Is there an idea on when Haiku will have an official release? Something that can be burned to a cd?
Haiku can already be burned to a LiveCD that is bootable. The process of doing this is a little complicated and cumbersome, but it can be done. The resulting images must be burned to a CD in two separate tracks using cd burning software that supports that method - it can not be a single “iso” file as you would expect.
I think that’s not what you’re asking, however, and I can’t give you a time for a CD-bootable, fully installable Haiku release, but I can point you to the “roadmap” which lists the issues requiring resolution for R1/Alpha and R1 proper.
I don’t see a partitioning tool listed as a requirement for R1/Alpha - so likely that won’t be available yet once Haiku is alpha. This means you still won’t be able to create and format a partition from a bootable Haiku CD until that is complete.
Here is the “roadmap” which lists the issues remaining for each milestone: http://dev.haiku-os.org/roadmap
Once R1/Alpha is complete (or near completion) I anticipate that a new milestone labeled “R1/Beta” will be created as Haiku moves towards a full R1 completion.
Hope that helps.