9 ms·

I think at this point I'm on the fourth consecutive laptop that this just won't ever boot on. This time, however, it just says "Haiku" on a splash screen and th

I think at this point I'm on the fourth consecutive laptop that this just won't ever boot on. This time, however, it just says "Haiku" on a splash screen and then stops completely. No errors, no debug message window, nothing. (At this point usually someone here insists that I file a bug. Which I won't do because a) I have no useful information to put into a bug report and b) I think after eleven years of this nonsense it's probably in there about 200 times already anyway.) Oh, look. Can't even press the space bar to get an unintelligible error anymore.

arthurcolle 5y ago
I've pretty much given up on these new OSes. I tried to run OS/2 and Plan 9 (whatever that relatively recent open sourced version of it was) and I just feel like... maybe I haven't developed the appropriate context to be able to even know what to do with it. Sure, Kali I know I can use my AWUS036ahw network card on, Ubuntu I know I at least have some sensible defaults, Alpine for containers (goddamnit why don't you have vim by default, so annoying to quickly debug stuff), but overall it's just not useful to know these little pieces of computing history. I suppose there are computing archaeologists that benefit from it, but I just get left with a sense of dread that everything I know and have mastered more or less is going to be left for dead and I just get a sense of exhaustion. I'd say my initial experience of playing around with distros/burning to CDs, etc were instrumental to my learning about what different terminology meant, but overall right now, it's just such a time sink with no real benefit. Same reason why I don't just stop what I'm doing to learn Zig or Objective-S or whatever. There are so many tools to do the same damn thing and while it may be useful for self-learning or potentially a very specific problem set, it's just not worth the mental investment to accomplish any real goals. It sucks to think about things in this context but it's a real constraint. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoAzpa1x7jU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoAzpa1x7jU
- handelaar 5y ago
  I'm having a little philosophical discussion with myself here about whether something that can't run on an actual computer (as opposed to a VM) is in any meaningful sense an "operating system" at all. Meanwhile I can definitely boot RiscOS on a Pi containing built-in apps with a 1987 copyright message in them. I mean I can't then really do anything with it, but it's still got Haiku beat.
  - pakyr 5y ago
    It's fine to dislike Haiku because it doesn't run on your hardware, but it's pretty ridiculous to assert it isn't an OS because it "can't run on an actual computer". Haiku runs on tons of hardware, including most of the machines I've tried it on, and it probably runs on far more devices than Risc OS ever has/will. Edit: there's literally a massive thread (https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/computers-compatible-with-haiku-current-version/9659 https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/computers-compatible-with-hai...) on the Haiku forums that documents just a small fraction of the hardware Haiku works on.
    - handelaar 5y ago
      It's never once started on anything I own. For over a decade. The most voted-on item in its bug tracker has 9 votes on it. RiscOS (which was a wilfully-obtuse comparison on my part, but since you're digging in [edit: in fact, creating an account on HN for no reason except to promote it on this thread], I'll run with it for your benefit) has without question already actually run on a number of devices -- though granted, not types of devices -- at least one or two orders of magnitude larger than this thing ever will, at the rate it's going.
      - pakyr 5y ago
        Like I said, it sucks that it doesn't start on anything you own, which doesn't take away from the fact that there's literally a massive list of hardware it does actually run on. And you're right, I created an account to comment on this thread. If you think disagreeing with you on this means I'm "promoting" Haiku as some sort of shill (my two points were literally that it's an OS and it boots on hardware, how controversial) then you're entitled to your opinion I guess.
        handelaar 5y ago
        Why, when it basically apparently doesn't run on laptops, and when it fails to start it provides no hint whatsoever about what to do next, is there no information about what to do next anywhere on the Haiku web site? Why, if your position is that there's a list of hardware (a very well-hidden one, I might add) on which I should be running this, is that list not front-and-centre so I don't waste my time trying to boot it on anything else? Why, to put it more briefly, does Haiku insist on being treated as a serious operating system when it simultaneously clearly runs on less stuff than most other OSes and yet requires us to pretend that it's in the same class as those other OSes? (This doesn't happen with ReactOS. But then they don't have the social disability of resolutely insisting that we all pay attention to them as a Very Important Thing.) [edit: I forgot the big one: after over eleven years would it kill them to at least once spit out a fucking error message? Or is the total lack of information with which a person could file a useful bug report in fact the intent?]
- geon 5y ago
  > Alpine for containers (goddamnit why don't you have vim by default The whole point of Alpine is to NOT have vim (or anything else) by default.
- swiley 5y ago
  I think keeping people like you out is part of the reason " that recently open sourced version" of Plan9 is covered in Nazi propaganda.
  - anthk 5y ago
    False. They even had a "nazi punks fuck off logo" in a release.
  - arthurcolle 5y ago
    What on Earth is this comment supposed to mean?
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  It's the unfortunate reality of trying to write an OS these days: we are drowning in hardware. There is just way too huge a variety of hardware out there and basically no standards for interfacing with it requiring a ludicrous number of drivers to support anywhere close to everything. At this point, my advice to anyone wanting to create a brand new OS would be to limit their scope to something like the Raspberry Pi line so they have a very limited set of hardware they have to support[0]. Of course, Haiku started long before the Raspberry Pi existed so that wasn't really an option for them. [0] Unless you count USB peripherals of course. Ugh.
  - analognoise 5y ago
    I'd go even further: We pick some basic set of specs, a processor, and run the whole thing on FPGAs so we control all the circuits and can always make an ASIC if we want. Full control, full power. Like what if MiSTer was considered a valid target for productivity software? Like we agree to go back to nothing and build the whole thing. Graphics drivers a problem? Design a new graphics system, all open. Would it be current? No. But it would be really open, and easy to develop for.
    - arthurcolle 5y ago
      Is this feasible?
      - analognoise 5y ago
        Yes, definitely. It's taking a page from retrocomputing and going "What if instead we built productivity software and made it a valid base for modern computing, what would we need?" I don't really know how many people would be interested in this approach though.
smallstepforman 5y ago
Hold shift after BIOS/EFI handoff, and you’ll get lots of boot / diagnostic options. I natively boot on 3 systems without any issues.
- handelaar 5y ago
  Yes, that's definitely a thing I'm going to keep trying when there's several dozen options and every option set that doesn't work either also leaves you looking forever at a dead splash screen or crashes with a white screen full of "no debug on this file" which you can't reboot out of without a hard ACPI reset. It's just dogshit, and it's getting worse.
  - pjerem 5y ago
    > It's just dogshit This thing is being developed by passionate developers on their spare time for maybe two decades. They don’t sell you anything, they don’t force you to install their OS. They just wrote it for fun. The least they deserve is not having to read insults like yours.
  - alpaca128 5y ago
    Maybe you should preserve your sanity and wait for a release that's not clearly marked as "Beta".
sakthig 5y ago
Try changing the resolution in boot menu. My laptop supports 1366x768 but for some reason got blank screen. Lower resolution seems to work fine.
ofrzeta 5y ago
You probably know that supporting a wide array of hardware requires many hands (and that hardware).
cable2600 5y ago
I had that problem in Virtual Box I had to enable a serial port for it to output error messages.
bitigchi 5y ago
If you open a thread on Haiku forums, I’m sure you will find a lot of help to help you boot Haiku on your hardware, even get developer input.
liberalbias998 5y ago
My desktop PC; also fails to boot in the same way. Just to add: I really respect the work different people on the Haiku project put in for so many years; even the controversial package manager turned out to be really brilliant. I have been following the project since it started; I ran BeOS on my PowerMac and then on my PCs for a while, before it became impractical. The thing with voluntary projects is people naturally work on what they find randomly interesting - this may not be the fastest path to create a working system for a reasonable number of end users.
squarefoot 5y ago
> a) I have no useful information to put into a bug report A list of the chipsets involved, or just brands and models of the laptops would also help.
mrweasel 5y ago
While perhaps not totally helpful, after 25 years of playing with "alternative" operation systems, I would never recommend using a laptop for the purpose. A spare desktop PC have always been of more value to me, when playing around with lesser used operating systems. Hardware and drivers just work better. A wired ethernet connection is also recommended. If you don't have the space for a PC, I'll recommend getting an older Intel NUC.
II2II 5y ago
You have had an incredible streak of bad luck there. That is to be expected with alternative operating systems though: very few have vendors contributing drivers (e.g. Windows, Linux) and very few have enough developers to support the incredibly wide range of hardware available (e.g. Linux). At best, most alternative operating systems can be classified as hobby projects. Nothing more and nothing less. In order to use them, you need to be willing to contribute time (e.g. help with development) or money (e.g. buy supported hardware). If you're not willing to do so, that's fine. It simply means these operating systems are not for you. As for my experiences, I have always had Haiku boot but have never been satisfied with hardware support (e.g. limited to certain VESA modes for video, unsupported network card). I accept that's part for the course given what Haiku is and can still appreciate the work that has been put into it.

arthurcolle 5y ago

I've pretty much given up on these new OSes. I tried to run OS/2 and Plan 9 (whatever that relatively recent open sourced version of it was) and I just feel like... maybe I haven't developed the appropriate context to be able to even know what to do with it. Sure, Kali I know I can use my AWUS036ahw network card on, Ubuntu I know I at least have some sensible defaults, Alpine for containers (goddamnit why don't you have vim by default, so annoying to quickly debug stuff), but overall it's just not useful to know these little pieces of computing history. I suppose there are computing archaeologists that benefit from it, but I just get left with a sense of dread that everything I know and have mastered more or less is going to be left for dead and I just get a sense of exhaustion. I'd say my initial experience of playing around with distros/burning to CDs, etc were instrumental to my learning about what different terminology meant, but overall right now, it's just such a time sink with no real benefit. Same reason why I don't just stop what I'm doing to learn Zig or Objective-S or whatever. There are so many tools to do the same damn thing and while it may be useful for self-learning or potentially a very specific problem set, it's just not worth the mental investment to accomplish any real goals. It sucks to think about things in this context but it's a real constraint. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoAzpa1x7jU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoAzpa1x7jU

handelaar 5y ago
I'm having a little philosophical discussion with myself here about whether something that can't run on an actual computer (as opposed to a VM) is in any meaningful sense an "operating system" at all. Meanwhile I can definitely boot RiscOS on a Pi containing built-in apps with a 1987 copyright message in them. I mean I can't then really do anything with it, but it's still got Haiku beat.
- pakyr 5y ago
  It's fine to dislike Haiku because it doesn't run on your hardware, but it's pretty ridiculous to assert it isn't an OS because it "can't run on an actual computer". Haiku runs on tons of hardware, including most of the machines I've tried it on, and it probably runs on far more devices than Risc OS ever has/will. Edit: there's literally a massive thread (https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/computers-compatible-with-haiku-current-version/9659 https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/computers-compatible-with-hai...) on the Haiku forums that documents just a small fraction of the hardware Haiku works on.
  - handelaar 5y ago
    It's never once started on anything I own. For over a decade. The most voted-on item in its bug tracker has 9 votes on it. RiscOS (which was a wilfully-obtuse comparison on my part, but since you're digging in [edit: in fact, creating an account on HN for no reason except to promote it on this thread], I'll run with it for your benefit) has without question already actually run on a number of devices -- though granted, not types of devices -- at least one or two orders of magnitude larger than this thing ever will, at the rate it's going.
    - pakyr 5y ago
      Like I said, it sucks that it doesn't start on anything you own, which doesn't take away from the fact that there's literally a massive list of hardware it does actually run on. And you're right, I created an account to comment on this thread. If you think disagreeing with you on this means I'm "promoting" Haiku as some sort of shill (my two points were literally that it's an OS and it boots on hardware, how controversial) then you're entitled to your opinion I guess.
      - handelaar 5y ago
        Why, when it basically apparently doesn't run on laptops, and when it fails to start it provides no hint whatsoever about what to do next, is there no information about what to do next anywhere on the Haiku web site? Why, if your position is that there's a list of hardware (a very well-hidden one, I might add) on which I should be running this, is that list not front-and-centre so I don't waste my time trying to boot it on anything else? Why, to put it more briefly, does Haiku insist on being treated as a serious operating system when it simultaneously clearly runs on less stuff than most other OSes and yet requires us to pretend that it's in the same class as those other OSes? (This doesn't happen with ReactOS. But then they don't have the social disability of resolutely insisting that we all pay attention to them as a Very Important Thing.) [edit: I forgot the big one: after over eleven years would it kill them to at least once spit out a fucking error message? Or is the total lack of information with which a person could file a useful bug report in fact the intent?]
geon 5y ago
> Alpine for containers (goddamnit why don't you have vim by default The whole point of Alpine is to NOT have vim (or anything else) by default.
swiley 5y ago
I think keeping people like you out is part of the reason " that recently open sourced version" of Plan9 is covered in Nazi propaganda.
- anthk 5y ago
  False. They even had a "nazi punks fuck off logo" in a release.
- arthurcolle 5y ago
  What on Earth is this comment supposed to mean?
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
It's the unfortunate reality of trying to write an OS these days: we are drowning in hardware. There is just way too huge a variety of hardware out there and basically no standards for interfacing with it requiring a ludicrous number of drivers to support anywhere close to everything. At this point, my advice to anyone wanting to create a brand new OS would be to limit their scope to something like the Raspberry Pi line so they have a very limited set of hardware they have to support[0]. Of course, Haiku started long before the Raspberry Pi existed so that wasn't really an option for them. [0] Unless you count USB peripherals of course. Ugh.
- analognoise 5y ago
  I'd go even further: We pick some basic set of specs, a processor, and run the whole thing on FPGAs so we control all the circuits and can always make an ASIC if we want. Full control, full power. Like what if MiSTer was considered a valid target for productivity software? Like we agree to go back to nothing and build the whole thing. Graphics drivers a problem? Design a new graphics system, all open. Would it be current? No. But it would be really open, and easy to develop for.
  - arthurcolle 5y ago
    Is this feasible?
    - analognoise 5y ago
      Yes, definitely. It's taking a page from retrocomputing and going "What if instead we built productivity software and made it a valid base for modern computing, what would we need?" I don't really know how many people would be interested in this approach though.

smallstepforman 5y ago

Hold shift after BIOS/EFI handoff, and you’ll get lots of boot / diagnostic options. I natively boot on 3 systems without any issues.

handelaar 5y ago
Yes, that's definitely a thing I'm going to keep trying when there's several dozen options and every option set that doesn't work either also leaves you looking forever at a dead splash screen or crashes with a white screen full of "no debug on this file" which you can't reboot out of without a hard ACPI reset. It's just dogshit, and it's getting worse.
- pjerem 5y ago
  > It's just dogshit This thing is being developed by passionate developers on their spare time for maybe two decades. They don’t sell you anything, they don’t force you to install their OS. They just wrote it for fun. The least they deserve is not having to read insults like yours.
- alpaca128 5y ago
  Maybe you should preserve your sanity and wait for a release that's not clearly marked as "Beta".

sakthig 5y ago

Try changing the resolution in boot menu. My laptop supports 1366x768 but for some reason got blank screen. Lower resolution seems to work fine.

ofrzeta 5y ago

You probably know that supporting a wide array of hardware requires many hands (and that hardware).

cable2600 5y ago

I had that problem in Virtual Box I had to enable a serial port for it to output error messages.

bitigchi 5y ago

If you open a thread on Haiku forums, I’m sure you will find a lot of help to help you boot Haiku on your hardware, even get developer input.

liberalbias998 5y ago

My desktop PC; also fails to boot in the same way. Just to add: I really respect the work different people on the Haiku project put in for so many years; even the controversial package manager turned out to be really brilliant. I have been following the project since it started; I ran BeOS on my PowerMac and then on my PCs for a while, before it became impractical. The thing with voluntary projects is people naturally work on what they find randomly interesting - this may not be the fastest path to create a working system for a reasonable number of end users.

squarefoot 5y ago

> a) I have no useful information to put into a bug report A list of the chipsets involved, or just brands and models of the laptops would also help.

mrweasel 5y ago

While perhaps not totally helpful, after 25 years of playing with "alternative" operation systems, I would never recommend using a laptop for the purpose. A spare desktop PC have always been of more value to me, when playing around with lesser used operating systems. Hardware and drivers just work better. A wired ethernet connection is also recommended. If you don't have the space for a PC, I'll recommend getting an older Intel NUC.

II2II 5y ago

You have had an incredible streak of bad luck there. That is to be expected with alternative operating systems though: very few have vendors contributing drivers (e.g. Windows, Linux) and very few have enough developers to support the incredibly wide range of hardware available (e.g. Linux). At best, most alternative operating systems can be classified as hobby projects. Nothing more and nothing less. In order to use them, you need to be willing to contribute time (e.g. help with development) or money (e.g. buy supported hardware). If you're not willing to do so, that's fine. It simply means these operating systems are not for you. As for my experiences, I have always had Haiku boot but have never been satisfied with hardware support (e.g. limited to certain VESA modes for video, unsupported network card). I accept that's part for the course given what Haiku is and can still appreciate the work that has been put into it.