Finally just did the deed and purchased a ready made Atom based PC at Frys today so I could have my own little HaikuBox. Since my Mac Mini did not have sound, I never used Haiku on it. Now maybe with a system hitting on all cylinders, I will use it daily.
The goods news under quick testing, the Zotac Zbox+with the Atom D525 CPU and Intel NM10 Express Chipset with Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3150 GPU for $249 from Frys seems to be working all the way around. Have not played with WiFi yet but I think with Haiku R1 Alpha 3 it might work. Right now I am ethernet connected.
Anyway, I am running R1 Alpha 2 right now installed to the 250GB drive that comes in it. Install goes fine, she boots, I get sound playing some MP3s, USB works, etc… In fact using the Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard and a Logitech MX Laser Wireless Mouse connected to a Asus 23" VGA LCD Display.
Something I need to figure out though is after install, I have to leave my Haiku CD in the external USB DVD/CD player in order to boot the system. Without the CD in, I get a message on the screen to hit any key to boot but nothing happens. I then stick my Haiku CD in and I get a boot screen allowing me to choose the CD or Haiku partition I had created. I select the Haiku and she boots to HD nicely.
How can I boot direct to Hard Drive without the CD in the system? Did I partition wrong or something? I did just one partition I think. Would like the system at hoot to go right to HD and not CD to boot.
Anyway, at least I have sound, get on the Internet, and this little system screams. So far I am happy.
To solve your boot problem I think you need to install the haiku boot manager, bootman. IIRC you have to go into the terminal and type “bootman” to get it installed. Sorry I couldn’t be of more help since all my systems multi-boot so I either use GRUB or Chameleon in the case of a hackintosh.
The MBR may look for an active partition… If there is not, some BIOSes continue the boot sequence and look for the next bootable device (CD USB Network…)
Is your Haiku partition flagged active ? (N.B. : this flag is visible in DriveSetup)
Quick little video of my system. Video a tad dark but my office is dark with crappy lighting and the video was made from my iPhone so not high tech gear.
Nice video and nice system, macsociety! I thought the Zotac Zbox was the perfect system for those who want to use or tinker with Haiku without risk to main machine! I have Haiku running on my main machine booting from 16 gigs usb stick.
If this machine works relatively well with Haiku, Haiku Inc. should really think about selling these with Haiku as a fund raiser and advertisement!
And design a HaikuBox logo sticker to out in the cases.
I have not used tons yet since my 3 crashes while playing MP3 with Media Player and browsing the web at the same time but hope to start using it more so when a crash or bug hits, I can report it.
I bought the zbox id41 today which has the same cpu and chipset that you mention. Mine is not compatible. It defaults to VESA, which means the graphics card is not supported, and the native resolution of my screen is not supported. Neither WIFI nor LAN seems to work. I don’t know about sound as I didn’t get that far with it.
Isn’t it time to focus on making a few system 100% compatible with haiku? I realize that the project doesn’t have many developers, and I’m not trying to tell the team how to do their job, but as an ordinary user, who would like to use the OS and have tried and failed two times now in finding a compatible system, I’m on the edge of giving up on the OS.
And now someone might point me to HaikuWares hardware database, but, as I have written before, that is the must useless hardware compatibility database I have every seen. A lot of the hardware there is so old it can no longer be purchased. Hardware listed as compatible is ususally only partially compatible (for example graphics cards listed as compatible but only running VESA or sound cards listed as compatible but only the output works etc.).
Weird. As you can see from my video, mine runs. Not sure on the whole vesa thing as I am not sure what and how that means, but mine installed, booted, and runs with decent video and sound. tj
But yes, I agree, even at this early pre beta stage, I feel the Haiku team should be building this OS around a particular platform, so they can have a defacto standard system one can buy that they know will work.
If things are as close as they say to a beta, this should be done now. Get a system that has a similar flavor as the BeBox. Style sells! Just look at how well Apple has done. Find a sweet unique case, build a nice little system around it, and point people in the right direct for a HaikuBox.
Maybe the user base will grow this way and folks will have more fun using than just trying to find a system that even works with Haiku.
TJ
[quote=ptrlsn]Hello,
I bought the zbox id41 today which has the same cpu and chipset that you mention. Mine is not compatible. It defaults to VESA, which means the graphics card is not supported, and the native resolution of my screen is not supported. Neither WIFI nor LAN seems to work. I don’t know about sound as I didn’t get that far with it.
Isn’t it time to focus on making a few system 100% compatible with haiku? I realize that the project doesn’t have many developers, and I’m not trying to tell the team how to do their job, but as an ordinary user, who would like to use the OS and have tried and failed two times now in finding a compatible system, I’m on the edge of giving up on the OS.
And now someone might point me to HaikuWares hardware database, but, as I have written before, that is the must useless hardware compatibility database I have every seen. A lot of the hardware there is so old it can no longer be purchased. Hardware listed as compatible is ususally only partially compatible (for example graphics cards listed as compatible but only running VESA or sound cards listed as compatible but only the output works etc.).
As I write this, I am watching three Xvid movies on my Intel D525MW based system. The catch is that I had to put the HD in another system to do the install since the haiku boot processs does not seem to be able to find the USB stick. This is one of my special dual boot USB sticks that can also boot Ubuntu linux via the GRUB bootloader and linux boots just fine. Once it’s installed, haiku runs just fine. I’ve got build 42061(alpha3) on it but even build 43192 wont boot and I’ve flashed the BIOS to the most recent version. I guess it’s time to file a bug report.
On the other hand, the few other systems I’ve tried haiku on recently have all booted. One is a brand new H67 Sandy Bridge (core i5 2500) which has major issues, being so new but, Michael Lotz the developer who is being paid by Haiku Inc. to work on haiku full time has just got nimself a brand new Sandy Bridge laptop so, I’m hoping that when he tweaks the intel extreme and HD Audio drivers to work on his laptop the fixes will work for me too. The most recent system was on old Biostar M7VIG 400 based system that had major issues with the speed booting from the USB stick (both haiku and linux) but once the operating systems are installed it runs just fine. I did have to go into media preferences and select the HDA as the output but, having done that, I got audio out.
The problem is that, when it comes to x86 based platforms, there are literally thousands (millions?) of combinations of all the different pieces of hardware that system vendors can come up with. In this scenario, it is really an achievement for the relatively small team of developers to have come up with a system that supports as much hardware as haiku already does. One solution would be send the developers an example of each piece of hardware that doesn’t work. Just joking! On the other hand my D525MW only costs US$75.25 from Newegg.com plus 15 bucks for 2GB RAM with free shipping and you have a donation that I’d gladly make.
Too true. I went to the Zotac website to look up the system the OP was talking about (looks like a sweet little thing, btw) and this tiny manufacturer had 29 variations available! You have to read the OP’s specs carefully to make out which one he bought.
We are making progress. I have yet to find an audio system OpenSound can’t handle, printers are being taken care of by Gutenprint, and Haiku’s VESA implementation is actually quite acceptable IMHO. Wi-fi remains the sticking point: there are still too many chipsets that just don’t work with Haiku. The install-wifi-firmware command crashes when it gets to the Broadcom installation.
Still, if the Haiku website could give us, say, the names of 2-3 each of desktops, laptops and netbooks and say “The current official version will run on these. We guarantee it”, that would certainly be a morale booster. Of course, that would need to be updated regularly.
FWIW I had Alpha 2 running very well on an Intel iMac a while back. The trick was that you needed to install rEFIt to boot it.
It is. I agree, but VESA just isn’t good enough when your screens native resolution isn’t supported. Besides, what I was aiming at (and have aimed at several times in the past) is a HAIKU-only box where everything is compatible (sound, graphics and wifi cards). And when I say compatible I don’t mean VESA or sound out-only. I mean fully compatible.
Such a machine exists or it could be assembled from parts, but where do I look to find such a system or parts? This is the problem. There is no where to look for this.
Besides, what I was aiming at (and have aimed at several times in the past) is a HAIKU-only box where everything is compatible (sound, graphics and wifi cards). And when I say compatible I don’t mean VESA or sound out-only. I mean fully compatible. [/quote]
I agree 110 percent! Haiku needs its own box to run in (Like the Be Box) that is 100 percent compatible with Haiku. I think Haiku Inc. should start work on this project or sanction a third party OEM to do this. A Haiku Inc. subsidiary would work nicely, but I don’t know how a for profit subsidiary of Haiku Inc. would affect its tax exempt status? Any ideas?
I think whatever may come of this idea, there should be at least three lines of this box. Sort of like System 76’s offerings that range from low power cheaper ones to the fastest and beefiest box possible! My mouth is watering with anticipation! lol
A dedicated machine running Haiku will mitigate any compatibility issues Haiku may or may not have with modern PC hardware. Haiku could have a customized build just for the “Haiku Box” for better integration with the hardware and for better performance!
A portion of the profits could then be used to hire more full time developers to work on improving Haiku and to get ready for R2! With a dedicated machine paying for future Haiku development, more people will want to develop programs for Haiku and/or work directly on Haiku itself!
All of this will help to create a viable Haiku ecosystem where users and developers will benefit! Can you imagine Mac OS X having ever taken off without the Mac? Maybe some of you will think so, but I think the OS is dependent on the hardware and vice versa!
Agree or not, I think Haiku will benefit greatly by having a dedicated machine on which to run.
The Haiku organization is very small, I am in Canada, many are in the US, most developers as far as I can tell are in Europe. Filling orders world-wide will be a big problem. Not impossible, but anywhere they base it will incur big shipping charges for somebody else-where.
