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It's not just that there was something magical to BeOS, there's still something magical to Haiku, especially in the era of the "Linux desktop" with its free-for

It's not just that there was something magical to BeOS, there's still something magical to Haiku, especially in the era of the "Linux desktop" with its free-for-all fractured ecosystem approach to desktop environments. We aren't working on Haiku just because it reminds us of the past, but because we think it could be the future, too.

hankman86 4y ago
This deserves to be expanded on: I very much see the need for innovation in OS research. But I just don’t see anything in BeOS/Haiku that would address any of the big challenges for operating systems. Which in my mind include the following: Can we get away from the “leaky bucket” security paradigm where despite all of the best efforts and gradual improvements, prevalent operating systems “keep on giving” in terms of exploits that are discovered all the time. Is there something akin to what Rust is for programming languages? Or what about an operating system for AIs? Is the current stack of Linux, GPU drivers, and some ML SDK on top an adequate answer for emerging AI applications? Or if you still believe in Blockchain applications, what about a native OS for that? And the list goes on. All I see in Haiku/BeOS is a pretty, albeit dated user interface. Someone educate me what else they bring to the table.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- christophilus 4y ago
  It screams on super underpowered hardware. That’s a nice benefit over just about any modern OS.
  - ako 4y ago
    Could also help with some of our biggest issues: use less energy, reduce energy costs, go green, use your existing hardware longer, less need for producing new things.
- als0 4y ago
  > Is there something akin to what Rust is for programming languages? Check out the Genode OS framework
- Ygg2 4y ago
  Sometimes making a better UX Operating system is enough.
- pacifika 4y ago
  You’re listing tech that didn’t exist when Haiku started so how could it address those things? Haiku is an OS for endusers.
- DragonMaus 4y ago
  > And the list goes on. I would be keen to see more of this list, as two of the three items you mentioned are not at all interesting or useful to me (and, I would presume, to a majority of other users). Even the other item (#1) is somewhat academic, as modern security practices are generally "good enough" for most people in most use cases. (That is, there is certainly room for improvement, but where we are now isn't nearly as bad as it could be.)
Gualdrapo 4y ago
Forgive me but as I can appreciate the effort put into Haiku and working on a single user targeted OS, I still can't get why the people behind it like to throw darts to Linux from time to time. That "era of the Linux desktop" phrase is something even we Linux desktop users themselves will laugh at, as there is not such thing. Praising the positives of your work at the expense of the criticism of other's work won't do you any favours.
- waddlesplash 4y ago
  I think you are reading a little too much into it. Linux people throw darts at Haiku ("why would you ever use this and not Linux?" etc.) so it seems only fair we throw a few back. Many of us have desktop Linux installs, and some of us even have patches (or even have contributed significant amounts of work) in various Linux ecosystem projects.
  - Gualdrapo 4y ago
    > "why would you ever use this and not Linux?" That seems to be a legitimate question, not a dart nor a criticism by any means.
    - waddlesplash 4y ago
      Sometimes it is, and you can see elsewhere I've given real answers to that question. But sometimes my criticisms of Linux are because, well, they are a real and genuine motivation for why I gave up on desktop Linux and devoted even more time to Haiku. It's not as if my criticisms are anything new, there's pages upon pages where Linux users and developers say similar things. I "throw such darts" here to make it clear how Haiku stands in contrast.
- LeFantome 4y ago
  I do not think they are throwing darts. My read is that they are making the following two points: - the “Open Source Desktop” is pretty much a Linux monoculture and they are an alternative to that - the Haiku philosophy is to offer a unified and consistent user experience vs a collection of a thousand independent projects approach ( the Linux experience ) - Haiku offers everything needed for a desktop experience under the banner of a single project ( another way of saying the previous point )
sho_hn 4y ago
Isn't adding X11 and Wayland and Wine getting you the same free-for-all toolkit and app mix in the end?
- waddlesplash 4y ago
  Free-for-all in terms of toolkit and application mix, yes, but that's actually the "lesser" problem of the Linux desktop. Ideally we would have all-native applications, but not even macOS can really manage that. The X11 and Wayland compatibility layers are very different than XQuartz macOS or the Wayland-based WSL GUI are, they are much more tightly integrated into Haiku. While you are still going to notice some seams here and there, overall the experience is much more like a "full port" than most other OSes have on this point. More to the point, all ported applications are still running on top of Haiku's kernel, Haiku's window manager / display server, Haiku's media services, Haiku's init system, Haiku's package manager, etc. On Linux, all those things come from separate projects, and some of them can even be swapped out within a Linux distribution, never mind between distributions. Not so on Haiku.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    That’s a good observation. In many ways your approach is like Carbon on MacOS, or the bajillion UI toolkits that exist on top of the same display driver, clipboard, etc., infrastructure in Windows.
  - sho_hn 4y ago
    Many of the apps are designed to the conventions of the various desktop environments on Linux (or Windows, in case of Wine), and feel most at home in one of them. Without additional effort to e.g. implement D-Bus and XDG portals, having a Qt or GTK app run will mean those apps open File Open/Save dialogs that are not the native Haiku ones. In the end it will be a fractured feel as well. I hear what you're saying and I do understand the point you're trying to make. However, I think it's interesting to point out just how app-centric systems have become, with many apps even shipping essentially their own unique HIG and look and feel. If you look at Haiku's competitors, 10 years ago they were all much more editorialized with a strong sense of what a proper, native app for them should look like. And despite all having more such native apps than Haiku has now, the trends have - at least for the time being - pulled away from that. If Haiku gets more popular it'll similarly become subject to simply running the most popular software.

hankman86 4y ago

This deserves to be expanded on: I very much see the need for innovation in OS research. But I just don’t see anything in BeOS/Haiku that would address any of the big challenges for operating systems. Which in my mind include the following: Can we get away from the “leaky bucket” security paradigm where despite all of the best efforts and gradual improvements, prevalent operating systems “keep on giving” in terms of exploits that are discovered all the time. Is there something akin to what Rust is for programming languages? Or what about an operating system for AIs? Is the current stack of Linux, GPU drivers, and some ML SDK on top an adequate answer for emerging AI applications? Or if you still believe in Blockchain applications, what about a native OS for that? And the list goes on. All I see in Haiku/BeOS is a pretty, albeit dated user interface. Someone educate me what else they bring to the table.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
christophilus 4y ago
It screams on super underpowered hardware. That’s a nice benefit over just about any modern OS.
- ako 4y ago
  Could also help with some of our biggest issues: use less energy, reduce energy costs, go green, use your existing hardware longer, less need for producing new things.
als0 4y ago
> Is there something akin to what Rust is for programming languages? Check out the Genode OS framework
Ygg2 4y ago
Sometimes making a better UX Operating system is enough.
pacifika 4y ago
You’re listing tech that didn’t exist when Haiku started so how could it address those things? Haiku is an OS for endusers.
DragonMaus 4y ago
> And the list goes on. I would be keen to see more of this list, as two of the three items you mentioned are not at all interesting or useful to me (and, I would presume, to a majority of other users). Even the other item (#1) is somewhat academic, as modern security practices are generally "good enough" for most people in most use cases. (That is, there is certainly room for improvement, but where we are now isn't nearly as bad as it could be.)

Gualdrapo 4y ago

Forgive me but as I can appreciate the effort put into Haiku and working on a single user targeted OS, I still can't get why the people behind it like to throw darts to Linux from time to time. That "era of the Linux desktop" phrase is something even we Linux desktop users themselves will laugh at, as there is not such thing. Praising the positives of your work at the expense of the criticism of other's work won't do you any favours.

waddlesplash 4y ago
I think you are reading a little too much into it. Linux people throw darts at Haiku ("why would you ever use this and not Linux?" etc.) so it seems only fair we throw a few back. Many of us have desktop Linux installs, and some of us even have patches (or even have contributed significant amounts of work) in various Linux ecosystem projects.
- Gualdrapo 4y ago
  > "why would you ever use this and not Linux?" That seems to be a legitimate question, not a dart nor a criticism by any means.
  - waddlesplash 4y ago
    Sometimes it is, and you can see elsewhere I've given real answers to that question. But sometimes my criticisms of Linux are because, well, they are a real and genuine motivation for why I gave up on desktop Linux and devoted even more time to Haiku. It's not as if my criticisms are anything new, there's pages upon pages where Linux users and developers say similar things. I "throw such darts" here to make it clear how Haiku stands in contrast.
LeFantome 4y ago
I do not think they are throwing darts. My read is that they are making the following two points: - the “Open Source Desktop” is pretty much a Linux monoculture and they are an alternative to that - the Haiku philosophy is to offer a unified and consistent user experience vs a collection of a thousand independent projects approach ( the Linux experience ) - Haiku offers everything needed for a desktop experience under the banner of a single project ( another way of saying the previous point )

sho_hn 4y ago

Isn't adding X11 and Wayland and Wine getting you the same free-for-all toolkit and app mix in the end?

waddlesplash 4y ago
Free-for-all in terms of toolkit and application mix, yes, but that's actually the "lesser" problem of the Linux desktop. Ideally we would have all-native applications, but not even macOS can really manage that. The X11 and Wayland compatibility layers are very different than XQuartz macOS or the Wayland-based WSL GUI are, they are much more tightly integrated into Haiku. While you are still going to notice some seams here and there, overall the experience is much more like a "full port" than most other OSes have on this point. More to the point, all ported applications are still running on top of Haiku's kernel, Haiku's window manager / display server, Haiku's media services, Haiku's init system, Haiku's package manager, etc. On Linux, all those things come from separate projects, and some of them can even be swapped out within a Linux distribution, never mind between distributions. Not so on Haiku.
- rayiner 4y ago
  That’s a good observation. In many ways your approach is like Carbon on MacOS, or the bajillion UI toolkits that exist on top of the same display driver, clipboard, etc., infrastructure in Windows.
- sho_hn 4y ago
  Many of the apps are designed to the conventions of the various desktop environments on Linux (or Windows, in case of Wine), and feel most at home in one of them. Without additional effort to e.g. implement D-Bus and XDG portals, having a Qt or GTK app run will mean those apps open File Open/Save dialogs that are not the native Haiku ones. In the end it will be a fractured feel as well. I hear what you're saying and I do understand the point you're trying to make. However, I think it's interesting to point out just how app-centric systems have become, with many apps even shipping essentially their own unique HIG and look and feel. If you look at Haiku's competitors, 10 years ago they were all much more editorialized with a strong sense of what a proper, native app for them should look like. And despite all having more such native apps than Haiku has now, the trends have - at least for the time being - pulled away from that. If Haiku gets more popular it'll similarly become subject to simply running the most popular software.