This topic seems unrelated to PowerPC, but to some abstract PC designed or best suited for Haiku.
Also topic is 10 years old.
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Unrelated to topic.
I understood! For hardware made for Haiku, it would be Arm, Risc-V or PPC, since PPC is easier to find old hardware for testing, there are also several current projects!
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No. Even with lack of some drivers, x86 / x86_64 still is the better option nowadays for running Haiku.
The OP clearly asked for a normal computer , that he could get/recommend for his friends. Arm, Risc-v and ppc support is still incomplete / not common. PPC hardware is not easy nor cheap to find.
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Check Feedback/Hardware forum:
Dev computers range from laptops, mini PCs, and high-end workstations.
Check the BeSly hardware database for known working systems and components.
Examples:
- Mini PC:
- HIPER Ultion B365
- Lenovo M710q (10MQ-S02B00)
- Laptops:
- Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 9) - (14" Intel)
- Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano (13" Intel)
- Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 3 (13” AMD)
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Great concept. It reminds me of where Apple was heading before it became a surveillance-op. Way back in 1985, Apple designer Hartmut Esslinger presented this modular computer design to Steve Jobs:
“The idea was to design a simple hardware “backbone” carrying basic operations and I/O on which the user could add a series of modules, carrying hardware for running Apple II, Mac, UNIX and DOS software, plus other modules with disk drives or networking capabilities.”
Thank you to the community here for all the other responses. I will investigate those suggestions.
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This model has been very stable and my current Haiku installation has become my daily driver.
I’m am slowly testing through the many different software apps from HaikuDepot that are important for me to use or what I like to use in other platforms (to compare performance and use) as I slowly move activities from my other daily drivers to Haiku. Though there some activities I cannot do yet in Haiku–but eventually these will get resolved (like DVDRip issues).
Is Haiku perfect–no! But it has come a very long way and will be soon enough to be R1!! I cannot wait for that day…we have great developers!!
So if you are looking for some of these PCs–they are plenty on the e-markets in barebone to affordable configs. Love it–with Haiku installed, it is very zippy!!
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As a developer, I currently run a Fujitsu Lifebook U7311. However I would not recommend it. The touchpad, trackpoint and sound are not working, nor are the external video outputs (unless I use failsafe graphics and start the laptop with the lid closed). So that may not be the right question.
As for the “dream machine”, the goal of Haiku is to cover all typical usages of desktop/laptop computers, and each of us have different needs. I like 13" or so laptops, for me this is a great compromise, allowing me a decent screen size and still easily fitting in my backpack when I go on a train trip accross Europe. Other people will want a big, fast desktop machine.
One thing you can check is the BeSLY hardware database, that will give you a good idea of supported and not supported machines: Haiku Hardware Database
General hints for current usage:
- You don’t need a graphics card. We don’t have any 3D acceleration, so the built-in video outputs on the motherboard/chipset will work just fine
- Any CPU, RAM and disk will do. Use an SSD rather than a spinning hard disk, since you probably don’t need 16TB of storage
- The trickiest thing at the moment is probably audio, but it is quite hard to know what works and what doesn’t without testing.
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I do apologise for hijacking the topic, what resolution do you get from the external port?
Can you see the boot menu? Do you use a docking station?
Maybe we’d rather spin a new thread off of it…
Yes, the boot menu works fine. This behaves the same with and without the docking station, if the laptop lid is closed, it switched to external display, but to preserve this after booting I have to use failsafe graphics, otherwise the Intel driver will try to switch back to the internal display (and fail).
My current plan is to get the EFI driver to support multiple diplays but I am not sure yet if that hardware supports it. See this ticket with the discussion about this approach: #18440 (Support multiple displays in EFI framebuffer driver) – Haiku
Pretty pleased with current HP Laptop 17-cp1010nb 
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Brilliant, thank you!
I’m looking for a new laptop that would replace both my Dell Optiplex and the MacBook Air 10” (both Haiku only), the latter used when I travel.
Could anyone confirm this works also for Thinkpads, specifically T470s and T480s?
Possibly something like a Raspberry Pi 400, with an M2 SSD built in.
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Can confirm in works on X220, X230, T430, T430s, T431, T460s, X1 Carbon.
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Thanks just to clarify that I asked about using the external monitor.
Do these thinkpads work like @PulkoMandy just explained?
On the X220 at least (that was my previous machine), you can do this:
- Install BootManager
- While the BootManager menu is displayed, you can switch to external display using the shortcut key
- Then, using failsafe graphics, you can boot while remaining on that external display
There is no clone mode, and no way to switch displays once the system is booted
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I’m still liking the Atari VCS as a Haiku computer. It’s small, looks neat, and doubles as a game console.
The downsides are:
- No audio (it only has audio over HDMI)
- No Wi-Fi drivers (but Ethernet works fine)
- Not available officially outside the US
Just got a refurbished Thinkpad T480s with Core i7 8th gen 8 cores, 24GB RAM and 256GB NVME disk.
The external HDMI works like a charm, just turn the laptop on with the external monitor connected and close the lid and voilà!
@octoplex if there is a machine I recommend it’s just a Thinkpad with similar specs
Actually if you think about it, this is a perfect opportunity for an hardware enthusiast to design a HaikuBox using RISC-V for instance. All designed from ground up, using compatible hardware. Like the newly spawned new 8 bit projects.