Haiku Developers Begin Optimizing Their BeOS-Inspired OS For Performance

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Haiku Developers Begin Optimizing Their BeOS-Inspired OS For Performance

With the long-awaited Haiku R1 beta having happened at the end of last year and other modern features/support getting squared away, the developers behind this open-source BeOS-inspired operating system have begun investigating their OS performance and making necessary performance optimizations...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Haiku-OS-Optimize-For-Speed

[Nille]

Its sad that many of these niche OS are just x86. There are Plattforms like the RPI where its should be easier so support since its a fixed platform. Its also easy to Flash just a new SD or swap them.

[kaidenshi]

Its sad that many of these niche OS are just x86. There are Plattforms like the RPI where its should be easier so support since its a fixed platform. Its also easy so Flash just a new SD or swap them.

There is a ARM port of Haiku OS in the works, but it's in very early stages as they are focusing on getting it running properly on x86. The OS it is based on, BeOS, originally targeted PPC and x86 simultaneously, but the Haiku team is smaller and all volunteer, it's more difficult to target multiple platforms at the same time with a ground-up OS implementation.

[tuxd3v]

A ARM version would be indeed a must, since this lean OS, could be very well suitable to the SBC world..

[schmidtbag]

Its sad that many of these niche OS are just x86. There are Plattforms like the RPI where its should be easier so support since its a fixed platform. Its also easy to Flash just a new SD or swap them.

In addition to all of that, but it could breathe new life into these OSes. Haiku is already pretty light-weight and ought to run fine on ARM. It's also primarily a hobbyist OS, and devices like the Pi are usually hobbyist hardware. There's hardly any closed-source programs that are compatible, so, it's not like you'd have to worry about that either. Haiku will likely always have very limited hardware support, which doesn't really matter on something like ARM where expandability is also limited.
So yeah, I think OSes like Haiku would actually get more interest if they ported to platforms like ARM, RISC-V, or even POWER.

[Baguy]

Very cool to see them putting so much effort into this OS! I could see it becoming a legitimate competitor to FreeBSD or Linux in a couple of years for basic tasks.

[RealNC]

They begin to what? Haiku is the fastest OS (from the ones that are still maintained) I've ever seen. (OK, second fastest, the fastest is FreeDOS, but that doesn't count. :P)

[sireangelus]

is there any haiku developer here?
I would like to ask you 2 questions: one is about the raspberry pi- very very curious about if you could support it.

[kallisti5]

is there any haiku developer here?
I would like to ask you 2 questions: one is about the raspberry pi- very very curious about if you could support it.

This is such a common question. Our primary ARM target work for the moment has been the Raspberry Pi 2. We have basic code in place to support the following boards:

https://github.com/haiku/firmware/blob/master/manifest.json

We currently have an issue with our arm binutils which causes linking issues on arm. Nobody has been able to solve it yet. Otherwise, we just need drivers for arm hardware. if you're interested in arm, step up and help out! :-)

[S.Pam]

Now, RPi, Haiku and a cordless keyboard would be great with a TV