Please Don't Ruin Haiku

1

I love Haiku. It’s very useful even in this alpha stage, it has a promising future, and I have nothing bad to say about it.

I just hope that nobody ruins this beautiful OS.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Haiku seems to have the goal of offering the freedom and power of Linux, with elegance like Mac OS, which comes from having an overall focus and control over the entire system. This is the holy grail to me.

I think Haiku could become the perfect OS. I’ve used many, many OSes in my life, including the free version of BeOS before that went away. Back in 2000, when I was still in high school, I got into Linux and thought I would stay with it forever. But, you know, it’s so balkanized. My life became more about fine tuning and installing stuff to get it the way I wanted than just using the thing.

I’m not afraid of compiling a new kernel. But it’s wonderful to have the simplicity of, say, the original Macintosh System Software, where you stuck a Finder and a System file on a disk and that was it.

Linux can be painful because to keep it the way I want, I have to update all this software, some of which is obscure (I don’t use the popular window managers or desktop environments). Sometimes things are incompatible. Sometimes things break. This is super annoying.

When Mac OS X came out, that became my main platform. It was Unix like and didn’t bother the user too much with stupid stuff. Now, it is becoming more of a platform to dominate and lock in the user. I never thought Apple would become the new Microsoft, but worse.

What I really want, and I hope other people want too, is an OS whose core features will stay reliably the same for a long, long time, so I can depend on it for a long time.

The best kind of UI to me is minimalistic, or can become minimalistic. I like to use Openbox on Linux and remove the taskbar. I right-click a blank desktop to launch programs. You can’t do this on a Mac, because you’re forced to have that menubar at the top of the screen.

I hope you guys don’t ever dumb down Haiku, or try to make it accessible to “normal people”. These are the people Apple is going after now. I know how bad it is because I make a living writing iOS software. I placed a big “off” button on the sole screen of an iPhone app and actually got emails about how terrible I am because the user couldn’t figure out how to turn the app off. Seriously.

I see this dangerous trend which is sometimes called simplification, but is really dumbification. Like Gnome 3. You can’t have close boxes anymore and you have to have a clock right in the middle of the screen and a truly bizarre workflow. But hey, it looks like an iPad.

Or Unity. We’re going to take GTK apps and put their menus up here, have a dock over here, and make a lot of choices for you that you can’t change.

Please don’t give in to the obsession to make interfaces that work on both desktops and on tablets. These interfaces suck. Desktops are for getting real work done and they need a UI that is right for that form factor. I can handle having a unique UI on a tablet computer or a phone.

I hope Haiku never gets onto tablets. When Microsoft and Apple eventually abandon the PC, I hope that Haiku becomes the king of classic desktop OSes. That would be great. Let 'em have the stupid tablets.

I like that Haiku doesn’t get in my way. Windows is notoriously bad at that, Apple mostly better (but getting worse). One of the first things I did in Haiku is disable notifications. To me, these are evil. I don’t like things popping up on the screen unless I directly ask for it. As long as I will always be able to disable notifications, I’m happy.

I also dislike verbosity. Windows is extremely bad at this. You open the Start menu and every icon has a title and a subtitle. Like, “Internet Explorer\nBrowses the internet.” or “Outlook\nSend and receive mail.” This junk is even spreading to Linux. Have you seen that big menu thing they put into Mint? It’s big and ugly and verbose. Haiku is great because the Applications menu is just a simple menu, no explanations, no blown-up user icons, no “smart” menus that try to guess what I might want. Just a listing of the Apps folder. Awesome.

Speaking of ugly things, a lot of people these days think that widgets and chrome are ugly. Apple is becoming very aggressive in removing them. They’re trying to kill the scrollbar. They seem to think that everyone is using a laptop with a trackpad or a mouse with a scroll wheel. I like having scrollbars on my windows. They do not bother me and they are visually useful, showing where I am in the document. I don’t want you to take them away from me because you assume I’m using a laptop.

Also, I like gray. A lot. I think the visual appearance of Haiku, across every element of the system, is truly awesome. It is subtle and refined. And yellow orange just happens to be my favorite color. Some people might complain that Haiku looks like it’s stuck in the 90s. Yes! UIs were very usable then, is that a problem?

I saw a screenshot of “Dano”. Gaaaahhh. They thought that was an improvement!? Look, if you guys decide to offer skinning and themeing… as long as I can always have Haiku look and act like it does now, I’m a happy guy. Simple and unobtrusive is good. I don’t need things to resemble real-life objects (ahem… Apple), and in fact, I prefer things on screen to look computery. Because, you know, it’s a computer.

The stack and tile decorator is inspired. It makes me not miss xmonad.

I don’t care if you never make it multiuser. My computer is for me and only me, like 95% of the population. What’s so necessary about allowing multiple users?

I am so happy that you don’t offer anything like Apple’s Launchpad or the Windows 8 tile screen or Gnome 3’s or Unity’s full screen app searching things. I know where my apps live, and I understand filesystem hierarchies (it’s well within the reach of the average user, despite what Steve Jobs thought). Another thing that they’re doing (especially in Gnome 3 and Unity) is blending internet searches and local searches. It’s as though they honestly think it’s good for the user to click on the system wide search box and see matching installed apps, file content, and Google results in one window. To me, Google belongs in my browser, and I know how to get there. I really, really, really do not want forced upon me a full screen app launching window with category icons like “Games” and “Productivity” and a search feature that doesn’t discriminate between what’s on my computer and what’s on the internet. If you make one for the stupid people, please offer it as a standalone app that I can erase forever.

I don’t think you guys will ever do this, because it seems like you want a lot of the same things I want. But you never know. I was very surprised that intelligent people wasted time and energy on anything as putrid and anti-user as Gnome 3.

I have a few suggestions for improvements / additions to Haiku. I offer these humbly, with the understanding that this is not my project to dictate changes to.

  • Allow me to auto-hide the Deskbar. I do like the Deskbar, but it would be so great to have nothing on the screen except the window(s) I’m working in. (I typically keep icons off my desktop)
  • Characters in the terminal appear cut off at large sizes (I’m sure you know about this). I like my terminal to have a very large font and use it as a text editor, so as it is the terminal doesn’t work too well for me.
  • Emacs

I’d be willing to contribute funds to help any of these things come true, if they are deemed appropriate. I hope at some point to create a few simple but useful apps for Haiku, but unfortunately I can’t get into other coding projects at this time. Haiku really only needs a few great apps in the major categories to be useful to a large number of people.

Haiku holds great promise. I hope that bad UI design is never allowed to infect Haiku. I have been waiting so long for an OS like this. It’s free software (yay), friendly to a Linux power user, simple and focused like a Mac, and nothing at all like Windows. And it has none of the downsides – balkanized and sometimes painful (Linux), controlling and oversimplified (Mac), and increasingly dumbed down (everybody).

2

Hah, it’s funny how much of this stuff seems so obvious when you write it out, yet so many developers on other OSes are missing or ignoring it…anyway, agree 100%.

3

As far as I know, you can do this in the deskbar preferences.

[quote]I don’t care if you never make it multiuser. My computer is for me and only me, like 95% of the population. What’s so necessary about allowing multiple users?[/quote]I agree almost 100% here. I think that there should be one root and one normal account, even if its a family computer. On the family computer I use, no one cares which user account their using, just so long as they can get done what they want. You could just simply make different user document folders.

[quote]I hope Haiku never gets onto tablets. When Microsoft and Apple eventually abandon the PC, I hope that Haiku becomes the king of classic desktop OSes. That would be great. Let 'em have the stupid tablets.[/quote]Tho I’ll probably never use a tablet, I hope Haiku can get to tablets and possibly phones, but if they do, I hope they use a different interfaces, because a tablet interface was NOT meant for a desktop. We could have the user select an option at install that asks whether they are using a tablet or desktop. For desktop, keep the interface the way it is, where the interface gets out of the way to let you work. For tablets, we could get trade the deskbar for a start screen that is separated into apps, preferences, documents or similar. For tablets, we could also just have the apps be automatically zoomed(possibly full screened), enlarge and autohide the toolbars, and generally make the apps more touch friendly. This way, the desktop will get out of the way to allow for productivity, while the tablet will be touch friendly without causing the need for a complete reprogram of the app for the tablet/desktop.

Everything else I agree with and I think Haiku could be the best OS that ever lived. :slight_smile:

4

Wow, awesome post.

I’m one of the Haiku developers and I really appreciate what you are saying here. A lot of people outside our little community can sometimes think Haiku is a big waste of time, but obviously you get why we work on it.

I agree that the emergence of the “iPhone generation” has resulted in some dumbing down of operating systems, with Mountain Lion and Windows 8 being the next two prime examples. Though I’m writing this on a MacBook Pro I just purchased today. My last Windows/Linux dual-boot laptop started having hard drive problems and I was tired of the whole “resize a Windows partition and install the Linux Du Jour” situation. But as an iOS developer you too have to “work on the dark side” to make a living.

Overall I think you can feel pretty safe that Haiku won’t turn into what all these other systems are becoming. I’ll admit I’ve had thoughts about Haiku on a tablet, but you make a good point that we should just let the big boys duke it out over that market and have Haiku just be the best desktop operating system it can be.

Though I don’t think everything on the other systems is bad. For example take the relatively new Launchpad in OS X. That was needed, because having to open the crappy Finder and then finding the Application section, and scrolling through that to find a more obscure application was a pain (even though this is my first Mac, I’ve used them quite a bit.) I also really, really like the touchpad gestures in Lion.

But I won’t argue with you about Unity. I gave it a chance in a recent new Ubuntu installation, and I hate it. But I don’t hate Gnome 3 as much as you do, but I definitely see your point.

To address your list at the bottom:

  • Basic Deskbar autohide has been implemented from a patch on this ticket: http://dev.haiku-os.org/ticket/4880
  • Please log a bug about the terminal issue, I did not see it in the current list of terminal bugs. If you do not yet have a Trac login you will need to create one, unfortunately the Haiku web site and bug tracker do not share users.
  • I did some searching about emacs and there is a bug where someone was mentioning trying to compile it in Haiku, and I feel like there was an Xemacs for BeOS, but there probably aren’t any up-to-date versions. There is one on Haikuware but apparently it has an error when run.
5

i do agree 100% with you, Linux, as in kernel) is nice and all but GNU/Linux is a mess since the dawn of the age… i do believe that once lightworks is released as open source there will be a chance of getting more software available to haiku and gnu/linux. Intel has been writing open source drivers for its Intel HD gfx (Sandy bridge and Ivy bridge) on mesa porting those will grant us OpenGL 3.0 (+ or - complete). Then it’s possible to get better games and perhaps some proprietary drivers from nvidia (though it isn’t gona happen).

So no way that Haiku will get ruined.

6

I gave Emacs a quick shot. It didn’t last long. You need to modify several files just to get the ./configure to run. I have no idea if, after that point, the configuration and compilation process will have more errors.

That’s my editor of choice so I hope to see it ported over sometime, as well. If nobody else tackles it by the time I get around to really needing it, then I’ll probably give it another shot.

7

You should upload your results to HaikuPorts in order for your changes to available to others who might wish to have a go.

You should also check out the Common Problems page, which might be of help.

8

100% true
Haiku (BeOS) is the best Desktop OS ever.
My Wish is for my Work:
Java for Android Development
JS stuffs (like node,js and co)
RoR Stuff

And yes more Haiku API Layers (js, go, …)

A Browser like Net+

and a good hardware dedection (no older then 2 y)

9

I have an older version of emacs built that I never added to the ports repo(somewhere in the 23.3 range). I still maintain the patch against the current repo but emacs is getting a runtime error now. Eventually I’ll either upload the older version or try to fix the current development branch.

If you just need something emacs-like in the meantime, jed can be built pretty easily. I do have patches for both slang and jed but I don’t think they are required to build it. I also have jasspa microemacs built and stashed away somewhere but I generally use jed.

10

You have nailed it right. I am not against innovation in OS space but, the dumbing down of mainstream OS’s for covering the largest audience is not Haiku’s goal. I remember the BeOS experience. It was revolutionary because of the following factors:

  1. Outright linearity of work flow: You have one way and the most obvious way (file/folder metaphor) for accessing applications and files.
  2. Un-cluttering of options and configuration by keeping a single tracking view of what is happening in the OS. The tracker..
  3. Simplicity that comes from deeper understanding of complexity.. i.e. An Operating system's first and foremost duty is to abstract the computer's hardware as services( ideally state machines). Be copious with innovation at that level. A user should be given freedom to operate the computer's hardware without artificial barriers. for e.g. One should reboot if a new external hardware is added. A service is what it is provides - a simple higher abstraction of what the computer can do for him/her. The modular OS architecture with hardware as service was/is a wonderful example of this concept.
  4. Provide raw and powerful access for those power users who like the posix compliant world, which developer dislikes the power of a posix cli?
  5. The unabashedly nerdy approach to performance programming. Let the abstractions be built to maturity at the OS level Application API or else the individual programmer will develop unsightly code and workarounds. This is what plagues most of Linux development today(Acc. to me). Choice is not always great, and a bit of discipline never hurts.
The list is much more.

So to sum it up, let Haiku never loose its sight of the fact that it is a Desktop Computer OS. If you want to bring its power to new computational hardware paradigms like the tablet or future voice/ai based systems, lets fork it instead of polluting the desktop version. This could be a questionnaire for anyone working on new innovations working out there.

  1. Do you want a true multitasking, modularized kernel for an embedded idea don't go beating out haiku, At best work on a separate fork of its kernel and kits. Release and maintain as a different OS.
  2. Do you have an interesting desktop UI feature that you think is useful.. Submit a prototype app for it.. Garner as much input from users, then politely sift down to precise features.
11

I absolutely agree, I love haiku and i absolutely adored BeOS when it came out too, what a refreshing change it was!! I wish someone would donate a lottery win so that Haiku could be what it should be in a short space of time, I hate waiting :smiley: BUT good things come to those who wait! I got a new laptop, the resolution is great now (not good on my desktop!), once I get WiFI and upto date browser and maybe a few more apps it will definately be my every day OS without doubt. The developers deserve a pat on the back and much more for their dedication to this OS.

I absolutely agree with things like the multi user support too, it’s ok for an OS like windows where the whole family will use the PC, but being a hobbyist OS its 99% likely your the only one in the house using it, I think the time could be spent on getting the fundamentals sorted first.

It’s not that I dont think those things shouldn’t be added but it should be an afterthought… I just want a speedy nice looking OS that is configurable, supports my hardware and lets me browse the web and check my emails, Haiku would be perfect.

12

[quote=xsive]I absolutely agree, I love haiku and i absolutely adored BeOS when it came out too, what a refreshing change it was!! I wish someone would donate a lottery win so that Haiku could be what it should be in a short space of time, I hate waiting :smiley: BUT good things come to those who wait! I got a new laptop, the resolution is great now (not good on my desktop!), once I get WiFI and upto date browser and maybe a few more apps it will definately be my every day OS without doubt. The developers deserve a pat on the back and much more for their dedication to this OS.

I absolutely agree with things like the multi user support too, it’s ok for an OS like windows where the whole family will use the PC, but being a hobbyist OS its 99% likely your the only one in the house using it, I think the time could be spent on getting the fundamentals sorted first.

It’s not that I dont think those things shouldn’t be added but it should be an afterthought… I just want a speedy nice looking OS that is configurable, supports my hardware and lets me browse the web and check my emails, Haiku would be perfect.[/quote]

Maybe also we could donate per project? Would this be a good idea to show what people are willing to donate to so Haiku can work for them then those projects could be speeded up and increase user base?

13

well, if you “love” haiku that much, perhaps you should indeed not spend time waiting.
Suggestion:

  1. start learning c++ and start with development

if you try and fail with development, try to work and to donate money, so that other people are developing haiku. How big is your love? How many hours of work you are willing to contribute?

if you think more exactly about that, you will notice, that in fact your “love” is very weak. That you are not willing to do much sacrifice.
I guess (i dont know), you are more or less in a state of “dreaming with open eyes”, “how great it would be if…”. It’s like father would be saying “i love my children a lot”, but just at the level of “ideology”, not also at the level of really doing something for them and supporting them with all his power.
Real love needs facts, and not just declarative words.

All what i was writing was not with the intention to attack you, it was with the intention to help you understand better the situation and to make you understand not to say too easy “i love”. The ones who can easily say “i love”, and not really doing it in a serious way.

14

Well actually it did sound like a personal attack, I’m an end user at the end of the day and I would be very happy to contribute in some form or another, but at the same time programming isn’t my expertise and never will be. I was just making suggestions which is what the blogs and forum are for. It was my opinion and your entitled to yours.

15

Thanks for this post. I agree with a lot of things you’re saying. I would add though that I think Haiku needs to be very careful about the package management issue. While package management felt cool back when I started using Linux, in the end it’s pretty bad. It’s almost impossible to install anything without an internet connection and there is very little flexibility in terms of storing apps where you want and keeping them even when you need to reinstall the OS. In Windows I have most of my apps on another partition and they don’t get affected when the system partition needs to get formatted. In fact, most of them were never “installed” in the first place, they were just extracted from a zip file. The only thing they tend to need is basic stuff, like DirectX being updated or having working GPU drivers. Now I know that a lot of apps don’t have this flexibility in Windows, especially apps like web browsers for example, but I still think that this serves as a good example of what an OS should be like.

Back when I was using Linux, I always had to install every little application. There was no way to store any apps on another drive/partition and just fire them up immediately after getting the OS and all its drivers working. And even if there’s one or two apps that are not installed system-wide, you still can’t just run them because all libraries are shared, which means you have to have an internet connection present and you have to install all of the dependencies. And in this case I don’t really care if my apps take up a few MB’s less because of shared libraries; the hassle involved is not worth it.

16

you know, some people are neglecting their families, the school. They are destroying their health staying for many hours in front of that screen/keyboard. And I’m not talking about doing that for a few days. Some are doing that for many many years. Not sleeping, and programming also at night. Sometime they have to fight against the burn-out effect, because of managing personal an professional life, and then still working for haiku. There are here a lot of people who did great sacrifier. But none of them came across to declare themself a great “haiku-lover”.
Perhaps first you can compare how much you donated or worked for haiku and then “recalculate” your amount of “love” related to haiku.

17

What’s this semantic squabble about “love”?
xsive, are you prepared to sacrifice a goat to demonstrate your love of Haiku? Otherwise I recommend taking back that “I love” and go with “I kinda like”, to appease cipri.

Regards,
Humdinger

18

cipri,

I do understand what you are saying, and at the moment I may be one of those developers who is working late at night and maybe ignoring my wife more than I should be so I can work on Haiku.

But that is my choice and you don’t need to jump on xsive for saying he loves Haiku without sacrificing all his life for it :wink:

We can have passionate users whose only “contribution” is using Haiku. In that sense they are better than all the people who say “oh what is this Haiku thing, what a waste of time!”

19

Each contribution is actually something done. I do use Haiku also i donate as much as i can. I do love haiku since it’s a great OS and specially because many ppl (Devs, end users, forum users) do contribute that makes Haiku a better OS.

Mocking someone just because he says that “he loves” something shows that you aren’t really bright. can you guys truly estimate how much you like/love an operating system? i can’t, though i can tell that i love more haiku than linux (production OS on my PC) and i do hate windows more than any other failed OS out there.

All this to say that you can’t just come here or any where else and disrespect someone’s preference just because you can’t comprehend it.

@leavengood: thanks for your sacrifice i truly apreciate but remember to take some time off to spend with your family, please. Cheers

20

@sparklewind

I have to say the only thing I really dislike about haiku so far is the lack of some kind of package management. I’m not saying you’re wrong in what you say, because I can see your point about linux package management problems. But there must be some middle ground.

Currently, there are lots of apps on different peoples web pages, lots on haikuware, lots in haiku ports and a load in installoptionalpackage. Figuring out how to install something, where to find it, and whether it will work can be a real pain.

Some programs are just a binary that you can run from anywhere, some need bits in specfic places in the filesystem (which I guess would break the idea of being able to re-install the OS without moving them) and you need to either put them there manually or run an installer script. Many programs don’t work and there’s no way to know this before trying them. I know this is in part due to haiku being a moving target, but it’s still annoying. Probably many of them just need to be re-built, but unfortunately in many cases (particularly for stuff on haikuware) the source code isn’t provided so this isn’t possible. Haiku ports is like a bsd/gentoo ports system, but is not the only way of installing stuff (as in those systems) and isn’t that user friendly (though maybe it could be).

I don’t know what the solution is, and I guess there are a few different problems here. Off the top of my head maybe you divide them down into

1 what format to put packages in
2 how to keep track of whats installed and where its files are (if not all in one place)
3 whether to have a central update system and how to do it
4 static or dynamic linking?
5 how to keep track of dependencies in case of dynamic linking
7 how to keep track of compatibility with different haiku versions
8 how to keep track of source code in case of open source stuff

personally I think a format where everything is in a single compressed file that is something like an overlayfs and mounted on top of the existing filesystem when you run it would pretty much solve 1 and 2. The others are debatable I suppose. Some sort of central place (like an appstore) to get software would be nice IMHO.

However, I trust that the haiku developers will get this right.