Switched (after completing the Switching) to Haiku

[roiredxsoto]

Good day,

I while ago I started the move to Haiku (using mostly Linux, sometimes Windows), and while it’s not yet complete, we are getting there, and it’s not an easy road to go through… Nonetheless, this is by no means a complain, it’s just the way I do things in order to use Haiku as “daily driver”, whenever possible. The only thing I can complain about is not having enought time to address all the tasks in My task list…

Regarding Software, this is a table comparing the applications I use on Silverblue and the “equivalents” I use on Haiku:

Action	Silverblue	Haiku
Text Editor	Gedit, Vim	Koder, Vim
Code Project Editor	VSCodium, Builder	Koder, Vim
Interface Designer	Glade	QtCreator*
Hand painting	MyPaint	Krita&
Image Processing	Gimp	Krita&
3D Modeling	Blender	Blender**
Vector Graphics	Inkscape	Karbon??
Game Engine~	Godot	Godot**
Score writing	Musescore	Musescore+
Soundtrack and FX~	LMMS	LMMS+
Audio Recording and processing	Audacity	++
Icon design	Inkscape	Icon-O-Matic
Email	Thunderbird, Criptext, Tutanota	Mail&&
Web browsing	Firefox, Brave	WebPositive
CAD (not so much)	QCad	QCad
IRC	HexChat	Vision
Messaging	Telegram, Signal	Telegram
Screen recording	Peek, OBS Studio	BeScreenCapture
Office suite	LibreOffice	LibreOffice
Video editing	OpenShot	OpenShot
Cloud	Dropbox, pCloud	??
Virtual Machines	Boxes	AQEMU

(*) QtCreator does not make interfaces that abide the Haiku API, though it’s close enough at the moment
(&) Krita can finally use the Wacom (A6 size) tablet with pressure sensitivity. The Huion Giano 1409 (100€ compared to equivalent Wacom-490€) still not usable, even causing KDL at times.
(**) Blender, though it’s in HaikuDepot, it’s not usable in my box. Also Godot, though it’s there, not usable either (yet).
(??) Haven’t used Karbon that much yet, but I’m used to Inkscape and find the interface a bit weird.
(+) Musescore and LMMS work, but I get no audio out through displayport on the Radeon card, and can’t drive them with an usb Korg microKEY keyboard.
(++) Though there are recording programs in HaikuDepot, Haiku still does not support (AFAIK) audio through USB so can’t use any USB audio device, too bad all of them are USB (AKG microphone, ZOOM guitar/bass FX, Korg microKEY).
(&&) No way to use Criptext nor Tutanota’s apps. They are not available on Haiku and for Linux, they are AppImages.
(~) Actually, I’m using Godot and LMMS on Linux because I got to know them thanks to Haiku. They were in the HaikuDepot, so I checked if they were also available on Linux.

Recently started to use AQEMU to test OSes in virtual machines, let’s see how it goes.

For the mail part, if Mail would have HTML support that would be enough, as most emails I get are HTML based. Criptext and Tutanota… well… patience and research.

To be honest, I used VSCodium (mostly for Godot), more before than now. As no VSCodium on Haiku, I switched to Vim on Linux, thus using same software with similar setup on both OSes.

Also, I started to use QtCreator just recently. I found that the Haiku API Python bindings didn’t work with Python 3, and started to fail on Python 2, so in order to do some “rapid” ( ) development, I decided to use QtCreator and PyQt5 for interfaces, at least for now. Let’s see what comes out of this, and if in the “near” ( ) future I can use the native API.

Regarding hardware, there are many things I can’t do just yet:

• Hear anything through display loudspeakers (Display Port connection; already ticketed).
• Record anything with the USB AKG microphone or the USB FX processors (no audio USB support yet)
• Use the USB Korg microkey with Musescore nor LMMS
• Use the Huion digitizer (also ticketed)
• Use the Asus tablet as no option to rotate screen and no pen input (someone already asked for the rotation on dev.haiku-os.org, I have to prepare a setup to run some tests and report, instead of rotating my head to use the tablet)
• Not using the proper video driver (Radeon), using Framebuffer.
• Printing on the network printer (I need to carry some test before filing a bug though)
• Scanning on the network printer’s scanner (this is going to be hard, as even on linux has issues)
• Connecting to the SMB file server (I tried a couple of times using FuseSMB, never got it going, needs more research and testing)
• Network connection is a bit slow, about 17% of the speed available on Linux and Windows. Seems the RTL81xx network driver needs update (there are tickets on this too)

I also have a Canon Selphy wireless printer that doesn’t work properly on Linux, so I need to use Windows for that. I don’t expect it to work on Haiku, and never worried about it.

The hardest part of the switch is not being able to hear a thing and use the audio hardware and the digitizer at the moment. Maybe if Godot and Blender would be already available I would say something about “framebuffer” video, though, as of now, I have no complains yet.
I could do the recording on Linux or Win and mix on Haiku, though with no audio out it’s still a bit hard. So this I still do on Linux.

As most of the time I use the computer is to try to make some videogame, I can’t do that on Haiku yet, though hopefully will soon. I keep researching on the topic to evaluate the different options available, though I still lean towards Godot. And now that I found out that I can use Python with Godot…

If available, I try to use Haiku native software. Also, I try to use same software on both platforms to ease the switch, if they are available on both, though trying to use them “the Haiku way” on Haiku, if I know how to, of course.

Biggest issue is jumping from Linux to Haiku back and forth, jumping from GDScript to Python back and forth, mostly because time slots are limited and I tend to forget things if I don’t keep using them on a regular basis.

The switch is taking time, of course, as my pace is quite slow and there are a lot of things to learn on the way. We’ll get there though, hopefully.

Well, and with the Pinephone running Plasma Mobile, I can run same Qt apps on the phone as on Haiku… How 'bout that?

Thanks!
Regards,
RR

[lelldorin]

Thanks for your report, nice to see one try to use haiku as daily drive. I like your list of software with the equivalents for haiku, so other can take a look and try for himself if it is a solution for it too.

For me i need to compare with Windows.

Why you does not use the old good StyledEdit for Text edit? There are other browsers too, like quzilla. WebPositive are great under Beta 2 and do good steps forward.

[roiredxsoto]

Good day @lelldorin,

No need to thank.

Actually, on Windows I use the same software I use on Silverblue. The only differences being Text Editor (Notepad instead of Gedit/Koder/Vim), Virtualbox instead of Boxes/AQEMU, Acoustica Mixcraft instead of LMMS and I don’t use any GUI desginer as I don’t target Win for software, only for games.

I only use Windows for the following tasks:

• Scanning documents on the multifunction printer
• Printing photos on the Canon Selphy
• Testing game projects on Windows
• Skype/Teams videoconference if job demands it

So in my case, you could place Windows instead of the Silverblue column heading and would be almost the same.

I use Koder instead of StyledEdit because I got used to it when I started with the Godot’s GDScript language support for Koder.

Web browsing is sort of bittersweet on Haiku, no matter the browser, and I experienced issues with all, Qupzilla, OtterBrowser… Then again, on Silverblue and on Windows I use both Firefox and Brave as some sites are Google Chrome only, then I must use Brave, for the rest, Firefox.

Technically speaking, I could use Silverblue only for Godot, Blender, Audio and using the Huion, and Haiku for the rest; which is more or less where I am now. Then again, I still have a lot to learn in order to get the most out of Haiku, and hopefully will get there.

Everything I do on Haiku is publicly available on Gitlab, and the website, so others can use it, though for now is newbie stuff. It will get better, I presume

Regards,
RR

[esaintpierre]

@roiredxsoto

|Cloud|Dropbox, pCloud|??

One of the reasons I ruled out Haiku for everyday use was the lack of support for cloud storage like Dropbox or Onedrive (The other is that many, many essential web pages don’t work in Web+)

I think porting rclone is the best option.

[un_spacyar]

About Dropbox, you actually can use the “Dropbox-uploader” script from:

andreafabrizi/Dropbox-Uploader

Is not a “syncronization” tool per se. You had to upload or download your files as needed, but at least you can have access to your files.

[MrEntropy]

On GitHub, there’s a DropBox client that uses C++ and Python. It’s eight years old, though, so I don’t know how workable it is now.

If someone wants a project, maybe they can look at it and get it up to speed, if it needs it.

[mmu_man]

As a reminder I still have a PR open for the owncloud desktop client.

[rocket]

@roiredxsoto

Haiku still does not support (AFAIK) audio through USB so can’t use any USB audio device

this is the major thing keeping me away. the lack of audio and video input is a major showstopper. last i checked, it isn’t just usb but Any isochronous stream, whether over usb, firewire or ethernet.

[roiredxsoto]

Good day,

The other day on IRC @extrowerk invited me to “be like him”, so I thought, … tall, handsome, successful, smart, good developer, with hair on the head… mmmm… wtf, no can do!, but then he finished the sentence saying “use Haiku as the ONLY operating system”… Damn!!!, it was about that!

Well, jokes aside, that is the goal here, and in the first post of this topic I evaluated the “needs” to accomplish that jump. Having a triple boot is something that I’m not happy with, as I rather have a single OS booting, making things cleaner and tidier, and less prone to update mess. I partially solved this isolating each OS on its own drive with its own EFI partition.

Then again, checking back the things I can’t still do on Haiku makes it a tough decission to be made. With no audio IN/OUT makes it impossible to do any FX,soundtrak, mix… on Haiku for now. And not being able to use the Huion digitizer makes it impossible to do any drawing.

Nonetheless, there are two options I see to address this situation, the first one is just play safe and stay like this, that is, with the triple boot, doing all gamedev on Linux (might move on to BSD soon), and booting to Haiku for Haiku things. This, in my case presents a big issue, I end up forgetting Haiku things when I get back to Haiku, and I end up forgetting Gamedev things when I get back to Linux from Haiku. The second option is, jump to Haiku and do as much as I can there, and use Linux/Windows for the things I can’t do on Haiku, that is, printing, scanning, digitizer, Blender and audio. This second option is becoming more appealing once Godot, the game engine, starts to work on Haiku.

Hopefully, I will have vacation next month (it’s about time), thus I decided to finally do the jump. During confinement and work@home I tested running OS from 3.0 USB pendrive for work stuff (Silverblue) and it seemed to work fine, though I presume for Audio recording it wouldn’t be that easy. Then again, I won’t do any 50 voices simphony or whatever. This audio thing is something I’ll be testing before jumping to evaluate performance.

The idea is remove all drives and just leave Haiku drive and a Data drive. Keep Windows and Linux (or BSD) drives, each on its own 3.1 USB-c case to boot from USB when needed, though I see some issues with this approach:

1. Audio recording/mixing performance (needs testing).
2. Windows boot from USB (needs testing) it’s said that windows is picky about booting from USB.
3. What filesystem pick for the Data drive, Haiku uses BeFS, Windows NTFS, Linux ext4 (BSD ZFS); or just go BeFS, and have a NTFS partition for data sharing (initially) among the oses.
4. I have to learn how to use QEMU for Virtual Machines on Haiku.
5. No phone transfer support yet AFAIK. Haven’t tested the Pinephone with Haiku neither, and test how to write Images to the phone SD card to install different oses on the phone.

I need to re-test SMB because, that working fine on the LAN would ease the third issue.

No matter what, I’ll be doing plan B (the second option) next month unless something extremely bad happens that keeps me from making it happen. Some part I have already started, repurposing the old VAIO laptop, changed the HD to ssd, removed the faulty DVD and put the HD there, got a clean keyboard (not tested yet) as the original one shows some faulty keys, and Haiku as the only OS. Just need to clean the inside and paint it and get a battery as the original one is out. And test again VGA out. This is the first stage of the second option.

I’ll post the experiences with the change as it goes on for others to use and not make the same mistakes I will make.

Any hint on how to ease this process will be much appreciated!

Regards,
RR

Who said fear? As I always say, “Ignorance knows no fear”.

[zuzulo]

It’s not an easy task ! I’ll think about switching to Haiku in 1 or 2 years maybe.

[alpopa]

I use multiple OSes installed side by side on several computers with multiboot option. Curiously, I found this configuration to be less prone to update mess, because if one OS gets unbootable, I always can boot another and check what gets wrong (I always keep the bootloader out of control of either OS and eventually run a restore script if it becomes broken). Nevertheless, I can share some ideas from your list:

1. The habits for each OS are quite different, but if you frequently switch from one to another you get familiar with all them. It is like speaking different languages.
2. I use CIFS on NAS for data storage and it fulfills all my needs. For local storage I use exFAT for documents as all OSes officially support it. For some more serious data this may be not the best solution. Maybe NTFS is better for such a scenario.

[lelldorin]

Tutorials for our knowledge base are welcome

Http://www.besly.de

[roiredxsoto]

Good day,

All right, moving towards the FINAL SWITCH to Haiku, I’ve been performing some test last weekend, mostly run the Linux software I use from an USB pendrive. It’s an USB 3.0 pendrive connected to an USB 3.1 port. No UASP, no other fancy stuff. This test’s outcome seemed quite successful, as I was able to use the USB audio devices to record audio without issues, also using the digitizer and even Godot. And all with a nice degree of performance. Of course I didn’t record a multitrack simphony of 2.5 hours length, but for my actual requirements it seemed fine.

Besides that, I also performed some QEMU tests on Haiku, precisely using AQEMU:

and:

By the way, the VM were installed also on the USB pendrive. No issues to install MacOS 9.2, KDE complained that needed at least 8GB, so just used the live ISO.

These QEMU testing was performed the same way, running Haiku off an USB pendrive. An USB 3.0 pendrive plugged into the USB 3.1 port. Obviously, VM performance is slow now, but it could be usable for simple tasks which is the main purpose of running Linux inside QEMU after the switch, mainly for Firefox/Thunderbird?. MacOS 9.2 was tested just for the fun of it. I might need to tune up the Settings for KDE Neon in order to improve its responsiveness, I think (RTFM!!!).

I certainly need to RTFM of QEMU, AQEMU. It does not seem so straightforward as with Virtualbox/VMware to set up the VM and VM’s screen resolution. As well as performance settings. I will be running these VM from an internal SATA SSD, so I presume there will be some performance improvements there, though might not be a big bump…

The biggest issue with QEMU is network access, as I haven’t figured out yet how to activate it, and it seems that I couldn’t get it working because the QEMU version running on Haiku does not allow network? Is that correct? I might need to dig deeper into QEMU docs though.

Nonetheless, the only thing left for testing is running Windows from a external drive. If can get that test done successfuly then we are good to go.

We are getting closer!
Regards,
RR

[Diver]

@roiredxsoto

The biggest issue with QEMU is network access, as I haven’t figured out yet how to activate it, and it seems that I couldn’t get it working because the QEMU version running on Haiku does not allow network?

IIRC network in qemu guests under Haiku host only work using http proxy.

[mazbrili]

can you share how to use AQemu… i trying yesterday but not success yet.

[fkap]

I would be interested too

[extrowerk]

https://anyon3.github.io/aqemu.html
Or
http://bsdwiki.reedmedia.net/wiki/using_aqemu_for_virtualization.html
Or
https://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/AQEMU/
Or anything you can find with your favorite browser.

Note: some qemu features are unavailable on Haiku.

[lelldorin]

@extrowerk

Note: some qemu features are unavailable on Haiku

This is the point there we need haiku specific tutorials

[extrowerk]

@lelldorin

This is the point there we need haiku specific tutorials

I hope you guys can create some detailed guides for besly.

[lelldorin]

@extrowerk

I hope you guys can create some detailed guides for besly.

If i get qemu running. I wish to run beos in haiku to play call to power or corum 3