Google's Fuchsia operating system gets first release soonerish

All of the original Commodore Amiga models used 680x0 series CPUs from Motorola. The x86 model Amiga was never released. It ended up just being a Windows wrapper for WinUAE the emulator. There was a K6-2 AMD model developer box for AmigaDE, which was a very early precursor to the modern WebAssembly bytecode, running Linux. The AmigaOne models have always been PowerPC based and used Radeon, Permedia2 or a few other non-nVidia cards. The x86/AMD models never caught on.

Amiga Rulez. I had amiga too!! Now it creates enthusiasts can not happen behind the development of technology…

1 Like

Are you willing to buy the same machine for all the developers who participate in Haiku so they can all use the same hardware? Also, will you discuss this with the devs so they agree on which machine to pick? Some of us use 12" laptops on the go with long battery life. Some use very powerful desktop machines. Sometimes a single developer has both of these setups.

A single machine is an unrealistic thing to do.

And if you don’t have the developers using it, your single machine will not be better supported or less well supported than any other machine.

A few years ago the recommendation was “just get a Thinkpad from IBM” because that’s what a lot of the devs were using at the time. But then the Thinkpad line was transferred to Lenovo and it isn’t as good as it used to be. In my case I’m still using a Thinkpad X220 and I do not know yet what I will be getting next time I decide to upgrade.

3 Likes

It is unrealistic if you want to dual boot (i guess like most are doing), what I imagine is a dedicated hardware on which only haiku runs. And I mean without monitor, mouse, keyboard… stuff that can work with hdmi/dp and usb.
Today I would not do any kind of programming on a laptop. My minimal setup would be two monitors. [My actual setup is: 2 x 55 inch 4k tvs and soon I want to add a monitor with stylus].
In this scenario I would be having my main machine and the haiku box running side by side [if needed…for example on the main computer you have your browser working… for looking up standards, books etc…].
Such a haiku-box (desktop pc) could be made from the sifive unmatched board (in case haiku would run smoother than on qemu, which I guess/hope).
I guess there are devs who want to be able write code on a laptop, but instead of fiddling with a laptop I guess it’s better to … sleep, walk, read a book.

What I mean is, to avoid writing code for hardware that is not standardized (like usb) nor have a good documentation. I would not fight trying to make my software run on a black-box, instead I would prefer making my own box. And now with risc-v/sifive it is not unthinkable anymore for a little company/organization to design their own hardware too [which can be run and tested on a simulator before production is possible].

To me this sounds a lot more fun than:
let’s fight to write drivers for 15 years old black-boxes such that normal users can run it on their secondary pc for playing around and not doing real work.

Having a killer-app would be of great help.
Imagine how many would buy a “adobe pc” just to be able to run the adobe products and nothing else.

It is uncomfortable to be telling this idea, since most likely many will dislike it and I don’t want to create discomfort, but it is something I have in consideration in the end to maybe do myself (if nobody else is going to do it), therefore I also bought the domain haiku-box.com in case I or somebody else from the haiku community wants to build a haiku-box.
I can imagine one day making something like a ebook-reader/smartphone with e-ink screen using some risc-v cpu. Very likely this would be very costly (and success would be very unlikely) but it would be a lot of fun.

Single board computers are often easy to support because they use system on a chip (SoC) architecture. When you have limited driver support abilities, that’s what you support. The “one board to rule them all” approach is going to be tried by the MorphOS team as they make the switch from PPC to x64. They will have enough trouble on their hands with endian switching alone. It is never a permanent solution but some times it is what small teams have to do.

If Haiku wanted to follow that approach, the RaspberryPi 4 series would have been a good choice. Educational computers for students and hobbyists in a monoculture. Hardware monocultures are easier to support just like the Commodore 64 was. Once the >8bit CPU embargo dropped, however, and eastern Europeans and other Russians could buy faster and better computers, they did so. The 6510 CPU architecture practically dropped off the radar overnight as Commodore 64 sales also dropped like a rock. So did the 6502 CPU the 6510 was based on. The original Nintendo Entertainment System came out with 65816 based SuperNES and that was the end for 8 bit machines all over. Commodore rolled over and died in 1994 taking the promise of newer Amiga computers with them.

The lesson is: the “one board” monoculture strategy is always temporary, so expect it to end at any time. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

Having a Haiku-Box dealership is a great idea as release 1.0 of Haiku looks promising. Just remember that WebAssembly is a poison-pill strategy for compatibility arguments.

So your suggestion is that in addition to the problems we have writing drivers, we should also have problems designing our own hardware? Sorry but I’m not going there. I have enough problems with “work in progress” hardware in my paid job, having to ask the company who provides the hardware to gives us instructions on where to cut a trace on the PCB and solder a resistor, or sending us small patch PCBs to add to the board because something doesn’t work at the hardware level and there is no software workaround. I’d rather use a PC that was already tested and got to the market, thanks.

A PC for each app? When I can just use the same laptop that I use for everything else and can easily carry around? I’m sorry but this feel a bit nonsensical to me.

Don’t forget to ask Haiku inc to give permission for use of the Haiku trademark. And good luck with your venture :slight_smile:

4 Likes

What I meant was:
If adobe products would run just one a hypothetical “adobe pc”, this hypothetical adobe pc would still sell well, just because of those programs.
In fact, this is so far the only reason why I keep windows as an dual boot option, because of adobe products and some 3D-CAD software not running on linux.

I wanted to explain the idea of: choosing small set of hardware, focusing just on that and on software that is productive/useful/impressive.

Do you have an estimation of how many unique users are using haiku on a monthly basis?

It is not a conspiracy, it is historic fact. The Crypto AG case is very famous and the USA even admitted it. The spying of the German canceler by the USA is also know fact and I think USA apologized… i guess for being caught. The manipulated cisco routers are also part to the known history.

Now you have also this

Quoting from the US senate
“Whoever wins the race to the technologies of the future is going to be the global economic leader with profound consequences for foreign policy and national security as well.”

It is know fact that 5G is technology of future… and that Huawei had the most patents and had the biggest contribution to the development… and that they have the best performing devices … and also on top of that the best price.

USA wants to win “the race to the technologies of the future” but in an unfair way. My best guess is that europe would have had the same treatment from the USA, if Europe would have been such a big competitor as china to the USA.

It is very clear that there is a technology war. And Huawei is just the most know case… but according to the following financial times article… there are more than 100 companies in the same situation.

https://www.ft.com/content/795060b7-1932-4491-af6f-d983e3cffb50

And quaoting the ex CEO of Intel: “Only the paranoid survive”

Dang, this thread went maybe a little too off-topic. It went from talking about Fuchsia to international politics.

wew

5 Likes

Stolen IP and spying might have a little something to do with Huaweis treatment.

And Nokia is a European company in the 5G tech, not facing any of these “unfair” practices from the US.

1 Like

when it comes to google, it is very good to get into the political aspect. Google tries to infiltrate at the root, and then at a later point it is hard to switch.

I am using sometimes google.com with a huawei browser to search… and I get often flagged as “robot” and I have to prove by choosing pictures to prove that I am not a robot… and this never happened to me when using other browsers.

Which stolen IP? Do you mean the fact that Huawei ist the company with the most 5G patents and that USA introduced (or planned to introduce) a law such that Huawei is not getting paid in the US for their patents?
Which Spying? Any Proof? What about Crypto AG??? There you have the proof of spying and even the official confession by the USA authorities. The spy pretend to be the guardian of the secret… and this for decades. And you still takes the words of USA authorities without proof??

Forbes Oct 5, 2020

No. It is better to discuss which parts of Fuchsia and Zircon may be useful for developing Haiku (UEFI, video drivers etc.). It is licensed under BSD/MIT license so Google can’t resist using it in other projects.

8 Likes

haiku needs a big corporate sponsor, or serious growth in the user base and funding !!

Being under the thumb of a big commercial sponsor is the last thing Haiku needs. Expanding the user base is needed though. The trick is how to get the latter without the former. An operating system is just plumbing, after all.

1 Like

If I were going to go that route, I’d go after Atari. They have an “in” with AMD for the VCS 800, and Haiku would make a good “beginner” OS to have working with it. Then there’s the advantage that they’re not really big enough to cause problems with it.

I’d offer commercial use liscense with support, same way Redhat did or does

also get nativ 3d drivers

Redhat is a subsidiary of IBM. Need I say more?

True. I was thinking more of working Wi-Fi and HDMI audio.

1 Like