Haiku R1 Beta 3 Released As Spiritual Successor To BeOS

[Delgarde]

Unless this hasn't been updated: https://www.haiku-os.org/community/g...eloping/system Haiku still lacks 3D acceleration, they're tied to GCC2 which is slow compared to modern GCC, and so on. I'm sure that BeOS apps load faster than modern applications because they're tiny programs by modern computing standards but that's like saying that because the C64 can be instantly turned on that an old commodore is faster.

Interesting reading... I see that support for floppy drives is still on their TODO list, along with improvements to "phone-line modem support". Important features, those.

[nokipaike]

I have always been passionate about operating systems, I have always enjoyed collecting news on this field ... BEOS/HAIKU is one of the operating systems that I have always liked to see it grow. I have had this kind of habits for 20 years, it is probable that I landed here on phoronix for this reason.
But lately I have been living strange times, there are a lot of zoomers who are quite ignorant for their obvious young age who invade my circles, and they use the word boomer everywhere, and their degree of superficiality mixed with superiority is embarrassing.
Sometimes they use the word boomer so much that I almost feel their envy disguised as contempt that blinds them.

[TmTFx]

I might be able to do that.

I won't argue about Haiku's objective limitations. They're well known.
Haiku right now is lacking things that many linux entusiasts might want for daily use (3d acceleration, drivers, popular games, chrome, wide app support). However, I believe these features are closer than one might expect.

But that's not the point. I wanted to respond to your post about the things that make Haiku stand out for me. I can actually make a list:

• Database-like filesystem: It's really easy to setup new, custom, personal file types and manage file attributes. Since it's similar to a DB, apps can use it like one, and at the same time Haiku provides the user and other apps an easy way to access this data. https://www.haiku-os.org/docs/usergu...ttributes.html
  • Let's assume you have a Haiku client to the phoronix forum. It's able to scan the forum and save files of type "Post" containing: author, text, and date, and files of type "Author" containing the relevant information. Now imagine a separate app that can scan for new additions to this DB, and shows you the twitter profile of interesting people you meet.
• Advanced file search: It's pretty advanced I'd say. I use voidtool's Everything for Windows. This is that and much more. https://www.haiku-os.org/docs/userguide/en/queries.html
• Talking about files, Haiku has a "Translator" system. You can write a program to tell Haiku how to convert a file type to another file type. https://www.haiku-os.org/docs/usergu...nslations.html
  • For example, you can use translators to convert ogg to mp3.
  • You can also use it to convert the "Phoronix Author" type into a "Contact" type to use in another program that's not the phoronix client.
  • Regular apps can make use of the Translator system as well. They can detect your installed translators and use them on the fly, allowing for easy "export" features, for example.
• Personal. Haiku system API is really easy to use. It's insane how plain simple it is to change the way you use your computer. It is at this step you realize that Windows and even Linux are not really for "personal computers". You can't appreciate until you dive a bit in. Personal means to be able to easily "make your computer work for you" instead of the other way around. You have a need, your computer is here to help you liberate your posibilities. https://www.haiku-os.org/docs/api/index.html
  • Of course, this really is for the technically inclined. But even so, technical people can easily make apps for non-technical people.
• Themes. With Decorators and ControlLook, you can easily change how Haiku looks, entirely. You don't like the window tab? no problem. (this guy made dark theme: https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/flat-...ollook/9611/84)
• Hpkg. I really like that Windows lets you install and run random programs that aren't in the Windows Store. I appreciate that Haiku has a way to run stand-alone programs.

Others:

• I'm not sure how it works, but Cortex is a demo app that takes audio (video too?) from the system and lets you transform it into something else. Would it be possible to, for example, detect if you're watching a youtube video to show a Haiku, system-wide "picture in picture"? I'm not sure about this, but it is interesting.
• I'm not sure how it could be used, but Replicants let you embed a piece of your program into another one. It's commonly used for Desktop applets/gadgets, but in theory your app can support replicants from other programs. https://www.haiku-os.org/docs/usergu...tml#replicants
• There's the "Hey" system as well. It's used to send messages across Haiku to change running app's behaviour and properties. I haven't thought a use case for this, but it is interesting. https://www.haiku-os.org/blog/humdin..._gui_with_hey/

I think I'm forgetting a point or two, but I believe these are the main ones that make Haiku stand out for me.

I just made an account to reply you, as it was practically an open invitation to do so

moreover:

• with stack & tile window management you can have one window with multiple "tabs" of different applications or put them side by side and move them together.
• about hpkgs in Haiku: they are like a piece of read-only filesystem that merges on the fly with the main filesystem, when you install an application you actually don't install anything you are just virtually merging the two layers, so no files are moved and the "root" filesystem remains intact, no overwrites no damages.
• the icons are vector graphics which use a very tiny amount of disk space and are stored as an attribute within the file (remember that it's a database filesystem)
• the ProcessController let's you easily show, kill and handle priorities of processes, you can also see their threads and how much time they spend.
• even if it has no 3D acceleration and everything is done in framebuffer you can show how fast it is handled, a nice and well designed graphic layout. This is one of the most annoying problems in X (or Wayland), that forces you to buy a supported graphic card. In Haiku you don't feel the need to change your underlying graphic hardware or the processor (unless you handle 4k videos or something very heavy).
• and well... no one has the Vulcan Death Grip except Haiku

[3_golden_4]

If you can find a way to actually articulate what's supposed to be better, and not some meaningless hand waving your hobby OS might get some respect.

I might be able to do that.

I won't argue about Haiku's objective limitations. They're well known.
Haiku right now is lacking things that many linux entusiasts might want for daily use (3d acceleration, drivers, popular games, chrome, wide app support). However, I believe these features are closer than one might expect.

But that's not the point. I wanted to respond to your post about the things that make Haiku stand out for me. I can actually make a list:

• Database-like filesystem: It's really easy to setup new, custom, personal file types and manage file attributes. Since it's similar to a DB, apps can use it like one, and at the same time Haiku provides the user and other apps an easy way to access this data. https://www.haiku-os.org/docs/usergu...ttributes.html
  • Let's assume you have a Haiku client to the phoronix forum. It's able to scan the forum and save files of type "Post" containing: author, text, and date, and files of type "Author" containing the relevant information. Now imagine a separate app that can scan for new additions to this DB, and shows you the twitter profile of interesting people you meet.
• Advanced file search: It's pretty advanced I'd say. I use voidtool's Everything for Windows. This is that and much more. https://www.haiku-os.org/docs/userguide/en/queries.html
• Talking about files, Haiku has a "Translator" system. You can write a program to tell Haiku how to convert a file type to another file type. https://www.haiku-os.org/docs/usergu...nslations.html
  • For example, you can use translators to convert ogg to mp3.
  • You can also use it to convert the "Phoronix Author" type into a "Contact" type to use in another program that's not the phoronix client.
  • Regular apps can make use of the Translator system as well. They can detect your installed translators and use them on the fly, allowing for easy "export" features, for example.
• Personal. Haiku system API is really easy to use. It's insane how plain simple it is to change the way you use your computer. It is at this step you realize that Windows and even Linux are not really for "personal computers". You can't appreciate until you dive a bit in. Personal means to be able to easily "make your computer work for you" instead of the other way around. You have a need, your computer is here to help you liberate your posibilities. https://www.haiku-os.org/docs/api/index.html
  • Of course, this really is for the technically inclined. But even so, technical people can easily make apps for non-technical people.
• Themes. With Decorators and ControlLook, you can easily change how Haiku looks, entirely. You don't like the window tab? no problem. (this guy made dark theme: https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/flat-...ollook/9611/84)
• Hpkg. I really like that Windows lets you install and run random programs that aren't in the Windows Store. I appreciate that Haiku has a way to run stand-alone programs.

Others:

• I'm not sure how it works, but Cortex is a demo app that takes audio (video too?) from the system and lets you transform it into something else. Would it be possible to, for example, detect if you're watching a youtube video to show a Haiku, system-wide "picture in picture"? I'm not sure about this, but it is interesting.
• I'm not sure how it could be used, but Replicants let you embed a piece of your program into another one. It's commonly used for Desktop applets/gadgets, but in theory your app can support replicants from other programs. https://www.haiku-os.org/docs/usergu...tml#replicants
• There's the "Hey" system as well. It's used to send messages across Haiku to change running app's behaviour and properties. I haven't thought a use case for this, but it is interesting. https://www.haiku-os.org/blog/humdin..._gui_with_hey/

I think I'm forgetting a point or two, but I believe these are the main ones that make Haiku stand out for me.

I just made an account to reply you, as it was practically an open invitation to do so

[bitterseeds]

That can't be true, I don't use anything made before 2015. No but seriously you could just have used your imagination a little to understand what I was trying to say.

My imagination meant nothing when the word boomer is used as a pejorative. I get that you were saying it's a bunch of "olds" working on something and not moving forward. It just wasn't a very imaginative way of saying "let's move forward and not look back". And a lot of "boomers" have worked on Linux and other GNU software, it's offensive to them. /shrug

[Luke_Wolf]

I for one love Haiku! I use Linux, Haiku and AmigaOS 4 and they are all great in their own right, but Haiku and AmigaOS 4 stand out more IMHO, espe when it comes to stability and performance (not that Linux is unstable and slow, but it's… well, I can't explain it - you have to try the others yourself to feel the difference).

That would be called the placebo effect. Look... "speed and stability"? what even are you on about? On any useful objective metric, even for desktop usage, Haiku is going to be bottom of the barrel on speed.

Unless this hasn't been updated: https://www.haiku-os.org/community/g...eloping/system Haiku still lacks 3D acceleration, they're tied to GCC2 which is slow compared to modern GCC, and so on. I'm sure that BeOS apps load faster than modern applications because they're tiny programs by modern computing standards but that's like saying that because the C64 can be instantly turned on that an old commodore is faster.

I'm not even going to bother trying to figure out what exactly you mean by "stability" here.

Truth is, and why Haiku gets run after here, is that Haiku has failed to explain what's special about it: what its purpose is besides simply keeping BeOS on lifesupport. All we get from Haiku defenders is hand waving, and when we try it all we find is we've been thrown back into the 90s, and there aren't even any games to keep us here like there would be with AmigaOS because BeOS was always obscure. Certainly we're not going to be doing anything productive on old BeOS software, and anything like libreoffice we can run anywhere else and likely better.

If you can find a way to actually articulate what's supposed to be better, and not some meaningless hand waving your hobby OS might get some respect. until then it's almost a game to see if Haiku people can articulate something... anything... that's factual to support using this OS rather than simple boomer nostalgia.

[AHOY]

Boomer talk.

That can't be true, I don't use anything made before 2015. No but seriously you could just have used your imagination a little to understand what I was trying to say.

[bitterseeds]

Like anybody would touch this insecure boomer OS even in that alternate universe. It doesn't even support Wayland.

I understand missing simpler times but whatever replaces Linux is going to be ten times worse and with even more corporate backing.

Are you serious about using the word boomer to talk about an OS when Linux was first created in 1991? We won't even go into how old GNU is and even the hot AF python language.

We use to tell people to RTFM but now maybe you should GTMF as BeOS came out in October 1995 ... 4 years after.

WE should be applauding folks who put their hardware work and free time into doing something they love and releasing it to the public. After all if it wasn't a matter of choice and preference we wouldn't have so many Linux distros.

[Vasant1234]

Building a new desktop OS might have been an exciting project in the 80's. It is just not relevant anymore.
Even Linux desktop is struggling to gain acceptance and might end of being an OS just for developers. Rest of the world seem pretty happy with Windows and even some developers might choose to stay with Windows and use WSL2. Most people forget that it is the number of applications available for an OS that determines its success.

[AHOY]

He's talking about the past. Linux wasn't always so spectacular on desktops either - that's something from recent years. And how do you know Haiku is insecure? Have you audited the source code or something?

Let's be grateful that we have Linux and accept that it isn't perfect.

No. Not me and not anyone else from what I heard. It barely has a browser so what's even the point, first they need to deliver something to be worth auditing. Like core features any OS should have. I'm only being harsh because of the context of this discussion, it's even dumb to say these things. It's a fine project otherwise.

OS development and research is healthy and very fun but trying to pretend it was just a few millions away from becoming the next big thing is laughable. kvuj left a better reply already although I haven't checked if it's all true.

Neither does Android, Windows, macOS, Redox OS, iOS, AmigaOS, etc. Doesn't make them any less. Stop your Wayland marketing.

These are all legacy operating systems (no Wayland).