It’s easy to build them yourself and use them. It’s just that they look ugly and make the os even more dated, so why would anyone bother?
It is the “you can change it… if! … you want” effect!
From https://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=42988&forum=17:
“After reading this thread and not tried Haiku for years I gave it a try. One of my laptops running Lubuntu I installed it. Cleaned the drive. Everything went fine with the installation. Also configuring wi-fi where easy. Fired up the web-browser. First page I went to I got a crash. Had to crash the app… and then tried youtube. Not working good at all. I got sound but almost never a picture. Also there the browser crashed. Tried some other pages and found out the web-browser was useless. Going down all the time.
I then inserted a usb storage drive to test some videoes with the media player. Nothing happend when I inserted the drive. I then found it and mounted it but I got some error message there too. Tried to upen Teacup 3D, nothing where shown. Totaly useless OS.”
All fair 
A lot of the features that set BeOS apart have been been outpaced by other operating systems. Our package management design is a strong new feature that other operating systems don’t have, but we need more to sparkle to lure people in
We actually have a pretty wide scope of ports. We could always use more though. People might be going into Haikudepot looking for their favorite linux app… we aren’t Linux, so there might be some false assumptions there (“Thunderbird missing?!” would be an example (we don’t have GTK, d-bus, etc))
I hear this a lot. There was really nothing to compete with C/C++'s raw power until recently (golang, rust, etc). We really can’t “rewrite the OS”, but we can work on native support in various programming languages for our C++ api calls.
I’m calling BS on this one. MIT is more flexible from an open source standpoint… not less. This is pure opinion.
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We actually have an (old) port of it, named MailNews because we are not allowed to use Mozilla trademarks.
On-topic: we are featured in French newspaper Le Virus Informatique: Le Virus Informatique 38 (par Le Virus Informatique)
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Cant express this better. Even in development cycle, packaging, install - remove, redo loop is a pleasure to be able to be done with simple move commands.
As i said in other threads, people come looking for common ground app-wise. Not neccesarily Linux apps, but known apps.
Also, even after compiling GTK3 (also GTK2 privately) and publishing the recipe, i found that when trying to port an app, you end in a nightmare pack of GTK-libs that arent ported and services like D-Bus not being present which makes porting one “simple” app too costly to be well done. Not even talking about all the expected paths with icons required to be present for GNOME stuff, which would turn the system into a gnomelike one.
Haiku has, for all the tests I did, problems with langs other than c++ and python versions. We have not been able to port mono nor .net core for C#, golang version fails to build/needs much work to go further than 1.4, haskell is stuck in limbo version without cabal, ocaml doesnt like stuff either, nodejs version is still very experimental/crashy (<-- my fault) …
There’s no point, right now, in doing native support for anything apart of python-api like Adam is doing. Better spend time on the OS itself, and fix some language(s) when available.
Haiku featured as Linux Format’s HotPick operating system of the month.
- Linux Format - Dec 2018 (Issue 244, p. 81)
NOTE: Author ditches Linux…
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I have just passed by a newsstand and saw that Linux Format July 2019 mentions Haiku in a fairly positive way, in the context of a comparison between alternative open source operating systems, with good scores in most metrics.
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My First Day with Haiku by probono
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Cocobean and VictorDomingos wrote before Linux Format July have an outstanding article by Shashank Sharma.
This article compares open operating systems: Haiku, OpenIndiana, KolibriOs, ReactOs and Visopsys.
All of this under these criterions: installation, default apps, usability and performance, documentation, hardware support, package management, and daily use.
At the end of the article, Haiku takes the FIRST PLACE , could be nice if someone include a link of the article in the haiku-os.org (Blog-O-Sphere), of course with the authorization from linuxformat.com!
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By Dan Wood:
Nice watch, unfortunately he hit some newcomer traps and old software, finally he used HaikuDepot the time it was worked on…
But watch it by yourself
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I watched it last night. I was disappointed with some of his choices and conclusions. I was also thinking - 64-bit and he could have tried Medo for video editing!
This video is private now. :/
Maybe bacause he is more into retro games, retro os’s and that like!
That explains his poitive view on Haiku.
He was awaiting some retro results, and did not expect modern new technology available in Haiku!?
Would be great to have an animated/video tooltipp for the beginner to explain first steps in window management. Or a small app where user will learn stack and tile and other window tricks by using it first?
… click and drag to resize the window
hold shift and drag the tab to a new possition
right click the tab to bring it to the back
double click to hide and more…
Also it would be good to have a small overview of the best programs available for Haiku:
Watching YouTube: Qmplay2, Otter, and Dooble
Webbrowser: Webpositive
Office: LibreOffice
Video: Medo (64bit) or Openshoot
e-mail: mailnews (32bit), Beam
Foto work: digiKam, Wonderbrush, Krita
Messenger: Telegram
Feed: Podder
and that like
For Developer:
Koder, Paladin, Git, Gcc, python, and the one important for Devs…
Work for the marketing team
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Don’t think that there should be outright software recommendations at first boot or bundled with the OS at all, as it may lead to other software getting ignored or glossed over by newcomers right out of the gate. That can be left to blog posts (official or not) and people in forums and social media instead.
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We already preinstall the software we think is neat and worthy of showing off (mostly native software like Wonderbrush), what would be served by telling people e.g krita is potentially available?
I spoke about a tooltipp, a webpage or an guideing app. No need to preinstall any software by default!
But give the user an idea what he might install.
Just give the user a better Haiku start!
Recommended apps already exists in HaikuDepot, serving a similar purpose without looking too much like explicit endorsements from the Haiku team. Less annoying and minimises potential backfires should any malfunction. Alternately, users can just look for recommendations online through forums, IRC, social media, etc.
Sorry I did not know!