Haiku meets 9th processor

#1

Post by protomyth » Mon, Dec 30, 2013, 11:11 PM UTC

Re: Haiku meets 9th processor

#2

Post by rtpg » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 12:13 AM UTC

I've always been confused as to what sort of niche Haiku is trying to fill. Is there that much of a demand for BeOS applications?

Maybe I'm just too young to know

Re: Haiku meets 9th processor

#3

Post by agildehaus » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 12:19 AM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #2

I've always been confused as to what sort of niche Haiku is trying to fill. Is there that much of a demand for BeOS applications? Maybe I'm just too young to know

Since when does everything have to fill some niche? What about just trying to make a good open-source desktop OS, for fun, because they're developers?

I see this quite often on articles about Haiku. Everyone jumps on them like it's such a bad thing that they're working on something and it has no relationship to Linux.

Re: Haiku meets 9th processor

#4

Post by coolsunglasses » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 12:20 AM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #2

I've always been confused as to what sort of niche Haiku is trying to fill. Is there that much of a demand for BeOS applications? Maybe I'm just too young to know

A nicer nix than Linux, freer than Mac, better desktop toolkit than either of the two.

Re: Haiku meets 9th processor

#5

Post by pjmlp » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 12:29 AM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #2

I've always been confused as to what sort of niche Haiku is trying to fill. Is there that much of a demand for BeOS applications? Maybe I'm just too young to know

It is a desktop OS that does not try to be another UNIX clone.

Re: Haiku meets 9th processor

#6

Post by vezzy-fnord » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 12:31 AM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #2

I've always been confused as to what sort of niche Haiku is trying to fill. Is there that much of a demand for BeOS applications? Maybe I'm just too young to know

It's almost as if you've never heard of hobbyist OS development.

Re: Haiku meets 9th processor

#7

Post by tumdum_ » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 12:46 AM UTC

coolsunglasses wrote: post #4

rtpg wrote: post #2

I've always been confused as to what sort of niche Haiku is trying to fill. Is there that much of a demand for BeOS applications? Maybe I'm just too young to know

A nicer nix than Linux, freer than Mac, better desktop toolkit than either of the two.

Haiku's Not Unix (HNU?) ;)

Re: Haiku meets 9th processor

#8

Post by AlecSchueler » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 12:48 AM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #2

I've always been confused as to what sort of niche Haiku is trying to fill. Is there that much of a demand for BeOS applications? Maybe I'm just too young to know

I've actually been using Haiku as my primary work OS for a while now. I don't need much software beyond a web browser and a text editor (increasingly true for many people I imagine) and Haiku offers some benefits over Linux in simple shell features like stack & tile window management. Check out the User Guide[0] for a sense of the unique features.

[0]: https://www.haiku-os.org/docs/userguide/en/contents.html

Re: Haiku meets 9th processor

#9

Post by GuiA » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 1:15 AM UTC

I have a fantasy that 20 years from now, Haiku will be the operating system of choice for hackers with design sensibilities (NB: I didn't say graphic design) who want a powerful, flexible, programmable OS that just works and requires minimal configuration.

This niche is currently filled by OSX, but I think it's slowly falling out of favor because of Apple's increasing focus on the end user and "iOSifying" everything.

Of course Haiku is still some ways from it, but I've been following its development for a while now and I feel like it's on the right track. If one or two manufacturers end up providing good hardware for Haiku to run on when it's a bit more mature, it'd be wonderful and then my vision would happen.

There are worse foundations and inspirations to have than BeOS - a man can dream :)

Re: Haiku meets 9th processor

#10

Post by thaumaturgy » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 1:36 AM UTC

GuiA wrote: post #9

I have a fantasy that 20 years from now, Haiku will be the operating system of choice for hackers with design sensibilities (NB: I didn't say graphic design ) who want a powerful, flexible, programmable OS that just works and requires minimal configuration. This niche is currently filled by OSX, but I think it's slowly falling out of favor because of Apple's increasing focus on the end user and "iOSifying" everything…

FWIW Debian stable (esp. with KDE IMO) is now very close to this. I have no patience at all for a fiddly daily machine, and for the most part I've been pretty happy with it.

There are probably other Linux distributions (Mint?) that can fill this niche.

I only mention this because, if people are looking for something right now, setting aside a little bit of time to try out Debian stable or Mint might be worthwhile.

But yeah. I'd love to see Haiku become a strong alternative OS. I've been keeping an eye on it ever since it was announced. (I still have the BeOS R5 disc that I installed on a PPC machine years ago.)