Why?

1

I have to ask this question…

Why Haiku?

I have been using computers since i was 7 years old, and I have been using Windows since win- 3.11 - I hate it, but see it as a practicality.

Now, i have to say this, I am sick of windows, I’m using (what i consider) to be the best version (XP), i saw what Vista had to offer, and didn’t want it. XP is getting old now, and MS is likely to withdraw it’s support. If Windows 7 proves to be as much of a disappointment as Vista has, then i may well be looking for an OS other than Windows.

What i need clarification on is why i should choose Haiku over the other available operating systems. It’s small user base, and smaller development base worry me, but i was intrigued by the original Be project.

I would love to see a return of the 80s when Microsoft was not the only choice, i loved RISCOS, i thought it was brilliantly put together. Amiga were years ahead of MS as well. Even going back as far as the BBC micro, come on being able to do robotics from the command line ?!

So what does Haiku have to offer?

2

Windows 7 = Updated (U) Vista, Windows XP = U Windows 2000, Windows 98SE = U Windows 98

This is how Microsoft makes money - fixes the previous version with improvements, some extra functions and features, bug fixes and then rebadges it.

If you have hard drive space, then the best solution is a multi OS system - the hardest part is deciding on partition sizes for each OS and understanding how Linux names drives ( hda, hdb or sda, sdb ) or partitons ( hda1, hda2, hda3 or sda1, sda2, ). I have Windows XP, Linux, BeOS & Haiku installed on my computer. You really don’t have to stick with one OS. ( I use Fedora LiveCD, 700MB, with Gparted to create, delete and resize partitions but make sure you backup important data first - it’ll handle fat32 & ntfs too. You can create 4 primary partitions or with extended partitions 5+ ). I suggest you do, Windows XP + Haiku + Linux - in that partition order.

You should run Windows XP (and)/or Linux as your primary OS(es) and Haiku as secondary OS until you get to know it better. With R1 ( or BETA ) release expect to see more developers and programs but could be awhile before these milestones are actually reached.

HAIKU
PROs - VERY responsive, fast and smooth feel to it ( BeOS was designed for performance & simplicity ), real low system and memory requirements, very easy to configure, easy, fun and enjoyable to use, has POSIX ( allows easier porting over of Unix programs ), works with existing BeOS programs, Opensource & Free ( like Linux & BSD )

CONs - few developers = slow progress & longer R1 release date, other major OSes ( Windows, Linux/BSD, MacOSX ) are further ahead with lots more programs to run and larger userbase support, no Wine ( Windows emulation ), no WiFi,

Test out Senryu ( Haiku distro ) VmWare image to get a feel for Haiku with installed applications:
http://www.haikuware.com/view-details/development/app-installation/senryu-personal-edition-vmware-image-weekly

3

Haiku is open-source and free, and not driven by commercial pressures (ever increasing system requirements for windows helps out hardware vendors, for instance).

If you care about the politics of all that Linux is the perfect system for you. It also has a much more mature set of applications available.

What sets Haiku apart is the single-project mentality. There is a global look and feel for the OS and all its applications. It (and they) are designed to be intuitive and responsive without bring overly complicated. In a sense Haiku is more like the commercial offerings as there will be a single release “R1” which can be assumed as a stable platform for developers. Linux and any distributions mix-and-match various versions of all the different components and then attempt to tack on a consistent experience as an after-thought. That is never going to work IMHO.

Why Haiku makes more sense for ordinary users (not practically right now, but from a philosophical viewpoint) than Linux is clear to me. Why use it over Windows if you don’t care about the politics? It harks back to a simpler time in computing, cutting away much of the bloat that has infected systems and applications for the past decades. I expect people to find that this actually leads to a much more pleasant experience. Compared to Vista you should also be able to see how fast your computer really is, I struggle to understand how MS have managed to make a Quad-core 2.5 Ghz computer feel sluggish, but somehow they’ve managed it!

For now Haiku is still a bit of a dream. Most of the core system is there and working surprisingly well, but there are no killer apps to speak of, and many important apps missing. How well the first applications built for the platform follow the philosophy may well determine the future success of Haiku. I sincerely hope Haiku will not just be yet another OS to run a load of Linux ports on, in that case I would simply switch to Linux. For the whole project to work we need application developers to sign on to the same goals as those of the project - consistency, responsiveness and simplicity.

4

What good reason for Haiku even at this time? I’d say OpenBFS. It offers plenty of useful flexibility.

5

Hmm… Now that did get me thinking. As i mentioned, i was a fan of other systems to windows, before MS blew them all out of the water. Speed is certainly a concern. Im writing this on a 2ghz laptop, with 1gb ddr2 RAM, and it feels sluggish, and that’s with windows XP, god knows what the next generation would do to it. Now that i think about it I do have an 1800 machine sat in a cupboard, that could easily be used as a guinea pig.

I have to agree that windows 7 will probably be a tweaked version of vista, in the same way as you say XP is a tweaked version of 2000. This is all entirely true, and i don’t want to give money to MR. Gates or MR. Jobbs, as i don’t believe either are ethical businessmen.

6

I certainly care about the politics. I would go so far as to say i hate MS. I’m pleased Linux took off in the way it did, it’s not for me, but it does mean that there’s another choice out there. It’s like someone forcing me to wear blue, i might want to wear blue, but i’m dammed if anyone is going to tell me to. Or gay rights, i may not be gay, but i’ll defend my gay friend’s rights to the hilt.

I do however, desire another option. And ill certainly agree on the bloatware point.

I honestly believe that MS’s days are numbered, every day people switch from the OS.

Who knows, this may even revive my programming (haven’t done any in years), i used to know about 7-8 languages, and i doubt I could even do a “hello world” program i n some of them now.

7

well in my opinion mac os x is a decent alternative… the kernel is actually open… aka the darwin kernel (not darwin is not based on mach anymore…) and the updates the release actually make the product better unlike windows that just gets slower and less secure

while i don’t use mac os x and prbably never will i have used it at school and it has a nice unix command line underneath and seems very user friendly except for the wierd filesystem which is probably a good thing for noobs…

8

Mac OS is a very decent OS, i will grant, i know it has great possibilities, but i find it is very cost prohibitive. My primary system, a Dell Latitude Notebook that i bought as a refurb comes with:

2Ghz Pentium M
1Gb RAM
40 Gb HDD (will upgrade this when i have the money - it’s way too small.)
And all the Mod Cons: Wi-fi, Bluetooth IRDA, 4 USB ports…
All for 200 quid (About $400)

Well, i just did a quick web trawl, and the best i can come up with is a Powerbook, with:

1.33Ghz G4
256MB RAM
40 GB HDD

It doesn’t appear to have wi-fi or bluetooth or anything

And that cost 500 quid ($1,000) (BTW I’m using an american keyboard, hence no pound signs.)

I like the ideas, but i find it’s a little too simple and a lot too expensive on a barman’s salary.

NB I have to note that whilst i am good at finding PCs and Parts, I have never searched for Mac Refurbs, the results come from forevermac.com. And you may also wish to take into account that electricals are far more expensive in the UK than they are in the US.

9

We are a pretty nice crowd to hang with IMO :slight_smile: I love the mentality, the creativity and attention to details people involved with Haiku shows.

Also we want to create an OS (and apps) that ‘just works’ which seems to be your biggest concern as well.

10

This is just my opinion, but I’ll list the reasons why I stick around watching Haiku. I may be way off base on some of these, but this is just my understanding of how some of these things work.

  1. More diversity is good! - The more OS out there, the more options we all have. The more the OS playing field is split up, the more likely we are to begin to see standards and development efforts working to make software OS agnostic.

  2. It looks cool. - BeOS and now Haiku may, in today’s market, look a little antiquated, but so did Mac until the last couple of years. But by the same token, the interface is and always has been pretty much very intuitive to me. It has always looked to me like ‘We’ll keep the computer out of the way, so you can get on with your work’.

  3. BFS - Haiku by recreating BeOS is offering the technologies which no other OS has come close to implementing to the same level. BZF’s attributes and the ability to define new ones as needed trumps all other attribute implementations. Again, with BFS, the query abilities of the OS surpass Mac OS X ‘Spotlight’, and Vista’s constantly scanning indexing search. Continuing with BFS; while not quite on par with ZFS for file size (and no where near it for disaster recovery), it was designed for massive files, and file system - gracefully.

  4. Multi-Proc support. - As I understand things, each Core on a Multi-Core processor is in effect it’s own processor. BeOS and now Haiku were designed to thive and leverage Multi-Proc systems long before they were common. I believe that the OS removes the majority of the headache of SMP programming for the developer by focusing on using the resources natively.

  5. Powerful. - Haiku doesn’t use a lot of your system resources. Chances are you can dig out that old PII laptop holding up the leg on your coffee table, and if it still works, it can run this OS as fast as you can work.

Now personally, I have made the switch to mostly running Mac OS X at home/laptop. I use Solaris 10 for most of my work at the office, although I do have to deal with Windows still. On my Macs, I run a bunch of virtual machines, and check on the status of Haiku fairly often. Between 1998 and 2000, I was pretty much a BeOS only guy. It did everything I needed and wanted to do for home use. Haiku isn’t there yet, but I believe it will be soon, and that will be a day for celebration.

11

For me the reasons I support Haiku and have been a developer for it is the following:

  1. Responsiveness. A pet peeve of mine is having my computer get sluggish or feel locked up. It makes me want to punch the monitor. I regularly get this with Mac OS X, Linux and Windows XP (though ironically Windows tends to be the best of the bunch and the easiest to find the problem application.) There are times when my Linux machine just starts doing something in the background that greatly degrades the UI and I really, really, really hate that. Haiku is designed with the same philosophy as BeOS, which places responsiveness as one of the most important aspects of the system.

  2. Consistency. Haiku is one project with consistent applications that are all part of a cohesive whole. The UI is consistent among the core applications, the code uses a consistent style, and a developer does not need to make big decisions about what API to use when writing applications. This is in great contrast to Linux in particular, but even Windows and Mac have their own consistency issues in both UI, code and API. As a developer for Linux you need to decide between KDE/Qt/C++ or GNOME/GTK/C, both of which are quite different. The same applies as a user. Even though it is possible to mix and match applications from KDE and GNOME, they will still not have a common theme or UI style. Then there are the different package managers used in the different distributions and infinite other variations.

  3. Understandability. Both as a user and developer is it possible to get a significant understanding of Haiku, and therefore become a much more effective user or developer (or both.) I think this is a legacy of BeOS and also is possible because of the consistency described above. In contrast Linux is an incomprehensible miasma of infinite APIs and applications and sub-projects that sometimes seem like they were designed completely without consideration for the system they would be used in. Windows and Mac have similar issues. I think understandability is important because when problems happen (and they will on any system, even Haiku), it is much easier to figure out the solution if you understand the system. Windows and Mac are complete black boxes because most of the code is closed source, but even Linux is problematic because there is SO MUCH code from SO MANY different projects, and there is very little consistency between distributions.

  4. Lightweight. The nature of BeOS and Haiku is of a lightweight system that runs very well even on older machines that could barely run other modern operating systems. I don’t think I am alone in being disgusted by how bloated modern software is. As others have said, it is ridiculous how much power Vista needs just to boot up and run a web browser. This is very wasteful of the world’s resources and hurtful to the environment to make what should be very capable machines into garbage. It saddens me that people can call a 2.4 GHz single core machine “slow” when it can do billions of operations per second. And while Windows deserves plenty of ire for this situation, Mac OS X and Linux also deserve some blame. Both have become bloated in their own way.