BeOS Ready for a Comeback as Zeta OS 625
Anil Kandangath writes "BeOS, the operating system that could have been the foundation for Mac OS X, but almost died, instead has returned as Zeta OS -- which is supposed to be fast, stable, media centric and boot within 15 seconds. Zeta is being released by yellowTAB of Germany and has applications such as an office suite and the Firefox browser bundled with it. Most BeOS applications will also run as-is. Screenshots are available." According to the NewsForge story linked there, the release could be as soon as next month.
If you want to take a look at BeOS... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Say what now? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:5, Informative)
Well, unless you include clusters. But boot times on those are still limited by the abiltiy of each individual node.
Re:Yeah, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:2, Informative)
With that said, I do think that 15 seconds is "fast enough". That machine of mine had a "sleep disorder" due to a processor upgrade (it started out as a 500MHz machine) and I had to shut down and boot it instead of letting sleep. 17 seconds was actually still in the comfortable range.
Re:Yeah, but... (Score:3, Informative)
There was a BeOS version that loaded from within Win9x, and that has been now tweaked to run as a full standalone system (see BeOS Max), but BeOS full always cost money.
Re:Hardware requirements? (Score:2, Informative)
I'd estimate at least a 200 mhz Pentium-class (at minimum... 400 mhz would be a lot happier) and at least 48 MB of RAM, preferably 64 or more.
It might run on less, but not very comfortably. I've gotten it (BeOS 5) running before on a 120 mhz Pentium with 32 MB of RAM, but it was somewhat painful.
Re:Hardware requirements? (Score:5, Informative)
Hardware requirements
Minimal Requirements:
* Pentium 200MHz (or Cyrix, Athlon, Via...)
* 32 MB RAM
* 600 MB Hard Disk Space
* 8 MB Video Memory
* bootable CD-ROM Drive
* Mouse, Keyboard, 14" Color Monitor
Recommended Hardware:
* Intel Pentium III 1 GHz (Celeron, AMD Athlon Duron/XP)
* 256 MB RAM
* 4 GB Hard Disk Space
* 32 MB Video Memory
* Soundcard
* CD/DVD Drive
* Mouse, Keyboard, 17" Color Monitor
Check our hardware compatability [yellowtab.com] list to see if Zeta will run on your machine.
Re:What's the relationship to BeOS? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Way to kill it before it starts (Score:1, Informative)
That or false advertising.
Re:right... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What's the relationship to BeOS? (Score:1, Informative)
Do not trust this company. The open-source project you referred to is "Haiku", originally called "OpenBeOS".
Re:If you want to take a look at BeOS... (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.au.horde.org/pub/beosmax/BeOS5PEMaxEdi
Windows boot times (Score:2, Informative)
I personally don't mind loading stuff in the background when I login. I don't find it particularly annoying - and you can just wait a few more seconds before you login if you want to be a masocist like that.
Re:Zeta OS (Score:2, Informative)
So Eta would be my best guess.
Sadly (Score:2, Informative)
BeOS/Zeta still can't even boot on a machine with a gig or more memory. As the world upgrades to more modern machines, BeOS loses more and more potential users.
To bad... It was nice in its day.
Re:Sadly (Score:4, Informative)
yellowTAB has just announced details of what is to be expected for Zeta 1.0. The list includes ... breaking the 1GB memory barrier"
Re:Be had it tough... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Is there anything new? (Score:2, Informative)
Sold on HomeShopping (Score:2, Informative)
I don't know what a Home-Shopping Buyer does with Zeta, but they sell it as
"Has everything you need, you don't ever need to buy any other Software"
Re:Say what now? (Score:4, Informative)
Metadata is data about data. File metadata is information describing a file or its contents.
On many operating systems, file metadata comes primarily in the form of filename extensions. A file with the name "house.jpg" can reasonably be assumed to be a JPEG image file.
Unfortunately, filename extensions are pretty limited as a means of storing file metadata. There's a lot of other metadata one might want to store and retrieve for a give file.
Classic Mac OS went a small step further, storing 2 pieces of file metadata: file type and file creator. This information was stored separately from the filename, allowing Mac users to name there files whatever they wanted, without having to include a filename extension. It also allowed them to have some JPEGs open in Photoshop when double-clicked, and others to open in a web browser, by means of the files' creator metadata.
Not too much later, the World Wide Web appeared, and with it the use of filename extensions as required metadata for any files to be transferred via the Internet. So Mac users learned to live with filename extensions. Most of them were already doing so.
One development that accompanied the rise of the Internet was the development of mime types, another means of storing file metadata. BeOS used mime types extensively for storing file metadata, in conjunction with a database-driven filesystem. From what I saw, the combination was pretty effective and powerful.
File metadata on Mac OS X is a mess because Apple has officially abandoned the traditional Mac type/creator metadata system. This is one area where Apple could have taken a leadership position as they transitioned their core userbase and developers to their new OS, as they did in other areas like Core Audio, but instead of replacing the type/creator paradigm with some newer, better metadata system along the lines of that which already existed in BeOS, they simply chose to fall back to the less powerful but more internet-compatible filename extension paradigm. Yet they did not completely abandon the traditional system, as it would have made porting classic Mac apps to O S X more difficult. So some Mac OS X apps use type/creator metadata, some only use filename extensions, and some use both. Without a clear leadership direction from Apple, things are kind of a mess. Not that most users would notice.
There is some hope. Last I checked, Dominic Giampaolo was still working at Apple. He was the main brain behind the BeOS filesystem and went to work for Apple a few years back. He's responsible for the journaling support that was recently added to Mac OS X. Many folks (myself among them) are hoping that Dominic will bring the BeOS metadata system (or something like it) to Mac OS X. I believe Tiger and Spotlight will bring some improvements in this area.
Re:Way to kill it before it starts (Score:3, Informative)
In fact, Zeta is already sold since several months - in a shopping tv show!. Look here. [rtlshop.de].
The page is in german, but you'll see a link to zeta on the lower right side of the page. And they even call it a bestseller. Though this could be a lie, I doubt they'd pitch it for so long if it wouldn't sell.
I saw the sales pitch, and it is very interesting how the strategy of "real" salesmen is for selling this to the great unwashed masses. Virus free, some nice demonstrations of the multimedia capabilites, the office software etc. etc., and always pointing out the fact that it works on older computers without problems and that it's much cheaper than windows+ms office+...
All very interesting.
Get an injuction to have the name changed then (Score:4, Informative)
A registered trademark is quite obviously something you have to register with the trademark registry.
A common law trademark is established through using a mark persistently. You don't have to register it.
Needless to say, registered trademarks are easier to enforce, but common law trademarks are just as valid.
Another important fact about trademarks is that there are 40+ different categories. Two companies can hold the same trademark for their products in the same country as long as they are in different categories. Since you are a software company and Yellow Tab's ZetaOS is a software product, there can be no doubt that both companies' products fall into the same category, the one for computer software.
Now, assuming that German trademark law does acknowlegde common law trademarks, then you have established such a common law trademark by trading as Zeta Software. If you can show that you have been trading for longer than Yellow Tab has been marketing ZetaOS, then you stand a very good chance that you can get an injunction to force them to change the name. The fact that you have those errant calls will actually help you to go after them.
Even if German trademark law doesn't help you, I am sure that German company law will have various clauses that protect a registered company's name from other companies in the same sector using the name.
Don't have pity for them. They should have done their homework before launching their OS. They should have never picked that name in the first place. A simple check with the company registry would have revealed that you guys exist.
On the other hand, if your company has been founded after Yellow Tab have started to market their OS under the Zeta name, then the blame would go to you guys.
In any event, you should get some legal advice from a lawyer dealing in such matters and see what your options are.
Good luck.
BeOS is here to stay... (Score:5, Informative)
http://web.archive.org/web/20010521150816/www.bene ws.com/beos/ [archive.org]
to learn the root of the OS.
BeOS was originally developed for BeBOX(custom ppc based smp box) and later started supporting 60x lines of PPC based Apple's Macintosh computers and power computing(Taiwan's mac licensed manufactural).
With version 3.0 x86 versions started shipping.
There were 3.0, 4.0, 4.5 then 5.0 Personal Edition and 5.0 Professional Edition.
I personally believe that BeOS doomed itself with expensive public relations fund spend heavily on BeOS Preview release 2(Remember those BeOS preview release shipped with Mac related magazines for free?) and decision to start selling x86 version. They started offering free version for 5.0 called 5.0 Personal edition, which were bit late(developers have migrated to linux world then...). So company were bought out by Palm.
However, right before they were bought out by Palm, there were two main project which disappeared all together.
BeIA with SONY eVilla project and Dano(BeOS 5.5 release). BeIA pretty much slipped away when Be had office equipment auction when they closed down the building along with some handheld devices(tablet computers loaded with BeIA).
I've heard rumors that after Sony seeing the utter failure of QNX based iOpner(which was immediately followed by another QNX based 3com'saudrey), axed eVilla and destroyed all produced units, so only surviving units are the ones that were auctioned off with BE office closing in CA(developer's machine?).
After BE was sold to Palm...however, BE source along with Dano was leaked over Beshare(beos centric p2p software).
So Dano(considered as unofficial release ver 5.1d0)
OpenBeOS movement started around this time.
Now OpenBeOS has changed its name to Haiku-OS.
http://www.haiku-os.org/ [haiku-os.org].
And soon people started BeOS Developer's Edition
at http://www.beosonline.com/ [beosonline.com].
And other people started BeOS http://freshmeat.net/projects/beos-max/ [freshmeat.net]
http://www.beos-max.org/ [beos-max.org].
Both BeOS Developer's Edition and BeOS Max revolves around Be's latest official release BeOS Personal Edition 5.0 + 5.0.3 upates and many new improvement which were contributed by a user community developed opensource softwares & drivers.
However, there versions which includes some unofficial released stuffs(stuffs from Dano and some controversial stuffs)
http://phosphuros.tk/ [phosphuros.tk]
You can read the article by OSnews here.
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=6948 [osnews.com]
Here are some screen shots provided by Korean BeOS UserGroup.
http://www.bekrage.net/gallery/view_album.php?set_ albumName=screen [bekrage.net]
BeOS is nice because Localization stuffs were incorporated into GUI nicer than most other OS, making easier to support different language than English, especially where language isn't based on phonetic latin based alphabet languages such as Korean/Chinese/Japanese. Thier alphabet is 8bit(or even 16bit) character based.
Currently, Haiku-OS programmers are plugging away diligently where OS is almost ready, where most of the bread and butter applications were already worked out! This is a nicer situation where applications are already there when OS still hasn't shipped, due to special current circumstances of BeOS.
ZetaOS is heavily based on BeOS R5.0.3 + Bone network(Dano style) + lots of improvement borrowed from drivers found on BeBits(opensource community of BeOS) + Haiku-OS(OpenBeOS).
ZetaOS, there are RC1, RC2, RC3, Zeta Neo(considered as RC4) a
Re:Hee hah! (Score:2, Informative)
I think that was Be's official line, but I always found it a bit hard to swallow with so many linux distros (including Apple's own mklinux) being able to boot on these Macs.
It always struck me as being more likely that the reason Be stopped supporting BeOS on PPC hardware was mostly a matter of Jean Louise Gassee's pride, after Apple turned down what many considered to be an outrageous asking price for BeOS when Apple was looking for a foundation for it's future "Modern" Operating System.
-=(Lord Crosis)=-
Re:Way to kill it before it starts (Score:2, Informative)
A popular CPU manuf was quoted as saying, we didn't know that our hardware could do that.
Look at who shoveled some money to them after that, in vain obviously.
Re:It's all snake oil, BeOS is a dead inferior OS (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, BeOS is a dead operating system. There are no marketing claims for BeOS after about 2000. If you're going to be evaluating the original claims for BeOS made during its brief moment in the sun, 1998-1999, compare those claims with what was around then, not what's around now.
Steinberg ported Nuendo [harmony-central.com] to BeOS. You'll notice that it could process 96 media tracks simultaneously. Why is this significant? Because on the same hardware the NT version could only do 48 tracks.
As a matter of fact, yes, BeOS did have a better media core than anything else did, in one specific area: latency. There was literally nothing else beyond true RTOSes that could touch it. If you go to a stage show in Vegas, Disney or even some Broadway theatres, there's a non-zero chance that the sound and lighting system is still being run by a BeOS-based system from LCS. In 2005, other operating systems have caught up in some respects, but the main thing that "beats" BeOS in media processing is simply Moore's Law: machines are so much faster now than they were six years ago that it doesn't matter that their signal processing still blows moose chunks.
There are other things that BeOS had that no other operating system had, most notably the file system and live queries that could operate on metadata. Make a virtual folder that contains all the word processing documents you've edited in the last week? No problem. BeOS was by far the most responsive operating system I've ever used. And you know what? It got more commercial applications announced for it in its first two years of public release than Linux did in its first five or six. (Some of those commercial applications are in fact still around, now on other platforms.)
Yes, BeOS had its share of problems, some of them did involve driver support, and there's been very little development on drivers since 2000. But it wasn't difficult to find supported hardware back then--I ran it on a pretty much stock Gateway PC--and I can assure you that BeOS does not suck. If Be had made some wiser business decisions (like not going after the non-existent internet appliance market, and knifing their desktop developers in order to do it), it'd probably still be around.
I'm not particularly interested in ZetaOS because, in the context of 2005, it's not a very compelling operating system. But you obviously don't have a clue why so much of the computing world was excited about it in 1999.
Re:Get an injuction to have the name changed then (Score:3, Informative)
The most important thing is to get professional legal advice so you know that your rights are. Get a qualified lawyer to issue a written opinion. This shouldn't cost you more than a few hundred Euros.
Depending on what that written opinion says, you can make an _informed_ decision what you want to do.
It is quite possible that the legal situation is so clear cut in your favour that it doesn't take more than a nice letter to them asking them to verify for themselves the legal advice you have been given while at the same time making clear that you intend to resolve the matter amicably.
They would then check with their lawyer and get the same kind of advice, that in fact they are in trouble if you decided to become nasty. Since they seem to be big spenders of TV campaigning, it should not be such a big issue for them to change their branding.
Alternatively, if they are so attached to the name, they may want to consider paying you guys for renaming your business, ie to pay a branding agency to find a nice new name and corporate identity for you, including all the administrative cost involved with a company name change.
If you know for a fact that you have been trading for longer than they have, you may want to apply for a registered trademark "Zeta" in the software category in Germany now. It costs something like 150 USD per year per trademark per category per country.
You should also take into account that there is a risk attached to doing nothing. Do you have anything in writing that they won't come after you in the future? What if they release other software for their OS that they will also call Zeta This and Zeta That, some of which may be the kind of software your company has spent 10 years building a reputation for? If their strategy becomes more agressive you could be up for a nasty surprise at the worst possible moment. You better deal with this while you still can.
You probably know the UK airline EasyJet and their other EasyThis and EasyThat ventures. In the beginning they were just a budget airline, nothing to worry about by any other businesses using the word "easy" in their name. But as the Easy Group were expanding into other markets, they have been bullying other companies out of their long established legitimate "easy" brands. Who knows, those Yellow Tab folks may one day send you a C&D bullying you into changing your name.
Whatever you do, get professional legal advice!
Re:For those who know... (Score:5, Informative)
In my opinion (I've used Macs since 97 and used BeOS since the first release) I would rather have seen BeOS with the Aqua makeover. BeOS was VERY close to being like a UNIX, it tried to copy all the good stuff but left out the bad stuff.
I don't know how well it worked in a technical sense but it let you load and unload drivers and extensions just by moving them in and out of a folder (never reboot!). It also let you load extensions and drivers for the machine, or just the user (it was never multiuser but was designed with this in mind for the future).
On a 240 MHz 603e I was able to rotate a 3D cube playing QuickTime movies on all 6 sides (compressed with the "video" setting). Without GPU support. BeOS was like the new Amiga, it was amazing and would have been something truly phenomenal had it come out AFTER the DOJ trial against MS.
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:1, Informative)
Mine boots even faster than that thanks to The Final Cartridge III!
TFC3 desktop comes up nearly immediately after power-on, as opposed to the second-and-half of wait unexpanded C64 does before hitting BASIC... No idea how it does that.
Re:NTFS Volume? (Score:2, Informative)
No, they still use BeFS. I imagine they're just showing that NTFS partitions can be mounted (not sure if they're read-only).
Re:For those who know... (Score:4, Informative)
No it isn't. Take a look at the source. The Mach / BSD parts of the kernel are C, while the IOKit drivers are a stripped down version of C++.
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:2, Informative)
also, SOME people choose to only pay for electricity when they are using their computer!
anyone who argues that they can leave their desktop on for months at a time without rebooting and then calls others idiots for not considering the same thing acceptable are hypocrits and down right ignorant and stupid.
welcome to global warming and excess energy use asshole.
hey, who cares how long it takes for your 36" TV to turn on, i mean it doesn't matter if you leave it on all day and night for the entire year right? all those idiots who turn their TV off when they dont watch it.
i like my refridgerator. it cools so well that i dont even have to shut the door. i think people who keep the door shut are stupid, i mean they waste all that time opening the door when they want food. they could just leave it open andn have quick access.
i dont usually openly insult people on slashdot or anywhere else for that matter but the people im talking about are just plain idiots.
Re:For those who know... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:For those who know... (Score:1, Informative)
Bzzt. Three strikes and you're out. I dub thee a clueless Objc-C newbie.
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:3, Informative)
Windows NT was never ported to anything that could be called "big iron." Windows NT only ever ran on i386, Alpha, and MIPS. Now, if your "friend" is one of those PC weenies who considers a highly-speced PC a mainframe, then he should buy a clue with all the money he saved by not buying a real mainframe.
He claimed that WinNT was the last version that would support mainframes.
Again, he was wrong - (fortunately) no version of Windows was ever ported to run on mainframe hardware, i.e. "big iron."