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.
Well, yeah... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:5, Interesting)
-kaplanfx
Please MOD parent down or funny... (Score:3, Insightful)
My last Mac on osX has
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: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
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:Well, yeah... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to sound like a Mac zealot, but this is in contrast to my Windows laptops (Dell Inspiron 8000, Sony SRX99, Fujitsu P2040, Panasonic W2, etc), which have all been annoyingly temperamental when it comes to standby. 80-90% of the time they resume in 3-6 seconds, but the rest of time they take 15-45 seconds (and once in a great w
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:3, Interesting)
Power-on to login screen: 59 seconds.
Enter on login to finished login: 29 seconds.
Now, the nice thing about OSX is that you generally don't have to reboot ever unless there is an OS update, so I boot about once a month (for the point updates and security updates). OSX resumes *instantly* from sleep, which is really nice.
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:3, Insightful)
IMHO it's quite annoying, I would rather the boot process take longer and it be ready to go the moment the desktop pops-up.
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's funny because I can't stand having to wait for every little thing to load before starting.
Maybe I'm just spoiled, but the difference is more startling when one uses a dual proc machine. My XP machine at work gets up to speed quickly. Almost as soon as my desktop is up, I can start loading my apps. On my laptop, I see that lag that you're describing. I'm reasonbly certain that the other processor is doing the work. Great stuff.
In any event, at least seeing that your computer is almost there is a psychological relief. Sort of like 2 minutes of commercials is usually better than seeing 2 minutes of black screen. (Which NBC likes to do here frrm time to time, don't ask me why.)
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:5, Interesting)
I call this the Disney effect. If you've ever been to a Disney theme park you typically wait about 20 minutes to get on a ride (excluding the "mountains") however they break the line up and never let you see the whole thing as well as have little pitstops of entertainment before you get on the actual ride.
I've always thought it was brilliant and was reminded of it the first time I saw Windows 2000 boot (it goes through 3 stages, NT text, then the splash, then the screen before login).
Re:Windows boot times (Score:3, Insightful)
You're exagerating, I think that XP take at least 20s on a computer 10* more performant.
With BeOS, the computer was totally functionnal as soon as it gave you the hand.
XP cheats by displaying the desktop but not giving you the hand, so that its boot time appear lower than it really is.
Also on BeOS, the system felt very responsive, more than XP running on a much more powerful hw, granted the applications which have gained
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:3, Insightful)
The parent is probably posted as flamebait but I have some points to make so I'll put them here.
Assuming a fairly recent Linux distro (say from 2004 or even 2003) and the same hardware then you're comparing an OS that's over 6 years old and designed to run on the common hardware of the day with a far more recent OS. To make it a fair comparison you'd have to compare Win98 with a distro from '98.
This is a trap that a lot of posters are falling into. Even comparing WinXP with recent Linux distro releases
For those who know... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:For those who know... (Score:4, Interesting)
On the other hand, Mach is pretty slow, and stuffing the BSD layer into the kernel space and building everything off of it made a Mach base superfluous. Objective C is a mediocre language with expensive message dispatch, but OpenStep was a powerful platform that proved itself to be easy to develop for.
Re:For those who know... (Score:5, Interesting)
Openstep is a well designed API, if not the best ever so this makes up for the ugliness of Objective-C. However, I could not imagine using Objective-C for anything but a Cocoa program.
The dispatch is rather expensive, but having dynamic binding like it does is the reason for this. This allows for great flexibility while designing software but of course comes at an execution cost. For the OOP nuts, it's pure but I agree, they could have done things better with the language. It's definitely the Achilles heal of the whole Cocoa thing and makes you guess they will have a superior Java implementation eventually.
Re:For those who know... (Score:5, Interesting)
And C++ feels like Simula bolted crudely on to C, and Java feels like C++ on Prozac, and runs like C++ on 'ludes.
The REAL problem is that C is not a good base for an OO operating system. The best OO C derivitive is Livescript/Javascript/ECMAscript, and that's because it doesn't try and retain C semantics anywhere.
Re:For those who know... (Score:3, Interesting)
Knock yourself out :-)
Re:For those who know... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Objective-C (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:For those who know... (Score:3, Interesting)
But for believers (and those in the know :-) obj-c is a terrific lightweight and very capable tool. The programs can be, in practice, as fast and small as C applications, yet you can still design abstract api's that easily support inheritance and polymorphism. It's not an academic argument; Obj-C has been key to the design of one of the best application development environments for
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:For those who know... (Score:2)
Easier to develop for?
I do believe NeXT has a time honored history there.
Easier to extend?
Again I think NeXT had the advantage.
Supports more platforms?
NeXT again has the advantage.
Easier to refactor?
No way to determine.
Supports more hardware?
Probably a draw.
Uses less memory?
I'm not sure this is relevant.
Uses less CPU?
Probably BeOS here.
What measures do you consider important?
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:For those who know... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:For those who know... (Score:4, Interesting)
Now I must say, for the record, that I am using OSX for most of my purposes now. Only the engineering stuff from work, like Autocad, Pro/E, and Mastercam, doesn't run on this thing. My boss told me that when versions of those programs become available for the Mac, the entire Windows-based network is going in the trash. This is cool, because seven years ago, when I told him to dump NT and use FreeBSD as his server system, he didn't believe that some alternative to Windows that he never heard of could get the job done at all, let alone do it better. Boy, did I prove him wrong after a while, but I had to make him a bet that if FreeBSD didn't do the job, I'd take him and his family out to dinner at his favorite restaurant, which is a very, very expensive restaurant!
Back to OSX and BeOS, though... There were a number of things about BeOS that I loved, including:
Unfortunately, BeOS didn't fulfill all needs quite so well. Let's see a few things BSD has that BeOS doesn't:
Re:For those who know... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yet virtually all quality OS X-only software is cu
Re:NeXT was proven.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple actually made an offer for Be. It just wasn't as much money as the Be folks wanted. They didn't buy NeXT because of superior technology, but because they liked the total package (with Jobs) at that pricepoint better.
As far as JLG not having charisma, he had it, it was just that it was french charisma. How many American CEOs say that their product 'makes their nipples hard'? :)
Returned to life.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Returned to life.. (Score:5, Funny)
Anything is possible [zombo.com]
right... (Score:5, Funny)
Why was he learning C? Because BeOS was coming back, and they were gonna need people to port applications. And porting was easier if you knew C. And BeOS was gonna be the next big thing so they needed to have lots of apps ported to it.
Re:right... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:right... (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, like donating to charities, learning C is a worthwhile occupation no matter what ridiculous motive one has.
If you want to take a look at BeOS... (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Yeah, but... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Hardware requirements? (Score:4, Interesting)
I looked over their site and couldn't find hardware requirements documented.
One thing I love about open source operating systems is that the system requirements are right there, up front -- or at least you don't have to look hard to find them.
It claims to boot in 15 seconds, which I don't doubt. It would be great to use on a laptop for that very reason. However, will my poor little laptop be able to handle it? I'd love to know before I get my hopes up.
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.
Blessing in disguise? (Score:5, Insightful)
Obligatory.... (Score:5, Funny)
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?
Looks Aren't Everything But... (Score:5, Funny)
Looks Promising... (Score:2, Insightful)
Simple logic here folks, if I can get to work driving my car, why should I ride the bus which is more environmental friendly when it only goes half way to my destination?
Way to kill it before it starts (Score:5, Insightful)
What can I do with it that I can't do with a free Linux distro, or the Windows that I already have? Tell me why I should drop $100 on this.
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 dem
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:It's all snake oil, BeOS is a dead inferior OS (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow... (Score:3, Funny)
Editors: dost thou have no mercy? From the depths of hell, the server stabs at thee!
I'm bored, waiting for the DST to kick in.. ;-)
Funny, (Score:5, Interesting)
Turned out the entire GUI crashed all the time and tons of drivers where missing. Then came a big upgrade, then another beta and then... nothing.
Now it's 2005, and it's now "ready for a release next month". I suggest they bury it instead. For good, or turn the whole thing over to the OpenBeOS people.
Re:Funny, (Score:3, Interesting)
Look at the right lower side of the page.
Same failed OS, Zany new name! (Score:2)
Re:Same failed OS, Zany new name! (Score:4, Insightful)
It doesn't matter what the processor is, it just matters what the software running on it is.
BeOS
I'm more interested in the reborn Amiga OS.
Is there anything new? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hee hah! (Score:5, Insightful)
On the plus side, it should have no malware available for it.
I think Mac support for BeOS was killed when Apple refused to release info on the G3 Macs to Be, Inc. Therefore Be targeted the X86 market, hoping to save the company that way, because that is what NeXT did. Only NeXT tanked and got saved by Apple, yet Be, Inc. tanked and nobody saved it, and Palm bought out the corpse and buried it, until this Zeta Zombie rose from the dead.
I think I'll take my chances with Linux, KNOPPIX/KANOITX seems to be stable enough, boots from a live CD, and has an option to be installed on a hard drive.
I mean unless most of the major OSS projects are being converted to ZetaOS/BeOS, I think you can forget convicing enough people to buy a copy to make it worth their while.
I hate hate hate that ZetaOS (Score:5, Interesting)
I do work for a small German company called "zeta software [zeta-producer.com]".
Currently, yellowTab is selling the ZetaOS through multiple German home-order-TV shows to computer-illiterate persons. Of course most of them fail to successfully install ZetaOS on their supermarket-bought PCs.
A daily average of two or there of them call us (not yellowTab!) and ask what they can do, now that they crashed both their Windows installation and their ZetaOS.
Even the hints beside every phone number on our website that we have absolutely nothing to do with that ZetaOS did not help much.
yellowTab seems to be aware of the problem that many many customers seems to be very discontented with ZetaOS and additionally call all companies that seem to have the Word "zeta" in their name (which are quite a few), because yellowTab hired a marketing agency (or how you call that in English) that called us some time ago on the phone.
This agency seemed to have the task to call all those zeta-named companies and apologize for the "idiots" (= ZetaOS customers) calling them. The agency further asked us what the average questions of the ZetaOS customers was. You could call that "Indirect surveying" ;-).
I really whish myself and all zeta-named companies that yellowTab runs out of venture-capital really soon and that they disappear and never ever return again *sigh*.
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.
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
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
A Floater (Score:3, Insightful)
Why can't they go after a market where it is needed? For instance, there are more and more ATMs popping up running windows and misbehaving in ways that you didn't think was possible for such a critical system.
Obviously BeOS, or whatever the marketroids call it this week, is stable, lean, fast, and seems to support media processing well. Why not go for the upscale embedded market? Why not go for set-top boxes, portable media players etc?
No business is going to jump ship and switch from Windows, OSX, Linux or whatever they run, to BeOS as their primary desktop OS. Come on.
Screenshots are available (Score:5, Funny)
BeOS (Score:5, Interesting)
I wouldn't be surprised if it'd take them a few months or years to catch up to the current state of technology, because it's been maintained by enthusiasts ever since the company maintaining it dropped it. Even for something that was ahead of its time, it has catching up to do, both when it comes to technology and killer apps, and I guess what I'm asking is... is it worth it?
Interesting quotes (Score:5, Insightful)
If all of that works...I know a big "if"...there shouldn't any shortage of software.
Odd operating system out? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Say what now? (Score:5, Informative)
Just the truth (Score:2)
Re:Just the truth (Score:2)
Well, to be pedantic, it was originally written for AT&T's Hobbit processor [bebox.nu], then ported to PowerPC a few years in, before they actually shipped anything.
Re:Say what now? (Score:5, Insightful)
BeOS would have been more lightweight and probably more efficient, but OS X is maturing into something quite useable. The UNIX roots of OS X have helped lure new developers and new types of users to the platform. Having more developers is never a bad thing.
BeOS would also have been a cleaner start. It's difficult to say how much (or if) UNIX is holding back MacOS X. I find OS X somewhat bloated, especially in terms of the number of files that it is comprised of. I wish it took less time to make a backup.
BeOS is/was also advanced in terms of file meta data. That situation is still quite messy in MacOS X.
Personally, I think it was a wise move (Score:4, Insightful)
Not only that, but the NeXT system had a significant userbase, and, more importantly, software. There was a large amount of software that was available on NeXT, some of which is still being added to OSX now (Apple's Pages software, for example, was once a NeXT app called, wait for it, Pages). Also, Next had the advantage of being used in research institutions (The WWW was developed on a NeXT by Tim Berners-Lee) and was one of the very first systems to offer a fully fledged web application server (WebObjects). The fact that NeXT also had the advantage of some 8 or 9 years of experience and development behind it didn't hurt its chances either.
Possibly, one of the additional factors in Apple's decision was the fact that basing the next Apple OS on BeOS would have meant using a completely untested system. Untested in the market, I mean. Given that Apple really was in dire straights at the time (1995-1996), I think Apple made a wise decision.
But who knows, perhaps BeOS would have made apple become the absolute killer in the OS world.
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:Say what now? (Score:3, Insightful)
The best example of this in Be was the Address book application. The only element in the file was the contact name... everything else was metadata... fields for address, email, phone, etc were directly searchable from the query in the filesystem. It's
Re:Say what now? (Score:5, Interesting)
the problem of storing metadata that way is that its non portable. it's exactly the same problem that plagued macos classic. great when you only deal with macs but bad when the internet comes around and suddenly you have no simple way to transport files around.
also bad when you need to talk eg nfs or smb.
storing metadata in bundles and the whole bundle system allows macos to be transparenly "native" on just about any filesystem.
linux and nt have the ability to attach metadata to files, but nobody uses it. it would be a huge pain if anyone did start, because it would then suffer from again being non portable.
osx bundles are a sort of compromise between having metadata available, but in a way thats portable. its a bit ugly, but it works.
its also all xml, woo woo.
Re:Zeta OS (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently you were never in grade school. The next version would be "Infinity plus one and no returns."
Re:Zeta OS (Score:2)
Re:Zeta OS (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Zeta OS (Score:5, Funny)
Or, if it's meant for novices, GNU/Be.
Re:Zeta OS (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Zeta OS (Score:2)
OS Aleph Null
Re:yes! (Score:3, Insightful)
How would the world be better off if Apple chose BeOS over Jobs? It's not immediately obvious to me.
Re:yes! (Score:2)
Re:yes! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What's the relationship to BeOS? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What's the relationship to BeOS? (Score:2)
Re:hardware support (Score:2)
Do you actually know this or are you just another worthless troll?
Re:15 Seconds? (Score:4, Insightful)
Most of the time my "boot up" is waiting 3 seconds for the monitor to warm up. I don't shut of the PC, just the monitor.
If you want a fast boot time, run linux and leave it running...
Linux + suspend2 (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe that's cheating. My desktop linux takes about a minute, including time spent launching an X and a couple of needed programs.
But seriously, people, this
Your chronology is confused (Score:2)
Re:Be had it tough... (Score:3, Informative)
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:Sadly (Score:3, Insightful)
It's actually worse than that... trying to find a machine that has a supported video chipset AND supported audio AND supported networking AND support motherboard chipset all at the same time is a great way to spend a couple of weeks if you have nothing better to do. BeOS is a great OS, but not really worth the effort to get running on a new machi
Re:yes, another OS! Hooray! (Score:3)