I didn’t knew where to post it, so for safety reason I posting it here. Feel free to move wherever you think it may fit better.
I tried haiku several months ago and momentarily felt in love with it’s interface (window manager). Since then I looking for BeOS-like WM for Linux. Unsuccessfully. The closest equivalent I found was WindowMaker, but using it and configuring was pain in the three-letter word begining with a and ending with s, so I abandoned it and returned to KDE. But I just cannot forget about Haiku’s/BeOS’ interface and really want to use it on my linux desktop.
Any chances for porting Haiku’s WM to Linux or do you know about any BeOS-like WM for Linux? I couldn’t do it myself even if I’d want to (I can’t even write hello world in c++. I’d make anything in Pascal/Python/Basic, but c++ isn’t my league).
No, I don’t looking for linux distro, but for BeOS-like window manager (which looks and feels like beos/haiku and have similar memory usage minus libraries like gtk/qt). Be-OS like themes aren’t in my area of interests. I want WM with Tracker and all those things which comes with Haiku’s interface. I know I won’t be able to run Haiku/BeOS apps, but never wanted to.
Too bad… So maybe someone could port Haiku WM? As I said I couldn’t do it, cause I am freaking c++ invalid, but I think it should be easy if graphic system isn’t integrated directly into Haiku kernel (I am programmer, just can’t understand shit++ and it’s pointer hell. In other languages I can choose if I want to use pointers or normal variables, here it’s obligatory). So maybe someone of Haiku team could start it in free time? I am sure many people would use it. I know many people which used BeOS, loved it’s interface but uses Linux or other system beginning on W, because think Haiku isn’t mature enough to normal usage. And I think they’re right. So many of my friends would appreciate such WM.
I use Haiku everyday, it lack applications. However you could always write one. I know Haiku has a c++ api but IIRC you can write C and just use the API calls.IIRC GCC supports both. As to porting the Window manager to Linux, I think it’d be a waste of time.
No, it will not be waste of time. First for all, for now Haiku is just a toy, like Linux once was. Second, while I love it’s interface, haiku itself hates my network card (onboard Realtek chip) so I can’t download new apps. The third thing is that as a matter of fact c and c++ are same devil for me - in both you can’t avoid pointer hell. And AFAIK, there are no RAD tools like Delphi/C++ Builder/QT Creator for Haiku unless I missing something (and there are big chances that if there are such things they cost, you know, money)
And as I said many users would appreciate so lightweight, yet functional WM like Haiku’s. Obviously it won’t be able to beat Gnome or KDE, but winning with XFCE is very likely (xfce, even with no program loaded takes more memory than haiku with applications that take much memory, like this nifty drawing program which was showed in Haiku rox video or 3d demos)…
"haiku itself hates my network card"
Maybe get another network card???
One of the reasons that Haiku has such a fast, lightweight WM is because the Windows and graphics on Haiku are native. The windows are closely built in to the OS. On Linux, if you are using X, you have one or two extra layers that slow things down.
So even if you implement a ‘lightweight’ Haiku-like WM on Linux, it will look similar but won’t be as fast.
No, it will not be waste of time. First for all, for now Haiku is just a toy, like Linux once was. Second, while I love it’s interface, haiku itself hates my network card (onboard Realtek chip) so I can’t download new apps. The third thing is that as a matter of fact c and c++ are same devil for me - in both you can’t avoid pointer hell. And AFAIK, there are no RAD tools like Delphi/C++ Builder/QT Creator for Haiku unless I missing something (and there are big chances that if there are such things they cost, you know, money)
And as I said many users would appreciate so lightweight, yet functional WM like Haiku’s. Obviously it won’t be able to beat Gnome or KDE, but winning with XFCE is very likely (xfce, even with no program loaded takes more memory than haiku with applications that take much memory, like this nifty drawing program which was showed in Haiku rox video or 3d demos)…[/quote]
Huge waste of time, learning to program c/c++ is totally worth it, and these guys prove its very much a good way to write code.
QT creator is in fact available for haiku as well as QT.
[quote=darkhog]
And as I said many users would appreciate so lightweight, yet functional WM like Haiku’s. Obviously it won’t be able to beat Gnome or KDE, but winning with XFCE is very likely (xfce, even with no program loaded takes more memory than haiku with applications that take much memory, like this nifty drawing program which was showed in Haiku rox video or 3d demos)…[/quote]
Well, first off I’m a bit confused as to what you mean with window manager. Haiku offers a complete desktop environment equivalent of Gnome/KDE/XFCE, not just a window manager. I’m assuming that you want the entire Haiku desktop environment? Like others have said, Haiku’s desktop environment is very integrated with the system unlike the way it works in Linux, where many different components made by many different authors are meshed together in various configurations. This offers flexibility but loses in integration, and integration is why the Haiku desktop shines imo, with everything implemented to work as one system, top to bottom. As such I can’t see it being successfully ‘ported’ to Linux or any other platform.
As for memory, for what Haiku offers (a whole desktop environment) it uses very little ram. When I boot up Haiku, it uses ~80-85mb ram while offering a full gui with full desktop functionality. On my day-to-day Linux system I use Openbox (which is just a window manager) with compositing and a dock to launch programs and it uses ~165mb ram. Granted, my Linux system is 64bit which means I’d estimate ~30% larger code size compared to 32bit and also hardware compositing which also eats some memory, but even taking that into account it’s still a very bare bones system compared to Haiku while using almost twice the amount of ram, so yes, Haiku is very impressive in that regard.
You don’t have to write necessarily a new window manager, but maybe found the right configuration for an existing one. Have a look here: http://xwinman.org/ctwm.php
