Hello.
I still am not using Haiku. I’m using Windows-XP sense ever, and although not content with the overall OS, and mostly it’s performance - can’t imagine living without some of the programs made to be used with it.
What are the ways to install those programs? Compatibility layer, Windows in a Virtual Machine on Haiku, DOS in a Virtual Machine on Haiku, Haiku in a Virtual Machine on DOS? I don’t even know if DOS can accept all the programs from Windows; I don’t know much about Operating Systems.
So please mention all the ways you know to use those programs that aren’t compatible to Haiku, and which you think are better then others.
Oh, and also - programs that you can install a portable version of - can they be installed on Haiku?
As far as I know, what you want is not possible, at least not yet.
Haiku is - as you can see - in an Alpha-2 state.
That means it is a work-in-progress, not a finished operating system.
That will take a long time, yet.
What you can see from its current state, is that Haiku is super fast and responsive.
Imagine what it could be like.
Then be very, very patient 
Linux may be a better bet for you, for now: it can emulate the windows system, and often run programs through the Wine software.
You might want to check out ReactOS. It looks like windows server 2000 and can run Windows software that ran on Windows 2000/XP.
There ase 2 alternatives. Using dosbox + windows 95 which works thru [ my “yet-unreleased” ] DosCL or use QEMU/BOCHS. First solution seems to be the best , because you have access to haiku’s partition from windows.
WOrking on laptop [1,7Mhz] with windows 95 on dosbox is fairy usable.
You can propably run windows in a virtual machine under Haiku with qemu.
grafZeppelin - "Haiku is super fast and responsive. Imagine what it could be like."
When I only started reading about Haiku I had a very strong hunch that it’s the next big thing for me, even though I’m not a computer geek at all I was able to see the potential somewhere there.
That’s just the thing - if there will be a bridge to the programs developed for Windows - I will not have to be patient at all. Haiku will be a fully functional OS. You will be able to work with any program and do anything you want until there will be an equivalent in Haiku.
richienyhus - ReactOS is not recommended for everyday use by them for now. It’s a good idea for the future though, thanks. BTW - can I use it with Haiku? I mean - that’s the idea.
streak - “yet-unreleased”. I read your post about it somewhere, so is it due any day now? :-p
Why Windows 95 and not XP?
Will it be possible to lunch files by a program on windows from Haiku, or to drag and drop them right into the program? So that I won’t have to search the file from windows.
And another thing - if I’ll put windows with DosCL or Virtual-Box; won’t it make everything slower like on Win-XP? That is the original problem that makes me want to get rid of Windows and not to start with Linux either probably.
BTW - no-one answered weather portable programs can work in Haiku.
Thanks everyone for answering.
About DosCL: It should be released in this week. Im afraid drag and drop feature will work only with dos apps. Not windows.
Why not XP. XP is completely separated from dos layer, so you cant install XP via DosBox.
Yes, ReactOS is still in Alpha, so officially only aimed at developers. However Haiku is also only in alpha, although it probably closer to beta.
When you say you want to launch Microsoft Windows applications right from application menu, that its only possible in ReactOS or on Linux with Wine.
Virtual Box and other virtualisation software only trick the an operating system into thinking it is running on a real computer rather than in a virtual computer. The software in the real computer and the virtual computer can not interact. That means you can not save a document from the virtual Windows into the real Haiku file system.
This can be overcome with the Seamless Desktop Mode (and other modes) in Virtual Box, which might work with Haiku, if the port was anywhere near complete.
Apart from ReactOS all other opinions will come with a major slow down due to it needing a virtual version of the whole operating system (although less so for Wine on Linux).
Haiku is in the same position that MacOS is in, either the software is ported or virtualisation software is used.
streak - The problem that richienyhus talked about will not exist in DosCL?
"The software in the real computer and the virtual computer can not interact. That means you can not save a document from the virtual Windows into the real Haiku file system."
Will Windows-95 be installed permanently, and where exactly will it be installed?
How will I know DosCL has been released? Where should I look for it?
richienyhus - what about streak’s DosCL? You didn’t say anything about it. What do you think?
About the slowness - I hope there will be less then now. At list I will be using only a few programs, although the biggest ones, e.g. FireFox (I understand there’s only version 2.0), Emule, etc. Actually it’s less slowness then bad responsiveness from programs (as far as I understand); I have a new and reletively good computer, so I don’t think there will be problem in Haiku itself.
DosBox have the ability to mount virtual drive from ANY physical drive or direcotory on host operating system so… to work with windows95/98 and files on both windows95 and Haiku we need to:
- create virtual bochs drive where we install real win95
- mount second drive from any given haiku folder [this virtual drive will be used as SWAP DATA drive between haiku and windows95 emulated from dosbox ]
and finally, yes it is possible to share the data between win95 and haiku but only in dosbox. QEMU will not work in this way.
Alright, thanks, copied everything. Will understand later.
You still didn’t answered - how can I know when DosCL is released.
Emulator types from fastest to slowest below:
- DOS emulator (dosbox) - emulates Microsoft DOS (available on Haiku)
- Windows emulator (WINE) - emulates Microsoft Windows (not available for Haiku)
- x86 emulator - emulates an x86 system with specific hardware (QEMU available for Haiku but not working with newer Haiku releases from around R1A2).
If you intend to run lots of Windows programs and want speed then stick with Windows OS! If you will run 1 or 2 programs, then use an emulator but beware because they tend to run on the slower side!!!
If Windows is running sluggish for you, do a clean install and copy your data files over to USB key or another partition first. Over time Windows gets lots of garbage in the registry that slows it down from installing and removing applications and drivers. A clean install, on an older install (2+ years), will greatly improve speed.
DOSBox emulates an IBM compatible PC. It comes with a (free) DOS but it emulates the whole PC. For example, when you play Eye of the Beholder, and Eye of the Beholder wants to play a fireball explosion sound, it uses CPU instructions to send the PCM samples to a ISA sound card with INB/ OUTB instructions. But no modern PC has such a card, all of that has to be emulated.
Wine Is Not an Emulator. It’s a compatibility layer. For example, when a 3D video game is running on a Linux system using Wine, the CPU instructions of the video game execute directly on the CPU, and it calls D3D libraries just like it would on Windows, but the libraries are provided by Wine instead of Microsoft, and use the native 3D drivers not Windows 3D drivers.
So, most things will run tens or hundreds of times slower in DOSbox than they would on real hardware, but that’s not a big problem for older games, and sometimes even an advantage because they used timing loops which can’t work on modern hardware.
Speed varies a lot in Wine. Some applications will run faster than in Windows, if the Wine + Linux combination implements some API feature more quickly. Most will run at fairly similar speed, but some (particularly video games or software which uses the latest features) don’t work at all.
I really should have checked Wikipedia before posting since my info is kinda off.
WINE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_(software)
“Wine is not an emulator, but is instead a compatibility layer, providing alternative implementations of the DLLs that Windows programs call, and a process to substitute for the Windows NT kernel.”
DosBox:
“DOSBox is emulator software that emulates an IBM PC compatible computer running MS-DOS. It is intended especially for use with old PC games. DOSBox is free software.”
In any case, I can say that any program that emulates computer system would be slower to use than real hardware - you lose performance.
I cannot say if WINE is better overall at running Windows programs. This is something that would require benchmarks to prove. WINE is not available to Haiku so of no concern right now.
“Do a clean install of windows”. It’s just a couple of months old.
I know there are ways to make windows slimmer and faster and if I wouldn’t hear of Haiku - I would work on that now. So I will try it with Haiku and see how it works first.
“The programs will run slower”. Or you can say that they will be speed-walking.
I don’t know how it will be because right now it’s that other way around - the programs run relatively good but the system and other programs work slowly; Windows-Explorer, Lunching files, sometimes even working with text. Some times it seems that it happens for no apparent reason. It feels not like the system is slow but like there is something wrong with it, it stutters. A lot of times at the beginning an application is slow and after a few seconds it’s fast. Some things are slow and some are fast from the beginning, and not necessary because some are heavier then others. Anyway, it seems like it’s the system that is working in a wrong way.
You need to rule out your computer hardware first and then move onto the OS after that. One or more of your components might be failing causing the system to behave badly.
If you get stuttering and stalling then it could very well be hardware issue. You would have to test out your hardware.
- memory tester (memtest86+ - run at least 5 or more times)
- drive tester (from hard drive manufacturer website)
I had a board with bulging capicators once that was acting like that. So, visual inspect the motherboard for bulging or leaking capacitors. Also, a failing power supply could cause this too. I bought a case with power supply once and it went after 11 months of use. Some power supplies are cheaply made and last only 2 to 3 years max. Also, faulty CPU fan that causes CPU to overheat., etc.
You also would want to run a program that checks the motherboard & CPU by doing math checks. Like Prime95. Look for other stress testing software to try out.
Changing to another OS will not help you if the hardware is at fault. So check that first before doing anything else.
PS Since WINE is compatibility layer (not emulator), it would run the fastest (close or better than Windows OS) but it does not exist for Haiku. Using an emulator to run another OS is not fun. I actually do this for testing only (bad for normal use) and prefer installing to hard drive partition to run at full speed. Example, in Haiku you would run QEMU (emulator) and have to install Windows XP. So now, instead of running Windows natively on your system you would run it through QEMU.
Perhapse I was over exaggerating. There’s little stuttering going on and usually everything is smooth. I also use very heavy things (e.g. FireFox, is already very heavy), and it works.
It’s just that I’m all day long on the computer and it’s annoying even when it’s small. It’s like your body would do that once in a while; it would really be a problem.
I really doubt that it’s hardware problems.
I also was testing a lot of programs so that might have made the system slower like someone said here.
streak - about DOSBox - it says in Wikipedia that the project has a policy of not adding features that are of no use for DOS games. + most programs don’t support Windows-95/98 today. So I guess I’ll have to wait until there will be a compatibility layer of some sort. 
Does anyone know of any plans of making one?
Or to find another way.
richienyhus - in ReactOS site I didn’t read anything about it being faster than Windows. So what is the reason for this OS? Is it just not to use Microsoft program? Or to have a free OS that’s compatible to most of the software out there?
[quote=tonestone57]You need to rule out your computer hardware first and then move onto the OS after that. One or more of your components might be failing causing the system to behave badly.
If you get stuttering and stalling then it could very well be hardware issue. You would have to test out your hardware.
- memory tester (memtest86+ - run at least 5 or more times)
- drive tester (from hard drive manufacturer website)
I had a board with bulging capicators once that was acting like that. So, visual inspect the motherboard for bulging or leaking capacitors. Also, a failing power supply could cause this too. I bought a case with power supply once and it went after 11 months of use. Some power supplies are cheaply made and last only 2 to 3 years max. Also, faulty CPU fan that causes CPU to overheat., etc.
You also would want to run a program that checks the motherboard & CPU by doing math checks. Like Prime95. Look for other stress testing software to try out.
Changing to another OS will not help you if the hardware is at fault. So check that first before doing anything else.
PS Since WINE is compatibility layer (not emulator), it would run the fastest (close or better than Windows OS) but it does not exist for Haiku. Using an emulator to run another OS is not fun. I actually do this for testing only (bad for normal use) and prefer installing to hard drive partition to run at full speed. Example, in Haiku you would run QEMU (emulator) and have to install Windows XP. So now, instead of running Windows natively on your system you would run it through QEMU.[/quote]
The only way to implement wine would be to get the entire developer group to work on it. I took a look at it and currently its way way way over my head. Sucks to becuase it could pave the way to making haiku a adoptable option for alot of users.thatguy - That is really to bad. The real problem is with the big projects like FireFox, Miranda-IM, Emule, Winrar etc. A specially the programs that are evolving all the time. You just cannot replace or give them up. Those have to be migrated, or for a compatibility layer to be made.
It seems to me that the easiest way is to make a compatibility layer one time and to only develop it, rather than to migrate each program and to work on a new version in the future each time. What do you think?
[quote=MrAccident]thatguy - That is really to bad. The real problem is with the big projects like FireFox, Miranda-IM, Emule, Winrar etc. A specially the programs that are evolving all the time. You just cannot replace or give them up. Those have to be migrated, or for a compatibility layer to be made.
It seems to me that the easiest way is to make a compatibility layer one time and to only develop it, rather than to migrate each program and to work on a new version in the future each time. What do you think?[/quote]
My personal opinion is that Posix Conformance “not compliance,there is a huge difference” and devlopers ardently adhearing to it would remove the need for such systems as wine. However here in reality, we have a market vendor with 90+% of the pc and enterprise workstation market and if everyone wanta adoption " I think the group does" then a way to make these applications portable to this new platform must be built.
WINE ,while a massive undertaking, would be the shortest distance between 2 points currently.Writing a new layer would be just as difficult as the whole haiku project itself. So having a premade option that “should” be able to be ported might be the best solution for now, when adoption does/may/if it occurs on a wide scale. then wine will become a trivial part of the past and simply require maintenance for any applications that do not cross over.
Haiku is a great project and delivers a great user interaction. The experience however is lacking in that I simply can’t use 99% of the software I need on a dialy basis and I am sure i am hardly alone.
That being siad some great strides are being made, but there needs to be someway to lure users to HAIKU and the only trick pony I see is WINE offering those capabilitys.
I started a bounty thread over on the forums at haikuware. go voice your opinion.