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Several things 1. I'm an OS junkie. I love installing, fiddling and learning new OSes. I installed BeOS and used it for about 2 years (no joke) back in the day

Several things 1. I'm an OS junkie. I love installing, fiddling and learning new OSes. I installed BeOS and used it for about 2 years (no joke) back in the day. LOVED IT. I even had it replace my Slackware instance for about 6 months as my primary system. 2. I love seeing OSes still actively developed even if they aren't popular. I think it keeps driving ingenuity and pushes other people. But, I don't get why we have to have rewritten older systems...lets try to advance OSes. 3. The interface has to go. It was clunky back then and now it is downright horrendous compared to nearly any interface we have. Gnome might feel like 2004, but this feels like 1997. 4. The biggest problem with BeOS back in the day was lack of applications. I don't see this being fixed with Haiku unless they have translation layer. EDIT - One thing I forgot to mention about BeOS back in the day. It booted in about 15 seconds. It was amazing. Right now the fastest I've seen is an Ubuntu box getting from start to internet in about 7 seconds w/ a SSD etc but for 1999/2000, it was amazing. Astonishing, really. I would also add in this edit that I think the state of UI on current OSes is a bit disappointing. I think Ubuntu is trying w/ Unity and even that has a ways to go before I see any real innovation in interfaces. It feels like we've got a modality that worked 15 years ago and we've sort of massaged it, but haven't really innovated or pivoted on the concept too well.

slantyyz 16y ago
I remember being able to play 4 qvga sized movies simultaneously on a Pentium (the first one) running BeOS with no hiccups. Impressive in those days. Honestly, after all these years, I had major doubts that Haiku would ever be released. Glad to be wrong.
- spooneybarger 16y ago
  I have first gen ( dual 66 ppc ) and second gen ( dual 133 ppc ) beboxes. i ran far more than 4 movies with no hiccups. so much more. the media performance on the BeOS back in the 90s w/ a tiny amount of RAM still blows away any OS I have used. Ever GUI OS I have used before that or since then has seemed like a bloated slow old pig in comparson.
erikpukinskis 16y ago
4. The biggest problem with BeOS back in the day was lack of applications. I don't see this being fixed with Haiku unless they have translation layer. I don't know... it seems like most of the benefit of Haiku is in the unique APIs. What's the point of using it if you're just using apps from other platforms? Would you have said the same thing about iOS? That iPhone should've had a translation layer so it can run Windows Mobile apps, because the app store was empty? At some point, if you're trying to build an innovative platform, you just have to grit your teeth and do what you can to attract native apps.
- fingerprinter 16y ago
  Sure, I agree with that statement in principle. Though I don't see Haiku capturing a market the size of even WebOS or something like that, it just doesn't seem that there is enough space for it. The only reason I mentioned translation layer was to get people using it...but it they plan to write some awesome apps for it, all the better. It really is a catch-22. Look at Ubuntu and Wayland. Getting to Wayland means having to write quite a few apps that are there on X11 stack, but if you just use a pass through or translation layer, what incentive is there to write more apps? So, yeah...you are right, sometimes you just have take it for a bit with few apps if you think you have the audience. Clearly Ubuntu has the audience. Does Haiku?
  - slantyyz 16y ago
    Not sure Haiku will ever be more than a hobby. My appreciation for it is that it has been a long, long, long labor of love for its developers. I can't help but to admire the dedication of everyone who made it happen. I don't think that widespread adoption was anything they had in mind.
    - 1337p337 16y ago
      Widespread adoption doesn't seem to be a goal, but really as long as the POSIX APIs are supported in a reasonable manner (...or you are Windows), it doesn't matter much. It's nice to use, and it gets to take advantage of portable open-source software which gives it a larger community of developers than (say) Plan 9 and Amiga enjoy, so market percentage doesn't matter much. (Edit: changed "it" to "widespread adoption".)
spooneybarger 16y ago
What part of the GUI do you find clunky? I've always like the BeOS interface... then again I also really liked CDE. There are plenty of things I would want to change about the Be interface that Haiku implements but, I think that would be iterative not replacement.
1337p337 16y ago
Having loved BeOS when the free demo version 5 came out (I was very late to the game), and also being an OS junkie, I was eager to try out Haiku. The interface certainly looks 1997, but it feels reasonably smooth. It is lightweight and fast, just that one has to click a lot. So, it feels 1997, when GUIs were a ittle more responsive. (I do really wish the WM would do some more things for me, like SloppyFocus) ...and don't ask about the file manager. As far as boot speed goes, on my laptop it's a couple of seconds. I'd use it more if not for the below-mentioned issues. (Booting from a disk; the live CD is as slow as you might expect.) The software support is not bad at all. There's a nice browser (webkit-based), bash, and I didn't have trouble getting a couple of mainstream interpreters running. I believe they're using a slightly older gcc, but I had no trouble getting a couple of my personal projects to build (rsync'd from somewhere or copied from my /home, since Haiku can mount ext3), or a few other programs that I wanted. If something is POSIXy, it'll probably run. Ruby and Python worked for me, as well as a small language I'd put together. The only thing that keeps me from running it as the main OS for my laptop is drivers. The wireless support is still in development, and the version I have doesn't know when I've plugged in my headphones; my laptop is mostly used to play music, ssh to a larger computer, and browse the web. So, without headphones, I would definitely disturb coworkers, and need an ethernet cable to use besides. Still I recommend trying it out. It's still under development, but it's solid and fast already. (Just need the danged sound/wifi drivers to work...)
yason 16y ago
It's fun that people are so different. I would give a lot if I could have BeOS Tracker, Deskbar and GUI fitted into, for example, a Linux system instead of Gnome. BeOS GUI was minimal, slick, and one of the rare GUIs that you can actually use for system maintenance. That's a tipping point for me: Linux desktops GUIs are there because a desktop computer apparently has to have a desktop GUI. In BeOS, it was there so that you could operate your system. Using a shell on Linux is the equivalent of the "Start" button; using a shell on BeOS always felt like a hack: you didn't need it for system control.
viraptor 16y ago
> 4. The biggest problem with BeOS back in the day was lack of applications. I don't see this being fixed with Haiku unless they have translation layer. Keep in mind that beos is basically posix-friendly. You can already compile a lot of applications which work on linux. Firefox needed some changes for example, but works now. Applications like vim compile without any changes at all - just get gcc, make, make install.
ido 16y ago
3. The interface has to go. It was clunky back then and now it is downright horrendous compared to nearly any interface we have. Gnome might feel like 2004, but this feels like 1997. I use windows 7 at work and os x 10.6 at home (as well as ubuntu 10.10 in VirtualBox) and I can't see what feels like 2004 about gnome, or what feels like 1997 about this one. In fact I can't off the top of my head really think of any major UI improvement between windows xp (2001) & 7 beside the clever resizing/positioning of windows & the new task bar.

slantyyz 16y ago

I remember being able to play 4 qvga sized movies simultaneously on a Pentium (the first one) running BeOS with no hiccups. Impressive in those days. Honestly, after all these years, I had major doubts that Haiku would ever be released. Glad to be wrong.

spooneybarger 16y ago
I have first gen ( dual 66 ppc ) and second gen ( dual 133 ppc ) beboxes. i ran far more than 4 movies with no hiccups. so much more. the media performance on the BeOS back in the 90s w/ a tiny amount of RAM still blows away any OS I have used. Ever GUI OS I have used before that or since then has seemed like a bloated slow old pig in comparson.

erikpukinskis 16y ago

4. The biggest problem with BeOS back in the day was lack of applications. I don't see this being fixed with Haiku unless they have translation layer. I don't know... it seems like most of the benefit of Haiku is in the unique APIs. What's the point of using it if you're just using apps from other platforms? Would you have said the same thing about iOS? That iPhone should've had a translation layer so it can run Windows Mobile apps, because the app store was empty? At some point, if you're trying to build an innovative platform, you just have to grit your teeth and do what you can to attract native apps.

fingerprinter 16y ago
Sure, I agree with that statement in principle. Though I don't see Haiku capturing a market the size of even WebOS or something like that, it just doesn't seem that there is enough space for it. The only reason I mentioned translation layer was to get people using it...but it they plan to write some awesome apps for it, all the better. It really is a catch-22. Look at Ubuntu and Wayland. Getting to Wayland means having to write quite a few apps that are there on X11 stack, but if you just use a pass through or translation layer, what incentive is there to write more apps? So, yeah...you are right, sometimes you just have take it for a bit with few apps if you think you have the audience. Clearly Ubuntu has the audience. Does Haiku?
- slantyyz 16y ago
  Not sure Haiku will ever be more than a hobby. My appreciation for it is that it has been a long, long, long labor of love for its developers. I can't help but to admire the dedication of everyone who made it happen. I don't think that widespread adoption was anything they had in mind.
  - 1337p337 16y ago
    Widespread adoption doesn't seem to be a goal, but really as long as the POSIX APIs are supported in a reasonable manner (...or you are Windows), it doesn't matter much. It's nice to use, and it gets to take advantage of portable open-source software which gives it a larger community of developers than (say) Plan 9 and Amiga enjoy, so market percentage doesn't matter much. (Edit: changed "it" to "widespread adoption".)

spooneybarger 16y ago

What part of the GUI do you find clunky? I've always like the BeOS interface... then again I also really liked CDE. There are plenty of things I would want to change about the Be interface that Haiku implements but, I think that would be iterative not replacement.

1337p337 16y ago

Having loved BeOS when the free demo version 5 came out (I was very late to the game), and also being an OS junkie, I was eager to try out Haiku. The interface certainly looks 1997, but it feels reasonably smooth. It is lightweight and fast, just that one has to click a lot. So, it feels 1997, when GUIs were a ittle more responsive. (I do really wish the WM would do some more things for me, like SloppyFocus) ...and don't ask about the file manager. As far as boot speed goes, on my laptop it's a couple of seconds. I'd use it more if not for the below-mentioned issues. (Booting from a disk; the live CD is as slow as you might expect.) The software support is not bad at all. There's a nice browser (webkit-based), bash, and I didn't have trouble getting a couple of mainstream interpreters running. I believe they're using a slightly older gcc, but I had no trouble getting a couple of my personal projects to build (rsync'd from somewhere or copied from my /home, since Haiku can mount ext3), or a few other programs that I wanted. If something is POSIXy, it'll probably run. Ruby and Python worked for me, as well as a small language I'd put together. The only thing that keeps me from running it as the main OS for my laptop is drivers. The wireless support is still in development, and the version I have doesn't know when I've plugged in my headphones; my laptop is mostly used to play music, ssh to a larger computer, and browse the web. So, without headphones, I would definitely disturb coworkers, and need an ethernet cable to use besides. Still I recommend trying it out. It's still under development, but it's solid and fast already. (Just need the danged sound/wifi drivers to work...)

yason 16y ago

It's fun that people are so different. I would give a lot if I could have BeOS Tracker, Deskbar and GUI fitted into, for example, a Linux system instead of Gnome. BeOS GUI was minimal, slick, and one of the rare GUIs that you can actually use for system maintenance. That's a tipping point for me: Linux desktops GUIs are there because a desktop computer apparently has to have a desktop GUI. In BeOS, it was there so that you could operate your system. Using a shell on Linux is the equivalent of the "Start" button; using a shell on BeOS always felt like a hack: you didn't need it for system control.

viraptor 16y ago

> 4. The biggest problem with BeOS back in the day was lack of applications. I don't see this being fixed with Haiku unless they have translation layer. Keep in mind that beos is basically posix-friendly. You can already compile a lot of applications which work on linux. Firefox needed some changes for example, but works now. Applications like vim compile without any changes at all - just get gcc, make, make install.

ido 16y ago

3. The interface has to go. It was clunky back then and now it is downright horrendous compared to nearly any interface we have. Gnome might feel like 2004, but this feels like 1997. I use windows 7 at work and os x 10.6 at home (as well as ubuntu 10.10 in VirtualBox) and I can't see what feels like 2004 about gnome, or what feels like 1997 about this one. In fact I can't off the top of my head really think of any major UI improvement between windows xp (2001) & 7 beside the clever resizing/positioning of windows & the new task bar.