Windows developer think “why bother?” because they don’t make any extra money from having a good notepad tool. They make money like everyone else by selling their user’s data. So, of course the developers are paid, not to make the users happier and willing to buy newer versions of Windows, but to extract more data from the users.
As a result, Notepad is bad. It only got tabs to open multiple files very recently. It doesn’t do any syntax highlighting. When you quit it it doesn’t remember which files you had open. It is often confused by line endings, encoding problems, and so on.
So people replace it with something like Notepad++, made by a developer who cares about their users. And it’s not even that much larger compared to the vast scale of modern computers. It doesn’t take several seconds to start. It doesn’t eat all your RAM.
There are people you won’t reach with that kind or argumentation but you can try:
“Haiku is an experience. It’s like magic mushrooms, you have to try to understand, you know.”
I would say all those things later (Free, small, stylish, etc), but what I would emphasize is:
fast boot times (seconds compared to any other OS). Your computer is off and you quickly want to check something? Five seconds later (or less, I have not run it on modern hardware yet) and you are up and running.
it was written for a single user (you, the owner of the computer), so as soon as it starts, it works (no login, switching users to install something, etc. Simple).
that file system with its fast file searching (this really impressed me in BeOS, not sure to what extent it has already been implemented in Haiku).
This reason also fits into the “future state” category but…
My hope for Haiku is that it becomes the free desktop OS of choice:
For users - there is one experience, one excellent user interface, one answer to your questions, one version number to care about, and one consistent experience.
For developers - likewise, it means one great SDK to choose from, one version to care about, one package manager to target, etc.
The fragmentation of the Linux OSes is annoying for everyone, and doesn’t solve any real problems other than strange mixes of preferences most users really don’t care about. They just want stuff to work. Developers have too many hard choices to make when publishing software, leaving the software landscape a pockmarked mess.
Haiku has a real opportunity to make a case for being THE OSS Desktop. I realize there’s a long road to get there (see other comments in this thread), but IMO, the promise is great.
I mean, it’s faster than most Linux distro even lightweight ones and it’s easier for anybody could really learn it so I would say it’s simplicity and it’s easy to learn very quick and barely uses any ram that right there is good enough for most people not to mention it has amazing FFMPEG feature and it’s fairly easy to use for a desktop environment and has very good multithreading
And we should be targetting Windows users. There are more of them, and they want something simple that works and doesn’t exploit them.
Linux users have already made a huge investment in getting Linux to work for them, are not very interested in simplicity, and have no great reason to change.
I, too, changed from Windows to Linux. I’m a Linux user, not a Linux fan. I love the general design of Haiku (and I mean both definitions of ‘design’: Look and software architecture.)
But I think @sebrof is having a good point, because there are many Linux users out there who don’t love simplicity as much as we do. They will say “What’s wrong with Linux?” No need here to argue against that, they just aren’t Haiku’s target audience. In contrast Windows users who don’t have the hacker knowledge (edit: for using Linux) will appreciate Haiku.
I don’t know what kind of rose-tinted glasses you’re all wearing when using Haiku.
On my laptop I don’t have sound, I don’t have a touchpad, I don’t have a webcam, I don’t have dual display support or even the ablity to switch from internal to external display.
Do you think someone who just wants to use their computer would be happy with that?
Yes, the ultimate goal for Haiku (as it was for BeOS) is to win over the people who don’t care about the OS, want something that doesn’t get in the way, and just works. But we’re so far from there at the moment, it is worth first targetting the hackers, the people who want to get their hands dirty in the engine, and help build and improve the OS.
I appreciate that you can see the vision through the construction work, but it’s not time to tell people to move in while we don’t yet have the roof and windows
We are not wearing rose-tinted spectacles, we are using computers appropriate to Haiku. Mine all have working trackpads and points, mice, and sound. I don’t know why you insist on using incompatibe hardware.
Yes, they don’t have working webcams, though for me that’s not a big issue.
What is an issue is the lack of dual-monitor support (not many people have or need more than two).
And of course, WINE.
These are necessary if Haiku is to compete successfully with Windows. I am not talking about supplanting Windows completely, but about attracting half a million users, which would make Haiku viable.
I don’t have rose-tinted glasses,and for me Haiku gets its job done in most cases.
It always depends on your hardware and what you want to do,but your post puts Haiku in a too negative light.
Most desktop computers should work perfectly fine (sometimes sound doesn’t,but it does more often than not).
I have several laptops that run Haiku with supported touchpad (but I prefer a mouse anyway) and working sound.
I personally don’t have any need for a webcam,neither do I need a external screen,so these points are not valid for the work I’m doing.
I also have some hardware where Haiku doesn’t work good enough and I use other alternatives,but if the hardware is supported,Haiku can work really good already.
) be met.