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Multithreading Applications run several different processes called "threads" to the kernel, rather than running as a single monolithic process. Especially useful in user interface; for instance, the user can move a window without stopping the movie playing in it.

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Multitasking The ability of an operating system to run several programs simultaneously and independent from another. If a computer only has one CPU, this is achieved by distributing the computing power by a scheduler, running each program for a small amount of time, calculated by special criterions.

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Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) Sends processes or threads to multiple processors, keeping the load as even as possible. Makes multitasking very smooth. Symmetric multiprocessing is especially useful in multithreaded systems.

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File System A file system is the method by which information is stored on disk drives. Different operating systems normally use different file systems, making it difficult to share the contents of a disk drive between two operating systems.

Welcome to the Zeta Manual !

Zeta is a modern, object-oriented operating system designed from the ground-up to be lightweight, powerful and easy to use. Zeta represents a continued development of the operating system BeOS.

With this user manual yellowTAB will try to show you some of Zeta's capabilities. The manual is not trying to cover all aspects of the operating system, but rather give an introduction to commonly used features in the OS it self and it's main applications. yellowTAB has also added some tips on how to use applications that are not part of Zeta. Just have in mind, that yellowTAB is not giving any support on applications that are not part of the Zeta distribution.

One of the first things that you will notice using Zeta is it's great performance. Zeta boots in between 10 and 20 seconds depending on your computer. Zeta is a multithreaded operating system, which means that it can handle multiple simultaneous tasks. The applications are launching instantly. Media operations are faster than anywhere else. Each task will get access to the kernel, even if the CPU(s) is running with a full load. As a test you can start up playbacks of some movies, MP3 files and an audio CD. Clutter your desktop with as many windows you want and format one of your disks. How does your system perform? Do you have any problems accessing any menus are starting another movie? Despite all the processes running, you menu request still gets a fast response from the OS, there's no cursor lagging and no crashes. Some competing operating systems do multithreading, but as far as we have experienced no one is as responsive as Zeta!

The Zeta graphical user interface is clean and lightweighted, without being unfamiliar. The interface was created with simplicity in mind, os if you have ever used a personal computer before you should have no difficulties working with the Zeta desktop, folders, menus and files. How ever, the graphical interface can easily be customized with other colors, fonts and decors. Zeta is developed as an operating system that makes use of a graphical user interface, but it also comes with a full bash 2.0 shell for those who feel more comfortable with working with a UNIX shell. Zeta takes advantages of the long-established POSIX standard to guarantee that Unix command-line applications can easily be ported. Hundreds of POSIX utilities are included with the OS, and many more are available on BeBits.

Zeta supports symmetric multiprocessing (SMP), and yellowTAB has in Zeta's license no limitations on how many CPUs you are allowed to have on your system when running Zeta. The operating system supports up to 8 CPUs, and most of Zeta's applications are designed to take full advantage of multiple processors. No additional tweaking required. Plus, you can turn ON/OFF your CPUs on the fly with a click of a button!

Zeta is an object-oriented operating system, in the way of client / server relations. The clients are usually applications and the servers system objects. Example of servers are media_server, net_server and the app_server. Another example on Zeta being object-oriented is how it make use of data translators. Data translators are objects that knows how to read and write file formats, like psd, png, html and doc.

To make effective use of Zeta's multitasking and multithreading capabilities, Zeta isn't limited to only one workspace (virtual desktop). As you get used to have several applications and windows open simultaneously, you will start spreading out your work on to several desktops. Zeta allows you to have up to 32 virtual desktops. You can easily switch between the 12 first of them, by making use the key combination Alt+Fx (for instance Alt+F2 for workspace 2). Some applications can set a specific workspace in it's preferences, which it will be running in by default. An example of such an application is the e-mail client Beam.

Zeta uses the Be File System (BFS) as it is designed for high-bandwidth media processing. The file system is 64 bit and can store files that are petabytes big! The Be File System is a journaling file system, which can best be described as a database. Zeta filetypes are based on the Internet MIME-typing standard, and they can be customized on a system wide basis, for individual files, or for large groups of files. An example of an application making use of attributes is yellowTAB's own developed Jukebox. Zeta lets you do queries on those attributes just like you would do queries to a real database. As the attributes are indexed, the search results will be presented lightning fast. As the file system is journaling the data integrity is maximized, and you will not risk getting the file system corrupted if your system goes down for one reason or another. You simply just have to boot up your system again. No system integrity check or desktop rebuild!

Zeta comes with a memory protection. All applications running on Zeta runs in a protected memory area. This means that if one of your running applications start misbehaving, it will not effect any other running application or the system beneath it. You simply just have to stop it and restart it. Only data not saved within that application will be lost.

The great thing about Zeta is that it is so portable that you can change your hardware, and Zeta will never ask you for drivers! If the new hardware is supported, it will work out of the box. You can even remove the hard drive that BeOS is installed, install it to a completely different machine, and BeOS will boot like nothing happened (provided that the new machine meets the hardware comp. specs). Even if you have to install drivers for some reason, just by copying the driver file to a directory will be enough most of the times! Drag it, drop it, and that's it! You probably won't even have to reboot!
To be able to make this user manual even better, yellowTAB needs feedback from you as a user. We would like to hear from you, if you find something wrong in the manual, something unclear or missing, then send us a mail. Are there applications and features that we should write about? We would also like feedback on the grammar and spelling errors.

manuals@yellowtab.com

Lots of other documentation have been added to Zeta, and can easily be accessed from the Deskbar:

Thank You for choosing Zeta as your operating system!

©2003-2004 by yellowTAB GmbH