Haiku makes me optimistic, because is shows that there can be an alive and decent OS that is not backed up by corporations. Compare it against ReactOS or 9front rather than against Windows or Linux.
As a corollary though, Haiku development is slow. So be ready to wait an another decade until it actually becomes a viable daily driver.
Multiwindow navigation by default. Yeah! Win95 vives.
Itâs better than Win95 and more like classic MacOS. Itâs actually better than MacOS since you can drill instead of opening lots of windows.
With drilling menu, thereâs no strong advantage of navigational file management over spatial file management.
Haiku makes me feel happy because it is keeping the BeOS ideas alive and has come so far after all this time even if there is still lots that can be done. I find that incredible, thanks to everyone who has and is putting their time into working on it.
Haiku makes me feel depressed and optimistic, both in one combined emotion. The critical mass isnât here yet but I feel the adoption curve may have stopped looking more or less like a flat line and started looking like itâs changing direction. You have to look closely though. Or am I just seeing a mirage?
Welcome to Haiku! I can say even if itâs to say what doesnât work or what not, Haiku needs all the feedback it can get! And Iâm sorry Haiku hasnât been working like youâve been hoping it would.
Iâve narrowed these down but basically itâs these 6 things, so Iâll try to answer them by basically saying Haiku doesnât support everything yet and itâs hardware support for everything is definitely limited compared to larger systems like Linux.
Printer: Not sure what to say about your printer, but to be honest, I definitely would dual boot and use that with a flavor of Linux (or another major OS) for now, as it has more printers supported out of the box, especially in mainstream distributions like Ubuntu and Fedora. Haiku doesnât have that same luxury so thatâd be my advice. If you need to print using Haiku, then your best bet would be to find a cheap printer thatâs compatible with Haiku.
External floppy on startup: Sooo I gotta confess, as a younger enthusiast of Haiku, this is an odd one, like itâs not every day someone would use floppies, unless you have them there for retro/historic software or an old machine or something, and that part totally makes sense. But why do you have this plugged in while youâre starting up? This one I canât solve really, mainly because it doesnât make sense why itâs there all the time. Because Haikuâs ancestor BeOS once used boot floppies (I wasnât around to see BeOS do this, but I wrote a BeOS retro review series once), my guess is Haiku is probably trying to figure out by historic design why a floppy drive is present, if it can start from it, then KDLs when it canât. Itâs actually kinda cool the other systems skip past it and donât get tripped by it â but from the computer history Iâve studied, vintage floppies could start an OS (and also could mess up starts).
nVidia GPU: nVidia != good with open source. Even with Linux, Torvalds famously gave nVidia the finger for being annoying toward Linux. So yeah, Haikuâs probably not going to like nVidia graphics either. I know on the Macs Iâve tried Haiku with, the ones with nVidia in them are stuck in Vesa. My advice is if you can switch your GPU for another one in your computer, I would, even if youâre using something big like Ubuntu although Linux does at least have packages available for these creatures, but, anyways
Multi-card reader: Sorry Haiku doesnât support this, for real too. Again, Haiku tries to support all the hardware it can, and it canât support everything. So yeah, again, Iâd say dual boot with Linux or another big OS for now to get it to work for you.
Shortcuts: With the keyboard, Iâm not sure what advice to offer on this one, Iâd say your best bet with it would be to try to open Shortcuts preferences and define shortcuts for keys manually (big annoying pain in the neck to do, but it might work) for the keys that arenât mapped by default. Iâd also say check in Keymap prefs to see if thereâs a better keyboard map that works; if Keymap doesnât see them at all, then itâs probably just seeing a generic key map, and youâd be stuck using Haiku without the extra keys. But you could try seeing what Shortcuts picks up with these (screenshot after last point).
Scrolling: Far as the scrolling problem with the HP mouse, Iâm not sure what the cause of that is. Does this happen just with it or with other mice too? Iâve usually had no problem using mice with Haiku, even trackpads (without gesture support), so this is kinda suprising tbh.
WebPositive is a bravely put together little WebKit browser thatâs doing all it can, but it honestly just canât compete against the big browsers, yet. Itâs doing itâs best to be the default, but desperately needs more volunteers to work on it.
(and, I totally know some peoples here might get annoyed with me for saying this), but there needs to be a little note when starting Web+ for the very first time that says âweâre still in beta, not everything will work with this yetâ because Haiku nerds get this, but I think for first time Haikuers, I can see where itâd be genuinely frustrating. Yes, FirstBootPrompt and the landing page say this about Haiku â but not its browser, and itâd be helpful for newbies.
Um, so I donât know whatâs causing it to download this slow, other than something mightâve been up with the mirror when you tried it out, or my second guess is probably the network card youâre using with Haiku is going really slow⌠which would be a hardware/driver problem instead of a software problem, but either way isnât a good thing. Whichever one it was, sorry for the bad experience.
For fun, I just tried installing Epiphany (Gnome Web) using Terminal (which is easier for me than using the Depot) and it downloaded all the packages and installed in about 6 and 1/2 minutes.
Didnât need to pull up the Debugger on mine, it loaded just fine for me â but itâs far from stable, Webâs still a pretty new port, and I imagine thereâs a lot of bugs that Epiphany has with rendering sites on Haiku. I do think Haiku is getting there as a Linux alternative, but itâs still got a lot to do before reaching the top.
Gotta say Expander isnât too bad as a built-in archiver, but there also is 7-Zip. Run pkgman install p7zip from Terminal if itâs not already there, and then you should be able to use 7z from the Terminal just like you would under Linux.
Not sure how to help here as I donât work with this, I saw pkgman has Simulide available, but maybe someone else here might know of what youâre looking for? Sorry
Yeah⌠far as I know, I donât think Haiku has this. The only platforms I can think of that do this with nothing extra is the Mac and iOS. Iâve never tried this out on Android/Chromebook or Windows 11 but they probably have it too. But anyways, yeah, I donât think Haiku has it.
Sorry to hear about that, itâs honestly gotta be frustrating. I get this doesnât sound the best, but have you tried disabling ACPI in Haikuâs startup menu? My guess is thereâs something about it on your system it doesnât like and itâs stopping shutdown.
Far as I know, there isnât â but you can assign a keyboard shortcut to open Applications or Preferences (as a Mac fan, I have Cmd+Shift+A and Cmd+Shift+P for these) and turn in type ahead filtering in Tracker. You can start typing for whatever app or preflet you want, press return twice, and open it fast. And I say this because I actually use this and like it!
As a quick example, hereâs Repositories preferences ready to open! And it works for apps too.
And in case the Shortcuts screenshot doesnât upload, /boot/system/Tracker /boot/system/apps is what I use to get to all the apps fast. /boot/home is the home folder and /boot/system/preferences is preferences.
There is Run Program, which you can add with pkgman install runprogram but thatâs for Terminal commands, probably not what youâre looking for.
Yeah, Iâd say youâre right on this sadly. Sorry youâre having this experience with it.
tbh I think the Leaf menu stays pretty clean by default, and I actually like the Haiku way of using Tracker better than Mate, Xfce, or similar on Linux. After opening Deskbar preferences and clicking âEdit in Trackerâ, youâll get a folder. You can add whatever in there, folders, links to stuff, or whatever you want to make it your own. Also, type ahead filtering works in all folders in Tracker once itâs switched on, so you can quickly narrow stuff down in there too.
Haikuâs never had one. Deskbar kind of works like a Windows taskbar halfway if you drag it by its handle to the bottom, but all the app blocks will work like menus instead of buttons.
But like with quick launching, what youâre looking for is LaunchBox in Desktop applets. Itâs not exactly a dock, ngl I kinda wish it was closer to the Dock as a Mac fan â but I still love it! Because not only can you add buttons to expand it, then drag what you want into it like apps (or folders like Iâm showing here) or change the size and whether itâs vertical or on itâs side like youâd expect, but you can also clone and label them, decide what workspaces you want the pads on, and add descriptions. And idk, I think itâs way better than Windows
And there are other dock apps you can add to Haiku too, so youâre not just stuck with LaunchBox or nothing. Itâs my favorite because of how light and simple it is, but thereâs better looking and more customizable ones out in the repos too.
Poor Tracker idk about Windows 3.1, but I would say classic Mac OS X like 10.2 or somewhere around that era. It does do thumbnails in the Nightly branch that Iâm on, I canât remember if it actually made it into Beta 4, if it didnât, itâll be in the stable branch in Beta 5.
Far as I know, favorite folders arenât really a thing with Tracker, they pretty much just get dragged into the Leaf menu, LaunchBox, or wherever.
But yeah, I gotta confess all this is based about it. Drill-down actions are kinda cool (been in Tracker since the dawn of its time), and there is TrackRunner as an awesome add-on (pkgman install trackrunner for the curious) but yeah, thereâs no side panes, trees, or anything like that. Tracker is pretty basic.
Good news is you arenât stuck with it You can download a ported file manager from the repos, first one I can think of is Dolphin (and again, I just use pkgman install dolphin as itâs quicker) but beware thatâs going to pull a lot of dependencies, so be prepared to wait a good long time for that to be installed.
I actually like this design, itâd drive me crazy to have these be the same size, but I think on the Nightly branch, they scale automatically with the DPI/font size.
Hereâs a real example with hiDPI kicking on automatically with the fonts raised:
On a hiDPI display I can see all the stuff just fine, and I think even Windows since you mentioned it here has big taskbar icons and smaller tray icons.
Yeah, I gotta confess this is desperately missing for a real workstation OS to replace Linux. Outside of locking the screen with a retro screensaver, thereâs nothing else.
This is also very sadly true â especially with EFI. With that, you have to set up the partitions in DriveSetup yourself, then copy the EFI files over manually too. The awesome part is that it does work really well once itâs set up! But for sure, Haiku needs an easy to use installer, maybe in live mode from the first boot welcome box.
This is something that again is completely missing from Haiku, and that Iâve dreamed of since 2020 but it still remains a dream. For now, Tracker and a few other apps do remember states across restarts, but hopefully⌠one day.
Yeah, this also is an annoying part of using the Deskbar either out of the box, or in a taskbar or menubar-like style that I wish could be fixed. However, there is a way (but you have to use it vertically in a corner) â you can expand new applications in Deskbar preferences, then click on window titles). Hiding I think is still double click on the bar, no hiding like command+H to make apps disappear here that I know of.
But I gotta say for the second part, Iâve been using Mac OS X pretty much my whole life, macOS 11-14 after that, return has always been used to rename stuff, (even on the historic Mac OS). Cmd+down or Cmd+O opens stuff, Cmd+H = hide app, on both Mac and iOS. So Iâm not sure what you meant here? On Windows and most Linux DEs, itâs enter to open something (and Alt+F2 to rename), so Iâm guessing the Windows way is what you meant. I think Haiku does it this way already.
^ this! I really, really wish Tracker did single window navigation by default! Itâs 2024 and things should totally be this way! It actually reminds me of the historic Mac OS versions before X.
But â I confess I like a mix of the classical and single mode for when I need to have folders sitting side by side, but otherwise yes! For Beta 5, single/navigator mode needs on!
For this point Iâm guessing you mean in the HaikuDepot app, which I confess isnât my favorite thing to use either; tbh I find it slow, cumbersome, not as efficient or good as pkgman is, and usually avoid it. From the Terminal, Iâve never had problems using pkgman which does list out all the dependencies just like BSD or Linux would (outside of general errors when it drops a connection, but then I can usually re-run it and resume). I actually did a mockup re-imagining if it was like the classic App Store on the Mac but it never went anywhere.
Sorry you had a terrible experience with Haiku! And I say that for real! Iâm hoping all the tips I shared helped, and I love a lot of the good points you bring up! Thereâs a lot that could be made more discoverable, easier to use, or could be fixed! And hopefully Haiku will be better to use in the releases ahead!
Also Iâm truly sorry I canât really do more to help and that a lot of what you hoped worked or wanted as features arenât supported or implemented yet!
Thanks for the good wishes even through the frustrating experience! Hopefully it will and thanks for giving Haiku a good try!
You should blame NVidia for that. Their proprietary, non-free drivers donât exactly work on GNU/Linux, either. Well, they do, but they are far from being perfect. In fact, they are very problematic and even the reverse-engineered ânouveauâ driver works better - except in 3D. Of course they didnât bother providing drivers for Haiku and their firmware is proprietary, thus preventing anyone to do NVidiaâs job. I guess posting something like âyour drivers and non-free closed-source policy makes me depressedâ in Nvidia forums might be more productive for that matter.
Booting up is pretty quick and shutting down is eyblink-fast for me, both in real installation and on a VM. I am guessing your problems are related to the hardware incompatibility.
Both my Corsair and another, much better mechanical keyboard work as expected, including the multimedia keys I bother using. For the latter, did you try Preferences â Shortcuts?
Both should install very quickly, the fact you report such long installation times reminds me a non-Haiku related problem I had in the beginning, and it was resolved by the community here.
As for performance, I think you should switch to nightly builds. They work much better for me in general.
I rarely use it (prefer gzipped tarballs) but yes, 7-zip is there. @nephele already covered that.
Yes there is. Itâs called QuickLaunch. Just bind it to a key combination and you are set. To do that use Preferences â Shortcuts.
Well, it depends on your definition of âproperâ. It seems that what you are missing is what I would call the exact opposite of a âproperâ file manager - image preview was only invented to slow down the system when browsing a directory full of images. Anyway, to each his own, but I would recommend Midnight Commander. It might not be a looker, but its features easily put any eye-candy file manager into shame. You may need a few hours to get used to it and configure it (itâs highly customizable, including the looks). But it quickly pays off. For images, just bind images to an image viewer in MC. This will work much faster for previewing as well, compared to the automatic preview feature in any file manager with bells and whistles.
Iâm not a Haiku developer, just a humble user. But trust me, try nightly builds instead of beta4. Many things have been changed since the beta release, and bet this will solve at least some of your problems. Of course, nightly builds are supposed to be testing and thus potentially unstable, but I switched to nightlys a few months ago and never regretted it. As a Fortran (modern) / C / C++ developer, literally everything I need is there and works out of the box. Not to mention that using nightlys helps contributing to bug hunting - although nightlys are actually surprisingly stable.
Last but definitely not least, I understand your frustration - of course there are issues. But I think that, although this wasnât probably your intention, your report is full of negativity and basically nothing positive, which is unfair, i might add. There is a whole lot to like in Haiku.
I never had a Mac, so I canât really judge if this is so much better than Haikuâs drill-down-menus. They can also be used to copy/move/link a file. From the User Guide:
I also find that navigating doesnât leave too many windows open. I have one finger near the OPT key, and just hold it when double-clicking to close the parent window.
This works also very well when navigating keyboard only. First do some filter-ahead to cut down on the number of files/folder, then use OPT+ALT+CurserDown to move into a sub-folder.
Yeah, I know about the drill down feature, but itâs not the same kind of UX to that of spring-loaded folders, which I have used going all the way back to MacOS classic.
Spring-loaded-folders feature is the ultimate tactical response you can get from a desktop computer. It really makes you feel interacting with the folders.
I donât think OPT is used elsewhere in Tracker file management. Not sure changing the double-click to single-click behaviour is a good idea. I feel itâs more consistent that the additional OPT just modfies the standard behaviour: Instead âOpen file/folderâ itâs âOpen file/folder and close parent folderâ.
Sorry about this on my part, on the (Intel) Macs Iâve tested Haiku out on real hardware (I now run Haiku in an x86_64 qemu port on my current MacBook Pro), I havenât got SD cards to work so I was basing this on that; sorry I messed up on this! Happy to know I did too because that means Haikuâs moving forward!
Also thanks for the tip with Okular! I will definitely remember this in the future I feel Haikuâs getting closer to being a full Linux alternative for the world with every release!
I can say even if itâs to say what doesnât work or what not, Haiku needs all the feedback it can get! And Iâm sorry Haiku hasnât been working like youâve been hoping it would.
idk about Windows 3.1, but I would say classic Mac OS X like 10.2 or somewhere around that era. It does do thumbnails in the Nightly branch that Iâm on, I canât remember if it actually made it into Beta 4, if it didnât, itâll be in the stable branch in Beta 5.
You can download a ported file manager from the repos, first one I can think of is Dolphin (and again, I just use 
I feel Haikuâs getting closer to being a full Linux alternative for the world with every release!