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Haiku developer here. I used to run Linux on the desktop pretty extensively, but eventually got fed up with how often something broke and I had to fix it (ALSA

Haiku developer here. I used to run Linux on the desktop pretty extensively, but eventually got fed up with how often something broke and I had to fix it (ALSA doesn't play audio anymore, or suddenly MP4 files stutter -- or most recently, on the last remaining Kubuntu install, I can't even log in to my user account after the upgrade, it just hangs.) So, perhaps the system is "better architected" by some standard, but having those weird inter-dependencies tends to mean everything runs smoother. Depends on what your definition of "good" is, I guess.

badsectoracula 8y ago
Well, last time i tried Haiku i tried to write a simple program and at some point when i pressed save in the editor the entire OS crashed, so there is that :-P. ALSA not playing either means that there are driver issues - and i highly doubt Haiku solves the problem of drivers having bugs - or there is some configuration issue. But this (configuration) issue and the desktop focus do not seem to require getting rid of the entire kernel and - most importantly - the systems it supports. If X11 doesn't do (which i doubt, X11 ran on way more restricted hardware than what is available even on $5 "computers" today, but lets roll with it) you could simply write a new window system from scratch and provide a layer for everything you may think a desktop system needs so that any application written on that layer will keep working if the backend library/tech changes. And from my understanding of Haiku, this is basically what happens already (<Stuff>Kit depends on some popular open source library for <Stuff> that is already available on Linux but exposed to applications through the <Stuff>Kit API), except with a kernel that doesn't support most things that people need today. Personally i like the idea of Haiku as a desktop focused system, i just do not see what exactly having a custom kernel with its own need for drivers and hardware compatibility provide that a layer on top of kernel that exposes a similar API doesn't (beyond of course the hack value and the fun of making a kernel - something i am 100% totally behind as i personally write a lot of stuff just for the fun of it).
- waddlesplash 8y ago
  > when i pressed save in the editor the entire OS crashed, so there is that Well, when was this? Probably a few years ago? We've really improved since then. > or there is some configuration issue In the case I alluded to here it was a configuration issue. I eventually solved it, but it took me about 4-5 hours of Googling and reading settings files. Really not something an end-user should have to think about. > on way more restricted hardware than what is available even on $5 "computers" today, but lets roll with it Great. Show me a Linux distribution right now that can do that, while also having the default installed web browser play YouTube. Is it "possible"? I don't know, but nobody seems to be doing it. > except with a kernel that doesn't support most things that people need today. [[Citation needed]]
  - badsectoracula 8y ago
    > Well, when was this? Probably a few years ago? We've really improved since then. Yes it was a couple of years ago. > In the case I alluded to here it was a configuration issue. I eventually solved it, but it took me about 4-5 hours of Googling and reading settings files. Really not something an end-user should have to think about. Indeed, but if your project controls everything above the kernel to the desktop environment (what Haiku already does, minus the kernel itself) you can handle the configuration too. The idea is that a program will talk to your desktop API which will talk to the kernel - the configuration is up to you to handle pretty much the same way as Haiku already does. > Great. Show me a Linux distribution right now that can do that, while also having the default installed web browser play YouTube. Is it "possible"? I don't know, but nobody seems to be doing it. I think you totally misunderstood the part you quoted. I was referring to X11, the earlier implementations of which was running on hardware like IBM 6152 with a 5.9MHz CPU and 1MB of RAM. A $5 Raspberry Pi Zero is a sci-fi level supercomputer compared to that. > [[Citation needed]] There is no point going antagonistic over this, the Haiku site has all the information you need: https://www.haiku-os.org/node/4390/ https://www.haiku-os.org/node/4390/ Also last time i checked there wasn't even accelerated OpenGL. I mean, really consider the issues people have on a popular OS like Linux to get hardware working properly - Haiku is in a much worse position here.
    - 8y ago
michaelmrose 8y ago
Kubuntu is perhaps not the finest example as it has not been what I would call stable or optimal. I honestly think your analysis is in error. It has forever been the wort kde distro you could pick. You could get a more stable experience by picking a distro by throwing darts at printout of distrowatch. A number of things have been historically sub optimal on the linux desktop but while the way linux is designed as a bunch of loosely coupled projects DOES seem to be the cause of it being able to be a lot of different things to a lot of different people example different window managers, compositors, file systems its not equally clear that the defects present exist for the same reason. It seems likely that haiku expanded to thousands of different types of computers could easily be worse or better than linux in practice insofar as buggy behavior while still definitely being objectively worse insofar as not being modular.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  Another part of the problem with the Linux desktop is that if you have problems with it someone blames your choice of distro and sends you to one of the other 250 so you can encounter whole new problems and have a whole new community dismiss you until someone else blames your choice of distro.
  - michaelmrose 8y ago
    The way you write this makes it seem like its 6 of one half a dozen of another. While everyone has a different favorite team some really do play objectively better than others. There are probably over a hundred distros but most users are using some variation of 4 and those who want to use their computer not play with their computer ought to look into using a stable branch of whichever distro suits them.
- waddlesplash 8y ago
  > You could get a more stable experience by picking a distro by throwing darts at printout of distrowatch. Great. How was I supposed to know that just under a decade ago when I first installed that? And I'm a programmer; how is any end-user supposed to know that? Ubuntu is one of the Linux distributions that has a lot of name recognition outside the Linux desktop community; you would assume anything based on it would also be fine. So while I know that now, it doesn't change the fact that the Linux desktop has a messaging problem. Is it fixable? I have no idea. But it's not now; so come back when it is. > bunch of loosely coupled projects DOES seem to be the cause of it being able to be a lot of different things to a lot of different people example different window managers, compositors And that's my problem with it. It's too configurable. If that's what you want, then use Linux. But if you want to do real work? Then people use Windows, or macOS, and maybe in the future, hopefully Haiku. > than linux in practice insofar as buggy behavior We already support "thousands of different types of computers". Not sure what you're going after here. > while still definitely being objectively worse insofar as not being modular. Our kernel is actually more modular than the Linux kernel is; and in theory you could swap out other components too. But that's beside the point. Why is modularity some great ideal that everything should strive towards? It may be great in theory, but is it so in practice?

badsectoracula 8y ago

Well, last time i tried Haiku i tried to write a simple program and at some point when i pressed save in the editor the entire OS crashed, so there is that :-P. ALSA not playing either means that there are driver issues - and i highly doubt Haiku solves the problem of drivers having bugs - or there is some configuration issue. But this (configuration) issue and the desktop focus do not seem to require getting rid of the entire kernel and - most importantly - the systems it supports. If X11 doesn't do (which i doubt, X11 ran on way more restricted hardware than what is available even on $5 "computers" today, but lets roll with it) you could simply write a new window system from scratch and provide a layer for everything you may think a desktop system needs so that any application written on that layer will keep working if the backend library/tech changes. And from my understanding of Haiku, this is basically what happens already (<Stuff>Kit depends on some popular open source library for <Stuff> that is already available on Linux but exposed to applications through the <Stuff>Kit API), except with a kernel that doesn't support most things that people need today. Personally i like the idea of Haiku as a desktop focused system, i just do not see what exactly having a custom kernel with its own need for drivers and hardware compatibility provide that a layer on top of kernel that exposes a similar API doesn't (beyond of course the hack value and the fun of making a kernel - something i am 100% totally behind as i personally write a lot of stuff just for the fun of it).

waddlesplash 8y ago
> when i pressed save in the editor the entire OS crashed, so there is that Well, when was this? Probably a few years ago? We've really improved since then. > or there is some configuration issue In the case I alluded to here it was a configuration issue. I eventually solved it, but it took me about 4-5 hours of Googling and reading settings files. Really not something an end-user should have to think about. > on way more restricted hardware than what is available even on $5 "computers" today, but lets roll with it Great. Show me a Linux distribution right now that can do that, while also having the default installed web browser play YouTube. Is it "possible"? I don't know, but nobody seems to be doing it. > except with a kernel that doesn't support most things that people need today. [[Citation needed]]
- badsectoracula 8y ago
  > Well, when was this? Probably a few years ago? We've really improved since then. Yes it was a couple of years ago. > In the case I alluded to here it was a configuration issue. I eventually solved it, but it took me about 4-5 hours of Googling and reading settings files. Really not something an end-user should have to think about. Indeed, but if your project controls everything above the kernel to the desktop environment (what Haiku already does, minus the kernel itself) you can handle the configuration too. The idea is that a program will talk to your desktop API which will talk to the kernel - the configuration is up to you to handle pretty much the same way as Haiku already does. > Great. Show me a Linux distribution right now that can do that, while also having the default installed web browser play YouTube. Is it "possible"? I don't know, but nobody seems to be doing it. I think you totally misunderstood the part you quoted. I was referring to X11, the earlier implementations of which was running on hardware like IBM 6152 with a 5.9MHz CPU and 1MB of RAM. A $5 Raspberry Pi Zero is a sci-fi level supercomputer compared to that. > [[Citation needed]] There is no point going antagonistic over this, the Haiku site has all the information you need: https://www.haiku-os.org/node/4390/ https://www.haiku-os.org/node/4390/ Also last time i checked there wasn't even accelerated OpenGL. I mean, really consider the issues people have on a popular OS like Linux to get hardware working properly - Haiku is in a much worse position here.
  - 8y ago

michaelmrose 8y ago

Kubuntu is perhaps not the finest example as it has not been what I would call stable or optimal. I honestly think your analysis is in error. It has forever been the wort kde distro you could pick. You could get a more stable experience by picking a distro by throwing darts at printout of distrowatch. A number of things have been historically sub optimal on the linux desktop but while the way linux is designed as a bunch of loosely coupled projects DOES seem to be the cause of it being able to be a lot of different things to a lot of different people example different window managers, compositors, file systems its not equally clear that the defects present exist for the same reason. It seems likely that haiku expanded to thousands of different types of computers could easily be worse or better than linux in practice insofar as buggy behavior while still definitely being objectively worse insofar as not being modular.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
Another part of the problem with the Linux desktop is that if you have problems with it someone blames your choice of distro and sends you to one of the other 250 so you can encounter whole new problems and have a whole new community dismiss you until someone else blames your choice of distro.
- michaelmrose 8y ago
  The way you write this makes it seem like its 6 of one half a dozen of another. While everyone has a different favorite team some really do play objectively better than others. There are probably over a hundred distros but most users are using some variation of 4 and those who want to use their computer not play with their computer ought to look into using a stable branch of whichever distro suits them.
waddlesplash 8y ago
> You could get a more stable experience by picking a distro by throwing darts at printout of distrowatch. Great. How was I supposed to know that just under a decade ago when I first installed that? And I'm a programmer; how is any end-user supposed to know that? Ubuntu is one of the Linux distributions that has a lot of name recognition outside the Linux desktop community; you would assume anything based on it would also be fine. So while I know that now, it doesn't change the fact that the Linux desktop has a messaging problem. Is it fixable? I have no idea. But it's not now; so come back when it is. > bunch of loosely coupled projects DOES seem to be the cause of it being able to be a lot of different things to a lot of different people example different window managers, compositors And that's my problem with it. It's too configurable. If that's what you want, then use Linux. But if you want to do real work? Then people use Windows, or macOS, and maybe in the future, hopefully Haiku. > than linux in practice insofar as buggy behavior We already support "thousands of different types of computers". Not sure what you're going after here. > while still definitely being objectively worse insofar as not being modular. Our kernel is actually more modular than the Linux kernel is; and in theory you could swap out other components too. But that's beside the point. Why is modularity some great ideal that everything should strive towards? It may be great in theory, but is it so in practice?