move on.
the decors were in Dano from the get go as was the mac, windoze and amiga decors in R5,I think yT has figured out how to hack into the decors and make their own just like Looncraz did with PhOS,which btw had some pretty nice ones,and the trade off is you lose some of the nifty BeOS-centric goodies like slidey tabs,IMO nothing beats R5 with windowshade and a good ws graphical front-end,it’s just too bad R5 didn’t have the extended color selction tools for other elements of the gui like the Dano based BeOS’s
It’s nice to be able to live in a world that’s not all grey and yellow
I think Androo was talking about items such as the widgets. I doubt those are changable, only parts such as the window chrome and scrollbars look to be skinnable.
“The heart of the operating system, the kernel, has been updated and it now allows both installing and running Zeta on hardware with 1GB or more of RAM.”
This perfectly describes the fix available at BeBits. (It oesn’t say that it will USE the 1GB of RAM, just that it will install and run with it). Don’t get me wrong, I am happy that Zeta exists and that yT is working on it… I own RC3. I just don’t know that I really believe anything they say. I don’t trust them.
I will wait until V1.0 is out and someone has tried it and they actually can see that their system is using over 1GB of RAM.
i used BeOS until it died after fighting against Microsoft.
Management was a big problem and I think they made a wrong decision when they decided to fight Microsoft. They had a great OS and it was like 10 years ahead of the competition.
but there is always a second chance and i am glad to know that it is making a comeback and i will get a copy of Zeta too!
If you like it, just buy it. if you don’t, get something else.
If I were YellowTab I would keep doing the patching or ‘code sourcing’ as they put it on their site onceupon a time. At the same time I would help Haiku and eventually integrate the parts together to replace the BeOS code.. so that they do have some source.
It would be a really cool way of keeping BeOS alive as Zeta. But I doubt yT would do this. They reffused to answer any questions to me regarding owning the source or having access to the source.
Is great to see that Dianne H. and former Be workers are watching what is happening with the BeOS platform.
Btw, she said that the actual theme is hard-coded into the interface_kit… I always thought that was something original, something that was developed by yT. And IMHO the old one was better… That reflexion at the top of the Title is not of my liking (not at a first sight but it is nothing to worry about)
All in all, is great to see that version 1.0 is here. I wish them best of luck and I’m going to buy a copy, that’s for sure.
Btw (2), Bruno (“BGA” I mean) said once that they HAVE the full source-code, but they dont OWN it (Palm owns it). What yT agreed with Palm/Be of what they can use or modify is another history.
What yT agreed with Palm/Be of what they can use or modify is another history…
I agree that the situation needs to be made public, so that potential buyers have some feel of what to expect about the future of the OS.
While I would love to buy a copy of Zeta, and I might regardless, but, it does not give me much confidence when I don’t have a clear indication of it’s development future/status.
Perhaps the yT folks are just being good Germans and keeping things rather close to their vests. But, I think they need to realize that the rest of the world, not just Americans, does not behave nor think like the average German/European consumer. (There’s no slight intended by this comment.) People want to know ‘what’s what’ with the OS and the source code.
With them being so quiet about it, it just leaves room for the naysayers and fearmongers to do their damage to the product’s reputation.
This was stated at Cebit. There shall be two books, one approx. 450p. w. CD as an Advanced handbook, the other with 250 p. a little smaller. The info seemed to come straight from the publisher.
I was a BeOS “zealot” long time ago. Now I am working as a developer doing at least 75% java the whole day. I would like to buy a copy of Zeta to support them. But since there is e.g. no “real” java, I have no real use for it…
As time went on, I got more open and now i am stuck with NetBSD. On NetBSD i got at least a linux emulation & wine and i even can run native a lot of posix / unix apps. So it just fits my needs now.
Btw: If you like to know which version of which objects are in the kernel you can put a “ident /netbsd” in a shell and see a the version, date as well as the author of each object in the kernel. Isnt there something similar possible in Zeta?
If not this might be good suggestion for the Haiku team,I thing at least.
And if someone really wants to know if the kernel of Zeta is a current one, I am sure there are ways to find it out.
>>>It would be commercial suicide to rely on a kernel you didn’t have the source for, you certainly couldn’t make any major changes like they have.
>>>As for using illegally leaked source code, that would be …illegal.
It really doesn’t matter — even if they have the source code, they don’t have any qualified kernel engineers. Go back to the original openbeos mailing list discussions, eugenia’s husband and a few of the original beos engineers were laughing out loud at how little people understand the basic principles of kernel engineering.
Kernel engineers are hard to come by — that’s why Palm was willing to buy Be’s engineers (along with BeOS itself).
What are you talking adout 70% corrupted? Maybe it’s you who has a corrupted source tree? Or maybe because your illegal download is missing the headers and doesn’t compile that you believe everyone has the same copy? Ever think the real thing is out there and is functioning somewhere? Maybe we feed the conspiracy theorints what they want…ripped bad sections of unuseabre source code… perfect for n00bs to come and rip to shut them up. I’m not rooting for yT, but damn your uninformer post was just so awful I had to respond.
Just as an FYI the complete source is out there still, it does compile, and it’s neat to see Dan0 on a PPC.
>>Dunno the names, but the last guy they hired and whoever else who made those changes to vm, ram limitation, add-on space etc.
If it took 3 years to hire a couple of kernel engineers — it validates my point that qualified kernel engineers are hard to come by.
JBQ once said that if you have the source code, you can change the ram limitation in a day’s time. If it takes those yt kernel engineers that long to do those changes, it also validates my point that whoever were hired by yt are not that qualified as kernel engineers in the first place.
heh. I just get annoyed a lot as of late that all these people who are now “getting into” BeOS, aren’t really getting into it, more like wanting it alr for free, and they think that the stuff they have access to is all that anyone has access to. There was a BeOS before them, and there is a lot more out there than they think. Because they can’t get their grubby mitts on it they decide to turn against everything and spread FUD. Just annoys me. 🙂
So let’s recap and see what we can start- as in what I am betting will be asked for in the next few weeks in BeShare:
No you can’t have my BeOS version of Photoshop
No, Bryce 3D is staying on my HD
Same for Nuendo and Cinema 4D
No you can’t have my copy of the Quake 3 Arena test app
No you can’t have Dan0 for PPC
No you can’t have the source code
I’m betting I have to kickban someone for at least one of those things in the upcoming week because they won’t quit annoying folks to get it. So they will assume it doesn’t exist, and start whining about it. Or keep annoying people about it, and decide we are all mean.
The books aren’t on their HP yet, the info is taken from a catalogue by the publisher, showing a cover and naming count of pages, ISBN and price. No further details, sorry.
I have an HD that I have BeOSMax installed to, which works perfectly fine, but I can’t seem to get the installer to run on my system… doesn’t make much sense.
I could just pop in the drive, but it’s old, loud, and slow.
I miss BeOS, first used it back when 4.5 first came out, bought a Voodoo3 just so I could use it.
“I think yT has figured out how to hack into the decors and make their own just like Looncraz did with PhOS”
The screen shots are definitely from a Dano/EXP-based BeOS. Here are a few ways you can tell:
* It includes support for non-rectangular windows.
* The highlight of menus has the Dano look… along with the preference to turn on “Z-Snake!” mode for highlighting menus, which I see is now turned off by default — probably because we never finished getting it working so it is BROKEN.
* All of the UI widgets have the unfinished Dano look — complete with drawing glitches! (Look for example at popup menu controls, the glitch in the shadow along the below where the blue arrow meets the label area.) Either this is a masterful job of reproduction showing -way- more confidence in Be engineers than is warranted, or it’s just plain Dano. (FWIW, I wrote that code for the pop-up menu control, along with that bug in the shadow I hadn’t yet fixed.)
Interestingly, the new preferences app they show looks suspiciously like the one that JBQ was doing for Dano but was turned off on the builds that got leaked. (But would be buildable from the sources that were leaked.) I can’t tell from the screen shots if it is actually based on that work, but I have to wonder.
“Btw, she said that the actual theme is hard-coded into the interface_kit… I always thought that was something original, something that was developed by yT. And IMHO the old one was better… That reflexion at the top of the Title is not of my liking (not at a first sight but it is nothing to worry about)”
The Dano/EXP version of the system included basically full support for theming of window frames. It uses a very rich constraint-based language for defining the parts of the window decor and how they work together and interact with the window itself. There is also a command line tool (called decorator) for compiling and previewing decors, and we added a new feature to ShowImage (the “Decorate” option) to help in putting together the graphics for a decor.
I don’t think we ever implemented a mechanism in the decor language to allow for features like the user dragging around the title bar and other parts of a decor, though there are some (untested) APIs to provide a much richer communication channel between the application and app manager to save/restore and control information like that about the decor.
The window decor in the screen shots is not one that was done by Be. We had a R5-like decor, a couple flavors of the rounded “Origin” decor done by our UI designers (which I think either that decor or a variation of it was included on one of the earlier Zeta releases), and a couple others done by some engineers.
The new UI look of the interface controls (buttons, check boxes, menus) was also done by Be, but is hard-coded. Note that scroll bars are actually a part of the window decor, because they are drawn by the app manager, so those are themeable.
Once we got the general window decor system running, I had plans to then use that in the interface kit to support theming of controls as well. That is one of the reason the new look for the controls was never finished, it would have been much better to do as themes. That work was never started, however.
“What yT agreed with Palm/Be of what they can use or modify is another history.”
As far as I know, there has been no agreement with PalmSource about them being able to do anything with the BeOS code, at all.
Thanks for the clarification about theming. It was very, very informative.
I meant Palm/Be in a general way… I really didn’t know if both Palm and Be established agreements with yT or only Be or even if former Be contracts would become Palm’s responsability after they adquired Be’s IP and assets.
Again, thanks for all the info.
And… someone ever told you are very clear and concise when exposing an idea? That caught my attention…
@Kancept
Those screenshots of Quake3 running on BeOS (that can be found at archive.org) are from your machine? (Just kidding, nvm)
Today, I found that more and more rumors were true about one or another test software. Thanks for all the info too, Kancept.
“As far as I know, there has been no agreement with PalmSource about them being able to do anything with the BeOS code, at all.”
@Dianne Hackborn
Now I am really confused. How can yellowTab release a “new” kernel without having any permission from PalmSource about using the BeOS-kernel-source? I am quite sure, they didn’t rewrite the kernel from scratch. Nor do I believe, they simply “hacked” the old Dano-(2001)-kernel.
But what will happen with the BeOS source code? I always thought Palm’s Cobalt would contain some parts of BeOS. AFAIK, in the distant future, Cobalt will be Linux-based (I hope I didn’t misunderstand sth.). YellowTab will have to rewrite the whole OS, or they will replace the old OS with parts from the Haiku-Project. Certainly they will not afford buying the code from Palm Source.
… how depressing …
I hope PalmSource will donate the BeOS source code to the Haiku-Project, one day.
There is no such thing as “Dan0”. If you desperately need to use those alphanumerical characters, refer to it as Dano/0. Otherwise, it’s really just the post-R5 branch of the BeOS repository.
Well I’m all confused now about Zeta, it’s source Palm whatever.
Anyway I hope we’ll be able just to use Zeta also in the future without legal problems. I always liked BeOS for it’s ‘just works and works good’-approach. Germans are ‘grundlich’ therefore I hope we can have a thoroughly tested Zeta version of our beloved BeOS. I sure hope someone will furthur develop audio apps for BeOS. Just miss some sampler and midi programs. I hope I will get along with Sequiter one day or have an alternative. Having Bernd bragging about Nuendo…
Being a contributor to the original BeOS, do you have any respect for Zeta? I mean, I’m unsure of the legalities and everything, but I am a software developer and I know what it’s like to be part of a large project.
So after your ‘being part of’ BeOS, a much larger project than I’ve ever worked on, and a project that you, no doubt, must have grown to love AND hate at times…do you feel that yT is maintaining any honest to BeOS’s design/beauty? Or feel you that Zeta is actually a painful sex change for the BeOS and it’s original intent/design?
Why do they need a kernel patch is they have the sources. But if there is a patch why does the actual kernel file say March 10, 2005. If they have the sources then I think the memory limit will be gone. It will be interesting to see if users can use more than a gig of RAM. If they can then surely they actually have the sources.
Still does not explain why they need a kernel patch though.
Every time we get a bit closer to the truth about yT, or even closer at one SPECULATION of the truth, the next moment we realize that we don’t know much at all, actually.
I read the very interesting and informative posts by Dianne (of whom I have the highest respect), and the crucial sentence that yT did and does not have any agreement with Palm. (even if we add the “as far as I know”), it’s still not clear how did yT modify the kernel of Zeta. Or, we can now speculate that they did using the leaked sourcecode, but are they, in that case, infringing?
Yes those are from my machine. My XP machine. If you’ve been running BeOS for a while, you’ll see 2 things I put in there so that those of us in the know wourd know they were fake, and those who whine and complain that they dan’t have it would have more fodder. But anyone who has used Process Controller at least can tell where I left clues. That was from my desktop when I was running FatTracker, and a few other telltale signs that it’s my desktop….man I miss that background.
for those who have never seen my famous (or infamous) Quake 3 BeOS screenies, here you go:
http:\www.nylonoxygen.compubImagesscreen2.jpg
http:\www.nylonoxygen.compubImagesscreen3.jpg
See if you can tell me what’s wrong with them. DO keep in mind this is before there were Zeta Beta’s, so if you knaw about the things BeOS courd do at the time, there are obvious issues. Looking ot them now, I’m seeing 4 things that you’d know were wrong. You can also see my BeBay folder, and my Web folder. Not bad for about 10 minutes of work though. 😉
“Many changes under the hood are being incorporated into this new version of Zeta. The heart of the operating system, the kernel, has been updated and it now allows both installing and running Zeta on hardware with 1GB or more of RAM. It also performs accurate recognition of most modern CPUs, and correctly enables support for their respective optimisations. The new kernel also provides an overall speed enhancement of up to 40 percent, depending on your configuration. Furthermore, addon space has been greatly expanded from the existing 32MB to an eight-fold of 256MB, eliminating the problems that arise when too many addons are loaded at the same time.”
Seems it is possible that they have access to a kernel, either that or have found ways to patch these problems from R5.
AFAIK YellowTab got the ‘full’ source of BeOS Personal Edition from Be before they desolved. One would wounder how much they paid for it.
http://www.iscomputeron.com/index/modules.php?name=News&file=articl…
both the memory and cpu fixes are available as patches to the beos r5 kernel.
the memory fix: http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=6347
fix for 2.1Ghz+ cpus: http://bebits.com/app/3999
fix for amd cpus: http://bebits.com/app/2758
as with may things in zeta, they try to make it seem that they developed this stuff and that they are the only ones distributing these features.
i highly doubt that the zeta coders have any access to any beos source code.
of this argument:
highly doubt that the zeta coders have any access to any beos source code.
Can we drop it now?
If you read the release, it’s not the same thing. Users will be able to use the memory above 1Gig and it’s not a fix for the faster CPU’s – they’ll work as they should.
I don’t see how this could be a modification to the kernel without sources. Everything points to yT having access to the kernel source.
“By the time yellowtab releases its os, Microsoft will have already released their 64 bit windows xp”
And I suppose, at that moment, all the millions of 32-bit systems out there will just magically vanish, leaving shiny new pixie-dust-cooled AMD64 systems powered entirely by happy happy thoughts? No? I didn’t think so either.
As for the yT/Be source code, I hope they make enough off Zeta R1 to just buy the dang Be source if they don’t already have it.
…is it supported? I can’t seem to find anything specific on this.
Yep, they’re quite impressive. For example, look at http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=223&slide=1… . It clearly shows the typographical abilities of yellowTAB.
Yes, AMD64 is supported.
wooohoooo!!!!!!!!
Thanks for the info
Yes, but it will work as 32-bit AMD CPU. Even BeOS R4.5 from 1999 works fine with AMD64 (tested by AMD).
This is good news. I was a fan of BeOS back in the 5.0PE days, but unfortunately after Be went under I stopped using as I felt it had no future.
Perhaps, fingers crossed, yT can keep Zeta going long enough to make generate some interest and make a profit.
I’ve got an old Abit BP6 that I love to slap Zeta on. 🙂
Love and ease,
Nirodha
One must try to understand these poor people. They have problems reading and comprehending. The fact that YT has announced that the 1gig ram limit is “Fixed” and you can now use more ram is lost on them. They only see what they want and belive what they want and nothing will ever deter them. They hate YT just for the sake of hate itself. They do not like what YT has done, some of which I agree some I don’t, and they will bad mouth it no matter what happens. It must be nice to live in such a small, small world such as they have. Where facts can stare them straight in the face and yet they can deny it so completly as to have convinced themselves that it is all a lie, a conspirecy(sp, ya I know).
I can see some of where they are coming from. Some of the changes they have announced, the DMA, and others are things that have been done by the community and not by YT specifly. But, they don’t exactly claim that they have done those changes themselves. Though the wording would lead you to believe that if you didn’t already know. I think they YT is a small company trying to give it a shot. If they can pull of some real application support from 3rd party vendors or build their own then I think they might stand a chance. BeOS 5 came with a long list of great software from 3rd parties. Most of which were only trialware or cripled in some way. I don’t think this help Be much. I am interisted to see what YT they can pull off. Heck, really, who expected them to still be around. Who expected them to have any kernel fixes at all for R1? Give them a chance to see if they can make a go it…
The only things left for YellowTab to do are to make a complete port of The X Window System, and maybe GTK/wxwidgets libraries.
The only things left for YellowTab to do are to make a complete port of The X Window System, and maybe GTK/wxwidgets libraries.
Don’t say such horrible things! They might actually take you seriously.
Yes, combined with the CUPS, SANE and BASH they already have Zeta would finally be a full.. Linux distro.
Sorry, but who needs an OS that’s assembled of second-rate ports of Linuxware?! Why not use the real thing?
i am glad to hear the good news! At least, this is a good starting point. i can not wait to see it working!
Hm, have you actually used BeOS?
You can get that for Windows too. In fact, add cygwin, and it’ll be more UN*Xy than BeOS is.
> Yes, combined with the CUPS, SANE and BASH they already have Zeta would
> finally be a full.. Linux distro.
What? You mean:
1. Common “UNIX” printing system
2. Scanner Access Now Easy – quote from the SANE site “The current source code is written for UNIX (including GNU/Linux)”
3. Bourne Again SHell – The Bourne SHell is a “UNIX” thing. So too is BASH IIRC!
Linux written all over them – we can see it from here!! Perhaps YT should adopt a “Not Invented Here” approach – then you could bitch about that instead until they drive themselves out of business?
Sorry, but IMHO they’ve made a wise decision by adopting these systems.
> Sorry, but who needs an OS that’s assembled of second-rate ports of
> Linuxware?! Why not use the real thing?
Because it’s far more of a PITA to maintain perhaps? I still keep several Linux servers running debian but I ditched it on the desktop 6 months ago – too flakey! FYI, I now run Mac OSX and I’m v. pleased with it! Looking forward to playing with Zeta when 1.0 launches.
Is it me or is it Troll city around here?
It’s not you
>1. Common “UNIX” printing system
>2. Scanner Access Now Easy – quote from the SANE site “The current source code is written for UNIX (including GNU/Linux)”
>3. Bourne Again SHell – The Bourne SHell is a “UNIX” thing. So too is BASH IIRC!
I knew what the abbreviations mean but it’s still primarly Linux software, just like 99% of all other OSS/Free software. Everyone else gets ports (if they are lucky). Linux is the mainstream platfrom.
Also since when is BeOS a UNIX? IIRC one of the “cool things” about BeOS was that it was so totally UNLIKE UNIX.
For example if you port X11 or even just GTK the responsiveness BeOS is famous for will be gone!
What do you need BeOS for if you just run Linuxware anyway?
Linux “too flakey”? Do you think working with SANE or X11 on BeOS will be less “flakey”?
If there’s one thing the “alternative OS” scene doesn’t need it’s more UNIX..
Now, do they have the source to the app_server so that we might be able to improve the look a little bit? I appologize, but that decor is just horrible. Oh, and does Zeta render text using freetype yet?
From the press release…
“Themes are now fully supported in Zeta 1.0, allowing users to save and use different GUI settings, including colors, fonts, wallpapers, sounds and screensaver.”
I understand they have themes, but it doesn’t sound like they’ve added different decors. I haven’t used Zeta at all, however, so feel free to correct me.
I sometimes think BeOS doesn’t deserve to be saved when I read over and over again these harsh statements. I think it is just great YT is working on BeOS. They seem to have improved it. I don’t know if they have the source and don’t care. If you like beos then you might consider buying Zeta. Sounds like good improvements.
There are several other decors available, including the R5 one.
> Also since when is BeOS a UNIX? IIRC one of the “cool things” about BeOS
> was that it was so totally UNLIKE UNIX.
> For example if you port X11 or even just GTK the responsiveness BeOS is
> famous for will be gone!
> What do you need BeOS for if you just run Linuxware anyway?
> Linux “too flakey”? Do you think working with SANE or X11 on BeOS will be
> less “flakey”?
> If there’s one thing the “alternative OS” scene doesn’t need it’s more UNIX..
I must have missed the memo where UNIX was declared bad :o) As an exercise to the reader I’ll just say “BeOS R5” and “PCMCIA”. So UNIX; so Be!
I knew what the abbreviations mean but it’s still primarly Linux software, just like 99% of all other OSS/Free software. Everyone else gets ports (if they are lucky). Linux is the mainstream platfrom.
Most OSS software is POSIX software. Linux uses the POSIX API, BeOS natively supports POSIX. For non-GUI apps, it’s more of a recompile than a “port”.
Also since when is BeOS a UNIX?
It’s a UNIX to the extent that it supports the UNIX API.
IIRC one of the “cool things” about BeOS was that it was so totally UNLIKE UNIX.
One of the “cool things” about BeOS was that it supported POSIX, so you could use all your existing CLI apps. It was also cool how well-integrated the UNIX CLI was with the BeOS GUI, so you could do stuff like send messages to GUI apps in shell scripts.
For example if you port X11 or even just GTK the responsiveness BeOS is famous for will be gone!
It’s not like all your software will be X11! It’ll be like OS X, where most software you use is native, and the occasional needed program is X11.
What do you need BeOS for if you just run Linuxware anyway?
Why switch OSs when you just need to use some particular program? UNIX compatibility in BeOS is a boon. There is lot’s of software that’ll never get a natiev BeOS replacement. Like TeX, for example. Why reboot into another OS just to write a nice-looking paper?
“Now, do they have the source to the app_server so that we might be able to improve the look a little bit?”
Since the screen shots are clearly derived from the post-R5 version of BeOS that we were working on, and we had implemented window decor theming in that, there is no need for them to have the source. We had already written tools for creating window decor themes, preferences for selecting them, and had done a number of themes ourself (of various quality).
On the other hand, the look of the controls (buttons and such) was not themeable. The new look we did at Be, that you see in the screen shots, was at that time hard-coded into the Interface Kit.
I’m with you STU I’m running a Dual boot BeOS/linux systen here and if I had more hardware support under BeoS for my periphreal devices I think I would just ditch Linux because for all it’s beautiful eye candy it’s a slow booting slow running hard to configure PITA to run compared to BeOS,and BTW IIRC there is an X11 port for BeOS and I remember seeing the enlightenment window manager on bebits,but I don’t think that X would run ay faster under BeOS,it was more to get some apps like gimp to run there,
I may bury my R5PRO disks this weekend next to the Hamsters (Taz and Speedy) in the Garden.
I dont hate Yellowtab I paid for the beta of Zeta.
At the same time I doubt very much if these improvements are more than binary patches to the binary kernel images.
Clearly YT would like everyone to believe they own BEOS including the source code.
Anyone who buys an OS deserves to know if the vendor is capable of changing it or is restricted to hacking it about, it may be a boring point that keeps being raised but it is essential to the future of the platform. If Palm just ran the source through the shredder or stuck it in a safe place next to the Ark of the Covenant marked ‘seal forever’ then we should give this great little O/S a decent funeral, pay our respects and move on.
the decors were in Dano from the get go as was the mac, windoze and amiga decors in R5,I think yT has figured out how to hack into the decors and make their own just like Looncraz did with PhOS,which btw had some pretty nice ones,and the trade off is you lose some of the nifty BeOS-centric goodies like slidey tabs,IMO nothing beats R5 with windowshade and a good ws graphical front-end,it’s just too bad R5 didn’t have the extended color selction tools for other elements of the gui like the Dano based BeOS’s
It’s nice to be able to live in a world that’s not all grey and yellow
I think Androo was talking about items such as the widgets. I doubt those are changable, only parts such as the window chrome and scrollbars look to be skinnable.
I am thinking of getting:
VIA EPIA M10000 with the Nehemiah CPU and
Compact Flash of 1 GB as hard drive
Slim DVD
and that’s it. Now, the question is: is the onboard graphics chip supported, and is the onboard LAN supported, in Zeta?
Also, is there any way to disable the virtual memory/pagefile, in Zeta? I can’t have that with compact flash, must minimize writes to the disk.
“The heart of the operating system, the kernel, has been updated and it now allows both installing and running Zeta on hardware with 1GB or more of RAM.”
This perfectly describes the fix available at BeBits. (It oesn’t say that it will USE the 1GB of RAM, just that it will install and run with it). Don’t get me wrong, I am happy that Zeta exists and that yT is working on it… I own RC3. I just don’t know that I really believe anything they say. I don’t trust them.
I will wait until V1.0 is out and someone has tried it and they actually can see that their system is using over 1GB of RAM.
Any chance we can actually try a demo of this before we drop a hundred or so for it?
i used BeOS until it died after fighting against Microsoft.
Management was a big problem and I think they made a wrong decision when they decided to fight Microsoft. They had a great OS and it was like 10 years ahead of the competition.
but there is always a second chance and i am glad to know that it is making a comeback and i will get a copy of Zeta too!
If you like it, just buy it. if you don’t, get something else.
-2501
If I were YellowTab I would keep doing the patching or ‘code sourcing’ as they put it on their site onceupon a time. At the same time I would help Haiku and eventually integrate the parts together to replace the BeOS code.. so that they do have some source.
It would be a really cool way of keeping BeOS alive as Zeta. But I doubt yT would do this. They reffused to answer any questions to me regarding owning the source or having access to the source.
Is great to see that Dianne H. and former Be workers are watching what is happening with the BeOS platform.
Btw, she said that the actual theme is hard-coded into the interface_kit… I always thought that was something original, something that was developed by yT. And IMHO the old one was better… That reflexion at the top of the Title is not of my liking (not at a first sight but it is nothing to worry about)
All in all, is great to see that version 1.0 is here. I wish them best of luck and I’m going to buy a copy, that’s for sure.
Btw (2), Bruno (“BGA” I mean) said once that they HAVE the full source-code, but they dont OWN it (Palm owns it). What yT agreed with Palm/Be of what they can use or modify is another history.
What yT agreed with Palm/Be of what they can use or modify is another history…
I agree that the situation needs to be made public, so that potential buyers have some feel of what to expect about the future of the OS.
While I would love to buy a copy of Zeta, and I might regardless, but, it does not give me much confidence when I don’t have a clear indication of it’s development future/status.
Perhaps the yT folks are just being good Germans and keeping things rather close to their vests. But, I think they need to realize that the rest of the world, not just Americans, does not behave nor think like the average German/European consumer. (There’s no slight intended by this comment.) People want to know ‘what’s what’ with the OS and the source code.
With them being so quiet about it, it just leaves room for the naysayers and fearmongers to do their damage to the product’s reputation.
Love and else,
Nirodha
This has been discused in detail since yT and Zeta exist! I understand your intention and inconfidence as well as thousends of others likely do.
But couldn’t it be that yTs qietness is part of a business politics, maybe even enjoined by another business partner?
All in all it’s great to see the BeOS further developed.
There will be books on Zeta as well, as was stated at Cebit. This is one of the facts that leave me more confident.
Hey css, was this stated only at Cebit, or is it available electronically from somewhere?
>btw PE doesn’t have decors
Mine does.
Or has Yellowtab.com been spewing 404 errors the past day or so? Hard to comment on a article you can’t even read…
@tic:
This was stated at Cebit. There shall be two books, one approx. 450p. w. CD as an Advanced handbook, the other with 250 p. a little smaller. The info seemed to come straight from the publisher.
I was a BeOS “zealot” long time ago. Now I am working as a developer doing at least 75% java the whole day. I would like to buy a copy of Zeta to support them. But since there is e.g. no “real” java, I have no real use for it…
As time went on, I got more open and now i am stuck with NetBSD. On NetBSD i got at least a linux emulation & wine and i even can run native a lot of posix / unix apps. So it just fits my needs now.
Btw: If you like to know which version of which objects are in the kernel you can put a “ident /netbsd” in a shell and see a the version, date as well as the author of each object in the kernel. Isnt there something similar possible in Zeta?
If not this might be good suggestion for the Haiku team,I thing at least.
And if someone really wants to know if the kernel of Zeta is a current one, I am sure there are ways to find it out.
Maybe Haiku gets interessting for me one day.
Regards
Andreas
@css
Sounds nice. A couple of questions, though.
1. Who’s the publisher?
2. Who is writing it?
3. Do you know what the CD will contain?
4. Any ETA?
It would be commercial suicide to rely on a kernel you didn’t have the source for, you certainly couldn’t make any major changes like they have.
As for using illegally leaked source code, that would be …illegal.
Of course anyone with half a brain has known this for a long time but there are FUDsters who want to attack Zeta…
>>>It would be commercial suicide to rely on a kernel you didn’t have the source for, you certainly couldn’t make any major changes like they have.
>>>As for using illegally leaked source code, that would be …illegal.
It really doesn’t matter — even if they have the source code, they don’t have any qualified kernel engineers. Go back to the original openbeos mailing list discussions, eugenia’s husband and a few of the original beos engineers were laughing out loud at how little people understand the basic principles of kernel engineering.
Kernel engineers are hard to come by — that’s why Palm was willing to buy Be’s engineers (along with BeOS itself).
It really doesn’t matter — even if they have the source code, they don’t have any qualified kernel engineers.
Wrong.
@fye
Hey, which ones are they? We want names!
What are you talking adout 70% corrupted? Maybe it’s you who has a corrupted source tree? Or maybe because your illegal download is missing the headers and doesn’t compile that you believe everyone has the same copy? Ever think the real thing is out there and is functioning somewhere? Maybe we feed the conspiracy theorints what they want…ripped bad sections of unuseabre source code… perfect for n00bs to come and rip to shut them up. I’m not rooting for yT, but damn your uninformer post was just so awful I had to respond.
Just as an FYI the complete source is out there still, it does compile, and it’s neat to see Dan0 on a PPC.
Hey, which ones are they? We want names!
Dunno the names, but the last guy they hired and whoever else who made those changes to vm, ram limitation, add-on space etc.
Kancept,
I suspekt this is the same guy that’s behind http://www.zeta-looks.org, a 12-year-old Polish kid, and as such shouldn’t be taken too seriously.
>>Dunno the names, but the last guy they hired and whoever else who made those changes to vm, ram limitation, add-on space etc.
If it took 3 years to hire a couple of kernel engineers — it validates my point that qualified kernel engineers are hard to come by.
JBQ once said that if you have the source code, you can change the ram limitation in a day’s time. If it takes those yt kernel engineers that long to do those changes, it also validates my point that whoever were hired by yt are not that qualified as kernel engineers in the first place.
heh. I just get annoyed a lot as of late that all these people who are now “getting into” BeOS, aren’t really getting into it, more like wanting it alr for free, and they think that the stuff they have access to is all that anyone has access to. There was a BeOS before them, and there is a lot more out there than they think. Because they can’t get their grubby mitts on it they decide to turn against everything and spread FUD. Just annoys me. 🙂
So let’s recap and see what we can start- as in what I am betting will be asked for in the next few weeks in BeShare:
No you can’t have my BeOS version of Photoshop
No, Bryce 3D is staying on my HD
Same for Nuendo and Cinema 4D
No you can’t have my copy of the Quake 3 Arena test app
No you can’t have Dan0 for PPC
No you can’t have the source code
I’m betting I have to kickban someone for at least one of those things in the upcoming week because they won’t quit annoying folks to get it. So they will assume it doesn’t exist, and start whining about it. Or keep annoying people about it, and decide we are all mean.
@tic
publisher is
http://www.franzis.de/index.php?kid=&src=
The books aren’t on their HP yet, the info is taken from a catalogue by the publisher, showing a cover and naming count of pages, ISBN and price. No further details, sorry.
You have all that stuff? I’m really looking for Objekt Synth the full version… : ) really(!)
BeOS version of Photoshop, well I really want to see that! Same for Nuendo. If you’re really not kidding, Nuendo, does it work, like is it useable?
email me if you want
Paul
I’ve had at least a couple of those questions asked of me this last week, Kancept: proves your point wonderfully
(runs away without specifying which questions were asked
I have an HD that I have BeOSMax installed to, which works perfectly fine, but I can’t seem to get the installer to run on my system… doesn’t make much sense.
I could just pop in the drive, but it’s old, loud, and slow.
I miss BeOS, first used it back when 4.5 first came out, bought a Voodoo3 just so I could use it.
“I think yT has figured out how to hack into the decors and make their own just like Looncraz did with PhOS”
The screen shots are definitely from a Dano/EXP-based BeOS. Here are a few ways you can tell:
* It includes support for non-rectangular windows.
* The highlight of menus has the Dano look… along with the preference to turn on “Z-Snake!” mode for highlighting menus, which I see is now turned off by default — probably because we never finished getting it working so it is BROKEN.
* All of the UI widgets have the unfinished Dano look — complete with drawing glitches! (Look for example at popup menu controls, the glitch in the shadow along the below where the blue arrow meets the label area.) Either this is a masterful job of reproduction showing -way- more confidence in Be engineers than is warranted, or it’s just plain Dano. (FWIW, I wrote that code for the pop-up menu control, along with that bug in the shadow I hadn’t yet fixed.)
Interestingly, the new preferences app they show looks suspiciously like the one that JBQ was doing for Dano but was turned off on the builds that got leaked. (But would be buildable from the sources that were leaked.) I can’t tell from the screen shots if it is actually based on that work, but I have to wonder.
“Btw, she said that the actual theme is hard-coded into the interface_kit… I always thought that was something original, something that was developed by yT. And IMHO the old one was better… That reflexion at the top of the Title is not of my liking (not at a first sight but it is nothing to worry about)”
The Dano/EXP version of the system included basically full support for theming of window frames. It uses a very rich constraint-based language for defining the parts of the window decor and how they work together and interact with the window itself. There is also a command line tool (called decorator) for compiling and previewing decors, and we added a new feature to ShowImage (the “Decorate” option) to help in putting together the graphics for a decor.
I don’t think we ever implemented a mechanism in the decor language to allow for features like the user dragging around the title bar and other parts of a decor, though there are some (untested) APIs to provide a much richer communication channel between the application and app manager to save/restore and control information like that about the decor.
The window decor in the screen shots is not one that was done by Be. We had a R5-like decor, a couple flavors of the rounded “Origin” decor done by our UI designers (which I think either that decor or a variation of it was included on one of the earlier Zeta releases), and a couple others done by some engineers.
The new UI look of the interface controls (buttons, check boxes, menus) was also done by Be, but is hard-coded. Note that scroll bars are actually a part of the window decor, because they are drawn by the app manager, so those are themeable.
Once we got the general window decor system running, I had plans to then use that in the interface kit to support theming of controls as well. That is one of the reason the new look for the controls was never finished, it would have been much better to do as themes. That work was never started, however.
“What yT agreed with Palm/Be of what they can use or modify is another history.”
As far as I know, there has been no agreement with PalmSource about them being able to do anything with the BeOS code, at all.
Thanks for the clarification about theming. It was very, very informative.
I meant Palm/Be in a general way… I really didn’t know if both Palm and Be established agreements with yT or only Be or even if former Be contracts would become Palm’s responsability after they adquired Be’s IP and assets.
Again, thanks for all the info.
And… someone ever told you are very clear and concise when exposing an idea? That caught my attention…
@Kancept
Those screenshots of Quake3 running on BeOS (that can be found at archive.org) are from your machine? (Just kidding, nvm)
Today, I found that more and more rumors were true about one or another test software. Thanks for all the info too, Kancept.
“As far as I know, there has been no agreement with PalmSource about them being able to do anything with the BeOS code, at all.”
@Dianne Hackborn
Now I am really confused. How can yellowTab release a “new” kernel without having any permission from PalmSource about using the BeOS-kernel-source? I am quite sure, they didn’t rewrite the kernel from scratch. Nor do I believe, they simply “hacked” the old Dano-(2001)-kernel.
But what will happen with the BeOS source code? I always thought Palm’s Cobalt would contain some parts of BeOS. AFAIK, in the distant future, Cobalt will be Linux-based (I hope I didn’t misunderstand sth.). YellowTab will have to rewrite the whole OS, or they will replace the old OS with parts from the Haiku-Project. Certainly they will not afford buying the code from Palm Source.
… how depressing …
I hope PalmSource will donate the BeOS source code to the Haiku-Project, one day.
Dianne (I take the liberty of using a first name basis, with all due respect) said “as far as I know”…
You clearly state for R5.x systems, Zeta is a R5.x system? It’s based on Dan0 not?
Paul,
There is no such thing as “Dan0”. If you desperately need to use those alphanumerical characters, refer to it as Dano/0. Otherwise, it’s really just the post-R5 branch of the BeOS repository.
Well I’m all confused now about Zeta, it’s source Palm whatever.
Anyway I hope we’ll be able just to use Zeta also in the future without legal problems. I always liked BeOS for it’s ‘just works and works good’-approach. Germans are ‘grundlich’ therefore I hope we can have a thoroughly tested Zeta version of our beloved BeOS. I sure hope someone will furthur develop audio apps for BeOS. Just miss some sampler and midi programs. I hope I will get along with Sequiter one day or have an alternative. Having Bernd bragging about Nuendo…
Paul
Zeta will live up to Haiku 1.0 availability !
So for 1 or 2 years ?!
http://www.iltuosistema.it/news2/screencebit.jpg
Dianne,
Being a contributor to the original BeOS, do you have any respect for Zeta? I mean, I’m unsure of the legalities and everything, but I am a software developer and I know what it’s like to be part of a large project.
So after your ‘being part of’ BeOS, a much larger project than I’ve ever worked on, and a project that you, no doubt, must have grown to love AND hate at times…do you feel that yT is maintaining any honest to BeOS’s design/beauty? Or feel you that Zeta is actually a painful sex change for the BeOS and it’s original intent/design?
i’m not 12 years old polish kid. i’m 24 years old. yes, polish.
Okay, I didn’t mean to mistake to you with bs0. You’re on the same level as he, though. Sorry, you need to learn some manners.
Why do they need a kernel patch is they have the sources. But if there is a patch why does the actual kernel file say March 10, 2005. If they have the sources then I think the memory limit will be gone. It will be interesting to see if users can use more than a gig of RAM. If they can then surely they actually have the sources.
Still does not explain why they need a kernel patch though.
I think that is the way engineers at Be INC did. BeOS R5 uses a kernel_intel.patch too.
Every time we get a bit closer to the truth about yT, or even closer at one SPECULATION of the truth, the next moment we realize that we don’t know much at all, actually.
I read the very interesting and informative posts by Dianne (of whom I have the highest respect), and the crucial sentence that yT did and does not have any agreement with Palm. (even if we add the “as far as I know”), it’s still not clear how did yT modify the kernel of Zeta. Or, we can now speculate that they did using the leaked sourcecode, but are they, in that case, infringing?
The mistery continues…
Yes those are from my machine. My XP machine. If you’ve been running BeOS for a while, you’ll see 2 things I put in there so that those of us in the know wourd know they were fake, and those who whine and complain that they dan’t have it would have more fodder. But anyone who has used Process Controller at least can tell where I left clues. That was from my desktop when I was running FatTracker, and a few other telltale signs that it’s my desktop….man I miss that background.
Oi, tempting! Screenies of Q3 on BeOS? Purleeze, show!
for those who have never seen my famous (or infamous) Quake 3 BeOS screenies, here you go:
http:\www.nylonoxygen.compubImagesscreen2.jpg
http:\www.nylonoxygen.compubImagesscreen3.jpg
See if you can tell me what’s wrong with them. DO keep in mind this is before there were Zeta Beta’s, so if you knaw about the things BeOS courd do at the time, there are obvious issues. Looking ot them now, I’m seeing 4 things that you’d know were wrong. You can also see my BeBay folder, and my Web folder. Not bad for about 10 minutes of work though. 😉
http://www.zeta-looks.org/ Check it out.
http://www.yellowtab.com/support/faqs/show.php?id=6