is available to download from http://home.gna.org/pingwinek/
Pingwinek [PL] - Tux
I apologize before-hand, but I have to add a critical point of view.
As a longtime BeOS user I find it very strange and somewhat alarming to see GNU, the penguin, the word “distro” and our beloved Haiku together. Haiku isn’t Linux. Haiku isn’t GNU/Haiku anymore than FreeBSD is GNU/FreeBSD. Haiku isn’t meant to be distrofied in the hundreds. And the penguin is cute, but it’s not Haiku.
About being the first Haiku distro: The Haiku test image that exists currently isn’t meant for public consumption. It’s for developers and very early adopters. There is no real “distro” (as in “meant for distribution”) because the Haiku project doesn’t want one to exist out there just yet. It’s too early. Haiku still has serious issues that need to be fixed. The project wants keep Haiku under the non-developer radar until it has matured and reached at least an alpha level of quality.
When the time comes for Haiku to be distrofied, when R1 is released or pre-released, I believe there will have to be made guidelines as to what a distro should (and should not?) contain, so that Haiku applications will be able to run on any and all Haiku distros. It’s in our best interest not to split Haiku in incompatible sub-Haikus. It’s also in our best interest not to attract too much attention before Haiku is ready to run serious application, (like gcc crashing the OS on a normal size build), or before you can actually ctrl-c an application in Terminal without it killing also the Terminal, or before you can copy a 200 MB file without running out of memory due to incomplete virtual memory page recycling.
If I’m not mistaken, Haiku is registered by Haiku Inc. In that case they can’t use Haiku as a name when creating a distro. There can only be one Haiku distro.
It’s time to send out cease and desist letters 
Why do you think that Haiku isn’t GNU/Haiku? As I know Haiku uses modified GNU C Library, GNU Compiler is used to build Haiku, and about 30% of commands available under Terminal comes from the GNU project (bash, coreutils, diffutils, findutils, gdb, etc…). So why do not call Haiku as GNU/Haiku?
The “GNU/” prefix is primarily politics. Haiku isn’t about the strict definition of “freedom” pushed by the GNU project. We’re about freedom alright, but we’re not into the GPL version of it.
One could say that unlike Linux, Haiku is the name of the whole, (which does include GNU things - yes, we’re standing on the shoulders of giants, as always), whereas Linux is primarily the name of the kernel.
Years ago it may have been correct to say GNU/Linux, designating the kernel and much of the tools included to run on it, but today there’s so much more. Should the name of “Linux” be “GNU/KDE/X.org/Linux”, or should it be simply Linux? I’d say people have already chosen the simpler “Linux”. Haiku is also so much more than a kernel and a collection of GNU tools.
The BSDs all use GCC, at the very least, yet they don’t use the “GNU/” prefix.
[quote=jonas.kirilla]… Haiku is also so much more than a kernel and a collection of GNU tools.
The BSDs all use GCC, at the very least, yet they don’t use the “GNU/” prefix.[/quote]
Thank you for explanation. The BSDs doesn’t use “GNU/” prefix but distribution based on use the prefix. For example Debian GNU/kFreeBSD http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/
OK, maybe it will be better to change the name to something not confusing like “Paiku” or “Gaiku”. Do you think that it could be acceptable by Haiku developers/community? BTW. What do you think, can I called it “Haiku distribution” or not?
Debian are GPL-purists, so that’s not surprising. I find it curious that they go beyond Linux and try to GPL-ize FreeBSD by replacing its native C library and userland tools, most of them BSD-licensed, with GNU equivalents, even though its clearly against the wish of the FreeBSD people. The kernel is still BSD-licensed, so what’s their point? Replace that with Linux and they’ve got an all-GPL distro again!
You’re free to call it a GNU/Haiku distribution if you like, but I don’t think it reflects the BeOS/Haiku community. To me, “distribution” is a Linux term.
How about Laika? Haiku’s desktop/filemanager which it inherited from BeOS, is called Tracker, its icon being a dog! (Laika, maybe? 
Or… Haidi, short for Haiku distro. I don’t know. It could be called anything really.
Look! They’re identical:
http://opentracker.be/main.html
- You mistake a tool for the product.
- You mistake a non essentail subsytem, which is just a facility provided for the whole. You don’t cry for GNU/Windows after cygwin installation. Aren’t you.
- You don’t realize how much of the GNU software “glory” is actually derived, without giving neither proper credit nor notice, from software which was actually developed entierly in the public domain.
And last but not least: many actual Linux developers reject the GNU/Linux misnomination as well.
Why do you think that Haiku isn’t GNU/Haiku? As I know Haiku uses modified GNU C Library, GNU Compiler is used to build Haiku, and about 30% of commands available under Terminal comes from the GNU project (bash, coreutils, diffutils, findutils, gdb, etc…). So why do not call Haiku as GNU/Haiku?
AFAIK, there is absolutely no requirement that an OS that uses GNU software be labeled “GNU/” That’s just a marketing/political thing if I understand it correctly. So, why take a perfectly good OS that doesn’t really truly rely on any GNU software in order to run and force this political chaos upon it?
Compiling the software with GCC is hardly worth noting here - OSS and commercial software alike, worldwide, uses GCC with no requirement that GNU be referenced as part of the product name.
As for bash and other commandline tools being used, they are not critical OS components - the core OS, GUI shell, and applications should not depend on any of these, and suitable replacements could be ported and used on a whim in theory.
As for GNU libc - I don’t fully understand the ties this has in libroot - I have to assume it’s mostly for POSIX compliance, and I even remember some mailing list discussion that took place where GNU libc was chosen because the existing libc implementation was “broken and buggy”. I think the (unspoken?) intention was to swap it back out later as the rest of the OS matured.
I found this post from Axel on the mailing list:
http://www.freelists.org/archives/openbeos/05-2004/msg00005.html
That seems to suggest that for some reason glibc has better compatibility with BeOS R5 than BSD’s libc (did BeOS also use glibc?)
In any case, I think your choice of distro names was in somewhat bad taste and probably doesn’t correlate with the Haiku community’s desires. Ultimately you can do whatever you want with the code, but the “Haiku” name may be a different matter. I suggest you further discuss it with the Haiku project admins.
Update:
Ah, it looks like maybe BeOS DID use glibc for their libroot implementation. In fact, they apparently open-sourced libroot (maybe due to this use of glibc?). So I would guess that is primarily why it was used in Haiku - to maintain compatibility with BeOS R5.
The only real problem I have with it is this:
There will be people who do not appreciate the fact that Haiku is still in initial development, and is alpha- or pseudo-alpha-level software, and these people will end up trying out this GNU/Haiku distribution expecting great things but will be utterly disappointed. Many of them will go on never to give Haiku another shot, even once R1 has been achieved, and many of them will have bad things to say about Haiku based on their experience with this distro.
I agree with you Jonathon.
Here are the things that turned me off:
-
Uses a Penguin picture. Penguin is usually associated with Linux. It will confuse some people. Haiku is not Linux. Any background without a Penguin (or other bird) would be fine. (I would like to see something with a Tree full of leaves, since Haiku uses 3 leaves in its name). I see a Penguin on an OS & think of Linux.
-
The background should state ALPHA on it so people know it is based off very early release of Haiku.
-
The name needs changing. GNU/Haiku is not good. Linux uses GNU too, but I have not seen any distro of Linux have GNU in its name. There are lots of distros of Linux, but you do not see any distro using the name Linux in their name either (Ok, PCLinuxOS is the exception to this rule, but most others use different names, like Arch, Red Hat, Mandriva, Suse, Ubuntu, etc.).
Also, I think Haiku is trademarked, so you can not use that or anything like it (ie: Haiku Extreme, Haiku One, Haiku Red Alert, etc.). I believe those are not allowed, but can not say for sure. What would happen if there were 50 distros of Haiku & all of them were called Haiku XXXXX (you fill in the XXXXX)? It would be just crazy.
The name Haiku should be like the name Linux, used to define the OS (ie: the OS is based off Haiku code). So, you say, hey that is another Haiku distro (just like in Linux you say this is another Linux distro).
You could also put in a description “a distro based on Haiku Alpha code”.
Use a different name like Pure OS, Mystic OS, Solar OS, etc.
ie:
Mystic OS
A Distro Based On Haiku Alpha Code
Sorry, if I am too harsh, but I felt these points were valid & needed to be addressed (fixed).
… but as i understand the GNU-THINGY its a name of an OS.
THE GNU-OS! back in the 80s this guy who started GNU wanted
to create a free “UNIX” [GNU’s not UNIX ;)] and wrote all the
needed tools, except the kernel. After a while the LINUX-KERNEL
came across and the GNU-Guys started to build their OS around
LINUX … so they called it “GNU/Linux” which means, that it’s
the GNU Operating System based upon the Linux-Kernel!
HAIKU ISN’T GNU!
Simon
PS: Who’s waiting for HURD ?
I was keen on seeing Haiku run on real hardware.
Pingwinek provided the easiest way for me to see Haiku work on real hardware.
For some reason (probably because the speed and responsiveness of the BeOS-gui is my strongest memory to it)seeing Haiku run in VMware didn’t produce that amount of excitement in me compared to seeing it run nativly on my Dell Latitude (althought the NIC doesnt’t seem to be recognized[3COM 3c920]).
If we take a look at React-OS, we can see that they also published live-CDs in a very alpha stage.
A lot of things there also aren’t working properly.
Naming it gnu/haiku is probably a little inapt, but aim and result don’t seem such a problem to me.
To my knowledge, there currently are no 3com drivers in the Haiku repo, especially not the 3c920.
There is a closed-source driver on bebits that you can TEST to see if it works in Haiku - but when I tried it last (in an attempt to get my 3c905 card working) it failed. Granted that was well over a year ago, and maybe it works fine now with all the improvements to the kernel in the meantime.
If we take a look at React-OS, we can see that they also published live-CDs in a very alpha stage.
A lot of things there also aren’t working properly.
I support the Haiku guys’ decision on not to advertise Haiku by giving out live-cd images here and there. The only problem I see with not doing that, is that other distributors will get a head start of Haiku. Maybe not a problem right now, but guess what will happen when Haiku is getting nearer R1. Distributors won’t wait (as we see with this Pingwinek distro). Let’s not hope these distributions will win the userbase over because we waited too long to provide an easy, but still not advertised, way to install Haiku. There seems to be a need: Pingwinek provided the easiest way for me to see Haiku work on real hardware.