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Haiku meets 9th processor

haiku-os.org

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Re: Haiku meets 9th processor

#21

Post by wtallis »

frozenport wrote: post #19
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…

Once the Gentoo Grinch grows a heart and make an installer your problem will also be solved. I can get any package and any library built the way I want by typing `emerge`.

Gentoo certainly gives you the tools to make a great system, but it needs far more than just an installer to get there. The whole distribution needs a lot more curation. It takes far too much research to figure out which options are potentially useful and which are just relics or break too many other packages or include a feature that is impossible to put to use.

Re: Haiku meets 9th processor

#22

Post by rtpg »

agildehaus wrote: post #3
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.

I'm not trying to jump on them, I'd love to be able to spend my time on that. It's just that it seems to have significant mindshare, and funding, and usually that means its answering the requirements of somebody.

Maybe they're just here to help diversify the OS world, which in itself is a nice goal.

Re: Haiku meets 9th processor

#23

Post by rtpg »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #8
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

For the web browser, is there good support for modern browsers?

Re: Haiku meets 9th processor

#24

Post by ryanweal »

I have been interested in Haiku for awhile but could not get it to install. Last week I finally realized that I could run it in a VirtualBox instance so I started trying it out. I like it... very simple UI, very clean, and very fast.

It comes with many Unix-like shell utilities including scp and ssh. git is installed. There is a graphical text editor and something resembling a package manager that will allow you to fetch vim.

The web browser is a bit lacking/weird/not-sure-how-to-describe, but reading through the installation manual it appears that many Wifi chipsets are supported via BSD drivers.

Press shift when booting if you can't get anywhere, and definitely read the manual. There are few necessary concepts to learn...

Really reminds me of Mac OS 7-9, but much more stable and a better user interface. I'm considering using it for back-end web development (as most of my work is server-based). I'm not concerned about Flash anymore so that is a non-issue.

Re: Haiku meets 9th processor

#25

Post by ryanweal »

rtpg wrote: post #23
AlecSchueler wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

For the web browser, is there good support for modern browsers?

No, it has a built-in browser. Not sure what engine is behind it but it reminds me of the Konqueror days. There is no Firefox build that is reasonably current that I have seen yet (hopefully I'm wrong, please someone prove me wrong).

Re: Haiku meets 9th processor

#26

Post by ryanweal »

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 think it is trying to be a simple and elegant desktop system. It requires nearly zero configuration and has a consistent look and performs well.

I get the feeling it aims to be an open source implementation of what the original Mac was meant to be (pre-OSX)... boot-to-desktop with no terminal layer spawning first.

Re: Haiku meets 9th processor

#28

Post by jay-anderson »

ryanweal wrote: post #25
rtpg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the web browser, is there good support for modern browsers?

No, it has a built-in browser. Not sure what engine is behind it but it reminds me of the Konqueror days. There is no Firefox build that is reasonably current that I have seen yet (hopefully I'm wrong, please someone prove me wrong).

WebPositive is based on Webkit (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebPositive). I'm fairly sure you're right about firefox. The only version for beos (that I know of) is a port of firefox 2 (see http://haikuware.com/remository/view-details/internet-networ...).

Re: Haiku meets 9th processor

#29

Post by alcari »

ryanweal wrote: post #25
rtpg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the web browser, is there good support for modern browsers?

No, it has a built-in browser. Not sure what engine is behind it but it reminds me of the Konqueror days. There is no Firefox build that is reasonably current that I have seen yet (hopefully I'm wrong, please someone prove me wrong).

There's work being done on making WebKit work[0].

[0]: https://www.haiku-os.org/blog/pulkomandy/2013-12-20_webkit_w...

Re: Haiku meets 9th processor

#30

Post by agildehaus »

mortyseinfeld wrote: post #18
agildehaus wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a legitimate question. Haiku was being funded a few years ago and there has to be some kind of mission for a project like Haiku.

They have donations, but nobody has ever "funded" the project. Google's thrown a few $k their way ($5k this year) but I can't recall any other big name.

The mission has always been to reimplement BeOS R5 as open-source with some modernization.

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