Configuration system

1

Hello,

I would like to know if for haiku there will be not error to install this OS on my computer (for the futur release!). I tried to install beos 5 dev2.2, but this os dislike my computer (too new!!). My config is (for the moment, because it is first step) :
amd64 X2 5200+, 500 go sata 16mo 7200 tr, 4 go ddr2, gforce 7950gt 512 mo pcix (silent inside), gigabite ga-m59-sli-s5, driver dvd + ~~ burner dvd …
after, i think to have (minimum):slight_smile:
amd64 X2 6000+, 8 go, gf 7950 + gforce 8800(768mo) in sli. Too, these gfx cards will run in 16X in same time, not restrictions !!! :frowning:
Like that, it is possible to do many things in same time, without to be disturb (hDD which is too slow, …).

Concerning Opengl and others graphics library, it will be manage ? and why do not to pay by example, 50 dollars Haiku, like that, it is possible to have more employes to work on the system ! It would be a good price, not expensive it’s the same price that a game.

2

You can probably assume that in the future, Haiku will support as much hardware as possible. This is all contingent on the availability of hardware specifications, OSS drivers, and commercial support.

Right now, Haiku only has the beginnings of SATA support - but it is being worked on slowly. Your AMD processors should hopefully not be a problem - but there may still be some issues with SMP at the moment (which will be required in order to run multiple cores). These will most assuredly be resolved as well.

Amount of RAM should not be a problem in Haiku in the future - although it may not be able to use more than 4gb currently.

As for the video cards, Haiku has a fairly robust nVidia driver, but it doesn’t have support for the newer cards yet. The primary maintainer of the nVidia driver is currently taking a hiatus from his BeOS/Haiku development - and maybe in the future he, or someone else, will pick up where he left off and add more support for newer hardware. As long as nVidia continues to keep their card specs to themselves, you can assume that an OSS Haiku driver will be difficult to write or maintain. If you’re using anything other than Windows or Linux, you can pretty much assume that your expensive top-of-the-line video cards running in SLI are nearly worthless without proper driver support. Paying Haiku employees is not going to make this better. Haiku already has an updated port of Mesa OpenGL library that is VERY suitable for software-rendering. Without 3d hardware acceleration drivers for your cards, it won’t matter how fast your video card is.

3

Of course, you have rights ! However, i think this is not employes of haiku who must doing the graphic driver, sound driver, … but rather, the society which made their own product (make the own driver!).

It is the begining, it is a normal situation but after, i think what there will have the support like for linux. (When Haiku will be install on many machines …)

I’m very happy to see a new OS !! I hope ,that, there will be early a version bootable (what you can install with cd!!)!

else how the system of “manage files” is running ? Do you have a letter to define the hdd, the driver dvd, … like that :
C: => HDD
D: => driver dvd

4

Haiku does not use driver letters. Volumes (partitions) are generally mounted as “/name-of-volume” in a Unix-like unified filesystem hierarchy starting at root (the first ‘/’). Your mounted volumes are shown to you as icons on the Desktop, like in Mac OS. There’s no Windows-like “My Computer” folder.

The boot volume is mounted as /boot and symlinked to as /name-of-boot-volume -> /boot. For now Haiku is a single-user system and your user/home folder is at /boot/home.

Unlike in classic Unix/BSD/Linux, the Haiku filesystem root folder (/) is virtual, non-persistant, essentially a small RAM-memory backed filesystem, as opposed to a disk backed (physical) filesystem. It can not hold any files, but only mount-points (of other disks or filesystems) and symbolic links (into these other filesystems).

A few links such as /bin, /etc, /tmp and /var exist to provide some Unix-similarity, to ease porting of Unix/Linux/Posix software. (The Haiku desktop/filemanager/filepanels don’t go as “low” as the root filesystem, in effect hiding it, so these legacy folders are not visible to most casual users, unless you open a Terminal/bash shell. The desktop/filemanger/filepanels instead present your desktop folder as the supposed root, if you go up one folder past your boot volume.)

Apart from the rootfs, which primarily exists to hold the other filesystems, two more virtual filesystems exist by default in Haiku: /dev and /pipe. These provide an interface to kernel services such as hardware access, networking, pipes and stuff you might need as an application programmer or a shell script user.

Try Haiku and run “df” in Terminal, or “ls -l /”

/boot/home> df Mount Type Total Free Flags Device ---------------- -------- -------- -------- ------- -------------------------- / rootfs 0 0 ------W /dev devfs 0 0 ------W /pipe pipefs 0 0 ------W /boot bfs 30941188 23106212 QAM-P-W /dev/disk/ide/ata/0/master/0/0_0 /Haiku bfs 27655896 27536244 QAM-P-W /dev/disk/ide/ata/0/master/0/0_1 /Knife bfs 31784600 31774100 QAM-P-W /dev/disk/ide/ata/0/master/0/0_3 A listing of / boot Extacy -> /boot Haiku Knife bin -> /boot/beos/bin etc -> /boot/beos/etc system -> /boot/beos/system tmp -> /boot/var/tmp var -> /boot/var dev pipe

To the application programmer, there’s a system provided C++ API called the Storage Kit, which includes the BVolumeRoster which lets you enumerate volumes and subscribe to mount/unmount events.

http://beunited.org/bebook/The%20Storage%20Kit/VolumeRoster.html

Another part of the “BeBook” describes the BeOS (and Haiku) filesystem architecture:
http://www.beunited.org/bebook/The%20Storage%20Kit/topic_Architecture.html