Hiya !!
I’ve just recently discovered BeOS after reading about this “Batmobile OS” in Neal Stephenson’s Command Line (and the 2004 revision, check it out here: http://garote.bdmonkeys.net/commandline/). So, I’ve continued to do a little more research on this OS, and I found these video links, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eMGbDJmgv0 + http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ticLQ4T_wVg&feature=related , that demonstrated BeOS’s capabilities amazingly well.
I also found out that the OS has been discontinued (bested by the corporate movements of the big guys, no less). Luckily, I also found the Haiku project 
!!
So, I really want to help Haiku gain some momentum. What can I do?
What would be the easiest for me is to virtualize this operating system in a VM; which Virtualization software does Haiku run best on? I’m thinking of using VirtualBox (its a favorite of mine), but does VMWare or VPC 07 provide better support?
I guess I can also test applications. How should I go about this?
I believe I can also help with some actual Hardware testing. Just give me a list of compatible devices and I’ll see what I can do 
.
I also support the ReactOS project. What do you guys think of it?
Hi there,
If you want to help out on the dev side you should check this out and also if while you are using haiku, it would be very helpful if you could an report any bugs here . If you want to help out on the usr side there is documentation to proof-read (read this forum topic) as well as alpha software to test out (that can be found here) and also you could report the compatibility of beos software in haiku (by downloading apps and reporting about them here).
I have heard that VMWare works best, but I use VirtualBox myself. If you want a semi-tested image that works with VirtualBox, you can get one from here.
Its been awhile since I’ve last tried ReactOS myself, but I always read updates on osnews.com about ReactOS (Thom, if your reading this, post more news on ReactOS, there is not enough!)
Haiku Inc. has worked with the ReactOS Foundation in the past, and will IMO likely do so again in the future.
Edit: also send a message to this ML if you want to ask the devs anything http://www.freelists.org/list/openbeos
Hi Stanley, be welcome!
Just adding to what Richie already said, it’s also a good idea to roam the bugtracker and see if older bugreports are still valid or if there’s any other information you can add that could help to solve it.
Also, being a newbie to all things BeOS/Haiku, your problems and misunderstandings can help improve the system or at least help to document essential things. So don’t be shy and post anything you find weird or don’t understand.
But first you’ll need to get Haiku running, as you said yourself. Either virtually or by installing onto its own partition or a USB stick. There are several threads dealing with this topic. Have a look in the forums.
Regards,
Humdinger