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| Developer interview: how Haiku is building a better BeOS |
| By special contributor rohan_p on 2012-08-08 15:21:35 |
| BeOS may be dead, but over a decade after its lamentable demise the open source Haiku project keeps its legacy alive. Haiku is an attempt to build a drop-in, binary compatible replacement for BeOS, as well as extending the defunct OS's functionality and support for modern hardware. At least, that's the short-term goal - eventually, Haiku is intended significantly enhance BeOS while maintaining the same philosophy of simplicity and transparency, and without being weighed down with the legacy code of many other contemporary operating systems. Computerworld Australia recently caught up with Stephan Assmus, who has been a key contributor to the project for seven years for a lengthy chat about BeOS, the current state of Haiku and the project's future plans. |
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| RE[3]: Haiku and Linux |
| By Soulbender on 2012-08-09 04:18:56 |
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> while on Windows, it would mean, more often than less, a box about "where is the driver?" No, it would entail messing around with the even more fragile registry. |
 - Score: 0 |
| RE[3]: Haiku and Linux |
| By moondevil on 2012-08-09 05:02:03 |
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On the other hand, Haiku still has to improve a lot in terms of security. Currently it has a security model similar to what Amiga, Atari ST, Windows 9x had. We all know what that meant in terms of virus and getting your data secure. If the an application gets owned, it will have access to the complete filesystem. This is very important issue to fix, even on a single user desktop OS. |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE: Its A�mus not Assmus! |
| By Soulbender on 2012-08-09 06:28:14 |
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> Modern OSes are able to display Aßmus just fine. Modern OS's yes, OSNews headlines no. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[3]: Haiku and Linux |
| By Valhalla on 2012-08-09 11:47:33 |
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> Haiku is more integrated, more standardized and is a overall cleaner design for a desktop OS (not server) than Linux. Yes this is the strength of Haiku, as it's totally focused on providing a full desktop experience out-of-the-box, which means it comes with all necessary components tightly integrated. Linux by contrast is just a kernel to which you add whatever components you need/prefer, as such Linux strenght is flexibility/customization. For a desktop environment I prefer the Haiku approach (although I also like the maximal flexibility I get from Linux and the tailoring of environments it offers), and as such it is what I really want to run as my day-to-day desktop OS. Currently the greatest hinderance for Haiku adoption is hardware/software support, and the short-term solution for software in my opinion is to get more ports for Haiku, native applications are of course much preferred but they will only come once people actually use the system, and before they do that there must be software available to make it useable. > Despite dozens of efforts by Linux community to integrate the DE with the core OS, it still fells like a gigantic wrapper on top of a mess, who gives a overall fragility to it. Well, they pretty much are 'wrappers' by comparison as there can never be the type of integration between the kernel and outside components as that which Haiku enjoys due to Haiku being developed as a whole OS with a specific purpose, from kernel to gui. On the other hand, the vast majority likely don't notice this in any really practical way and although I love Haiku with all my heart I'd have to say that the vast majority of people out there get's a much better 'experience' out of something like Ubuntu then out of Haiku at it's current and foreseeable future state. Loved the article, it's always interesting hearing about a project from the viewpoint of one of it's developers. Also Stephan's comments seems very down to earth rather than trying to drum up some hype which lends credibility to his views IMO. From what I gather the big stumbling point towards a R1 release is the package management, so here's hoping someone steps up to the plate and finishes this so that Haiku can finally take that last huge step. I think R1 would do wonders for the sense of achievement and overall interest in Haiku, of course package management in itself would do wonders for day-to-day use of Haiku, particularly updates. |
| - Score: 3 |
| Ugh |
| By peteo on 2012-08-09 12:13:22 |
| Funny how Haiku is still able to overwrite other partitions. |
| - Score: 2 |
| haha |
| By peteo on 2012-08-09 12:14:59 |
| It says Ass-mus. Haha. Oh the lack-o-i18n fun. |
| - Score: 1 |
| haiku |
| By cipri on 2012-08-09 15:31:15 |
|
i must admit the development of haiku slowed down, just the gsoc could save haikus image. That's one advantage of haiku, that even if the core developers of haiku slow down, or loose their interest, there are still new developers coming that are doing a great job. Haiku has a lot of good stuff under the hood, but it's user interface makes in my opinion a too old impression. I guess most haiku/beos subestimate the importance of looking pretty/fancy. Beos users are used to that current user interface, and they could swear how great it is, but some of them dont understand, that most other users that come from windows/linux perhpas prefere a more modern looking user interface. I would prefer if haiku would already now start working on R2, and on R1 at the same time. And if there is something good/important in R2, it can be ported back to R1. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[4]: Haiku and Linux |
| By tidux on 2012-08-09 18:53:18 |
| You'll have to wait for R2 for a fix for that. R1 is supposed to be a drop-in replacement for BeOS R5, and that means pure single-user. R2 is where Haiku will start to take off on its own direction. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[5]: Haiku and Linux |
| By moondevil on 2012-08-09 19:10:57 |
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Yeah, but all other systems keep moving on as well. GNU/Linux only managed to achieve what it is today thanks to the support of companies that wanted to improve the ecosystem for their purposes, regardless of good or bad. Haiku needs something similar, otherwise it will never be much more than a hobby OS. Nice to cure the nostalgia kick for a few hours and that is it. |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE[5]: Haiku and Linux |
| By cipri on 2012-08-09 21:40:39 |
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but the haiku at the moment says: we finish R1, then we continue with R2. But they could do something different. They could already now start working on R2 while also working on R1. And if something in R2 would be important to R1, it can be ported back to R1. For example while R1 is not finished, the R1 version could be the "official release", and the R2 would be just something like a prototype which doesnt need to be backward compatible with each release. And just after R1 is finished, the R2 becomes the "official version", which from there on needs to be backward compatible and not break api/abi. This kind of "freedom" perhaps could help to make greater progress and to come-up with new ideas. There should something like an "experimental haiku", in my vision. |
| - Score: 2 |
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