Oh I can’t wait the alpha release 
I check the roadmap every other day to see how many open bugs are remaining until alpha1 reaches 100 % 
I check the bug list every few hours… there are about 7 to go at the moment…
There should be the following packages, similar to debian:
Minimal Network install (just the OS and network stack w/ drivers)
CD install (contains apps like a browser, most used drivers, a few games, an e-mail client and a basic wordprocessor.)
Dev Install (Dev kit stuff)
Hacker’s install (dvd full of apps and other stuff, can check all items and even check no to GUI, choose filesystems (I highly suggest ZFS)
Currently there are 8. I personally am getting burnt out waiting for an alpha. Now before I get bashed, let me state I cannot even begin to realize the time/effort spent on the Haiku project. It’s a tremendous task, but for me, the value of having a BeOS compatible+ operating system is diminishing by the day. Combine that with the lack of other interested people/users in the area makes me wonder why I fret over it soo much. For years I have told other people about BeOS/Haiku. I now realize that maybe, just maybe, I concern myself too much with Haiku. After all, we’re speaking of a computer operating system, not a life or death situation. I might feel differently if I knew other “Haiku” people in my area that I could speak with. But waiting for a virtually unknown OS is a lonely road. Let the bashing begin!
Actually, I am often surprised at how many people I meet that know of Haiku.
I don’t mean at the supermarket, but when I attend “geek” conferences or gatherings, I will often run into people who say stuff like: “Oh yeah, I’ve heard of Haiku, that’s a re-creation of BeOS right?” and then conversation will ensue, usually ending with: “Wow, that’s neat, I’d love to take a look at it once they provide CD images!”
I’m pretty certain those same people are still willing to take a look, but they will likely need another reminder when the time comes.
More than likely, they’ll not know Haiku has been released and available until they run into someone again who uses it, or it makes huge headlines on popular tech sites/blogs like Slashdot or Ars Technica.
Off topic here, but what area do you live in? Perhaps you can start a HUG. We have a somewhat small HUG here in northern California (NorCal-HUG) which primarily consists of the few of us that like to attend conferences and gatherings together when the opportunity arises.
- Urias
I live in Michigan, near Detroit.
I for one would be willing to part with a small amount of cash for an R1 livecd.
Things I feel should definately be included in the basic install other than the obvious tools and utilities:
A web browser, irc/icq/chat client, and an email client of some description. MUST have flash and java support for us youtube/flash games/facebook addicts(something that includes all of these in one ‘suite’ would be nice imo)
A media player of some description
A text editor, preferably one capable of at least basic formatting and saviing as .rtf as well as .txt
a photo management app (not necessarily like iPhoto, but something that will recognise my camera and grab the photos for me)
These are all things I use pretty much every day, and if Haiku proves to be as solid and usable as BeOS was I will be using it as my primary OS like I did with BeOS.
What i think is a definate necessity, which most OSes in my experience don’t have, or don’t do very well, is an installer that does the following:
1 - installs the base system and essential utilities such as the bash shell, a basic web browser, irc client and tracker etc no matter what
2 - allows you to choose your apps from a list, so if you don’t want a media player, or an office suite, you can deselect them, or you can select everything if you want everything. It might ask you to make selections as to what functions you want to use (such as watch movies/listen to music, doe word processing), and install related applications automatically
3 - looks nice and has an easy to use interface.
In my opinion, it’s a wrong way of action - to provide a bare-bone operating system, equipped only with a browser. It’s the main reason I don’t use Ubuntu.
It really depends on what are our target-users. In my opinion, the people who will give a try to Haiku are experienced with various Linux distributions. And, as we all know, most of the popular Linux distros has everything included, - and people rarely use ones which don’t provide everything on the installation DVD. Therefore, providing everything a user needs will be expected by default, while finding out that only the OS is included will be discouraging for the users. On the other side, newbies who convert to Haiku from Windows don’t expect other soft to be present on the installation CD, thus they will be very pleasantly amazed when they find out all they need is already packaged in the CD. As such, to include additional software is a win-win decision.
If an OS requires me to go somewhere on the net and to install additional software to make it useable, I would not use it. This is one of the reasons I don’t like to use Windows. Again, this is the reason I don’t use Ubuntu. Ubuntu may be the best Linux distro in the world (which I doubt, anyway), but I prefer Mandriva with tons of additional software on the installation DVD, which is installed along with the OS right during the OS setup. I doubt I’ll use Haiku if it requires from me to download additional soft after installation.
One last thing: if OS is next to unusable without additional software which should be downloaded, the Internet connection must be specified as an installation requirement. Now check the bank of Haiku connectivity drivers and ask yourself, can we require an Internet connection?
Well, I’m pretty sure you’ll find quite a few distributions, once R1 is out, that will pack anything they can get to compile into a nice fat image. Hopefully, they will also sell you a DVD.
However, I see a trend to move things from installation disks to the interweb, see the infamous cloud computing.
I’m pretty confident that once R1 is out, most of Haiku’s potential users (which would be quite technically minded) are pretty used to get packages online.
Testing, choosing and updating those packages is something a few dedicated individuals could have lots of fun with. No need to burden the Haiku Team directly.
And considering Haiku’s FreeBSD net driver compatibility layer, I was under the impression that connectivity isn’t that huge a hurdle any more.
All totally my personal opinion. You could be totally right on all accounts… We’ll see.