How many people here use the nightly builds?
I use the x86_64 Nightly build exclusively on bare metal as my main OS and have for the past few years.
I don’t feel they are too dangerous because I always have my data backed up with rsync and can always roll back to a previous state in the boot menu if something buggy is introduced.
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Exactly the same situation for me. For at least last 2 years. And I am backing up with LuckyBackup which uses rsync.
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I always use the nightly builds. It is stable and I have no problems!
But before an update I always ask in the Haiku IRC channel if the update is working!
It is possible with Haiku to go back to a recent build if! the update is not working for you…
I started with a nightly and have just been updating since then. I’ve never had any major issues that couldn’t be fixed with a boot to an earlier version and updating again.
Not that it matters much, because I save anything important to the NAS, since I figured out what the problem with fuseSMB was.
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We probably should have a page setup “What to do if you install a broken Nightly” because it is usually an easy fix. (boot into previous state etc…)
Anybody up for the task?
I do. x86_64 mostly. And x86_gcc2 for testing. Mainly in VirtualBox but I do have an old laptop where I run it on bare metal as well. Never had any big stability problems. On a few occasions there were driver regressions that affected me. As you already described, I rolled the system back to a previous state and updated to the newest version as soon as the bug was fixed.
That said, I do think we shouldn’t encourage new users to use the nightlies, except when they are experiencing a showstopping issue that is already fixed in the nightlies (e.g. driver support for a specific model of hardware, boot problems, …)
Many Haiku user use the nightlies because there is plenty of delay in offering a new beta!
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In defense of the dev team- some don’t like recommending nightlies because its a testing ground for them, and they need the freedom to test things. But we are all aware of that! We know what we are getting into with a nightly…
They really are good! and its a shame normies don’t always know about them!
Maybe we need a .5 beta occasionally- like an interum release every six months based on the nightlies.
We could take a nightly with NO known problems (I believe I’m in one now- hrev55036) and call it “Beta_2.5”
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I use self-build nightlies everywhere without significant problems. Critical issues in nightlies are rare. Most recent was broken package download.
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I use the nightlies on my laptop (bare metal) and in VMs. No issues.
Me too.
I use Haiku on my 4 Computers and they work like never before!
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Not if a newbe installed this first 
I use the nightly on bar metal too. Over years on diffferent hardware
Okay, you got me. I use the actual beta till now. But today I’ll change to the recent nightly.
One question: Is it possible to update a beta to nightly or should I better make a clean new install?
Btw, I use our home nextcloud, so all data is save.
Yes, updating to nightly is possible, changing repositories may be needed:
pkgman add https://eu.hpkg.haiku-os.org/haiku/master/$(getarch)/current
pkgman add https://eu.hpkg.haiku-os.org/haikuports/master/$(getarch)/current
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I use the nightly 32bit and 64bit.
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I always use nightlies, and update very frequently. I have hardly ever had a problem.
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Thanks. The update is done. Now I’m running Haiku nightly. As all other users write here, I have no doubt that it will work fine.
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If you ask the users here on the forums or on the IRC channel, yes, sure. We are used to Haiku being a work in progress and things not always working as expected. Some of us are developers and we fix problems ourselves. Some other know the way to the bugtracker and who to ask when there are problems.
Why not just make real beta releases? It’s not that hard. Someone has to write the changelog and put a tag on it, basically. That’s all there is to a release.
However, we are trying to have no regressions from one version to another. Currently there is one regression, which is subtle but annoying. The text box when renaming files in Tracker doesn’t work properly. Ok, maybe it is obsessing in what is essentially a small and not so important detail.
The other thing is we need to update some packages in the haiku repository that will allow updating WebKit to a newer version (something that we could not do for a way too long time). Unfortunately this process is undocumented with only two people who know how to do it (and I’m not one of them). So there has been no progress on this for at least the last 3 months.
And so the release date is pushed back…
I had attempted to schedule it for march (a release every 9 month instead of every year). The idea was to speed things up a bit, continue to improve and automate the release process, hoping that we can do it more and more often. Maybe every 6 months, maybe every 3 months, I don’t know where it will feel reasonable to stop this. But clearly 1 year is too long.
The third issue marked as blocker in the beta3 roadmap is improvements to DriveSetup. This is because we had a lot of feedback from people failing to install beta 2 at all. These are the kind of users I have in mind when I say pushing people to use the nightlies is a bad idea. People who will grow frustrated when someday their system stop updating, or one day it boots to a black screen because someone has updated a graphics driver. Or they just can’t figure out the exact dance of button clicking to perform in DriveSetup to do a correct Haiku install. Sure, if you look at mmu_man doing it live in a FOSDEM talk, it seems very easy. But that is someone with years of training doing it. When you don’t know about it, you get one of these painful youtube review videos where the operator spends 15 to 30 minutes just trying to get Haiku booted.
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Nightlies? Not me. I can learn enough from a beta. Just when I think I’ve got used to it, another beta comes out.