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What really sets Haiku (and the preceding BeOS) apart is that it's built for the express purpose of being a desktop operating system. As good as desktop Linux h

What really sets Haiku (and the preceding BeOS) apart is that it's built for the express purpose of being a desktop operating system. As good as desktop Linux has gotten it still suffers from servers being the chief use case for Linux-based OSes, seen in quirks such as how poorly it handles running out of memory (not as big of a deal in the server world, particularly in the container era; just tweak your setup and reboot your containers). It's not bogged down with corporate IT needs either. The last time we got an OS that was as purely desktop-end-user-oriented with no competing influences was Classic Mac OS, which had serious technical issues.

LeFantome 2mo ago
The problem is, Linux is improving too quickly for Haiku. I have been looking forward to running Haiku as a daily driver for years. And it is almost there. It may even be good enough now for many people. Modern browsers really help. But I was amazed recently when I put Haiku on an old laptop that was already running Linux. I remember Haiku being so lean and fast and multi-tasking so smoothly. But honestly Linux felt faster on this machine. The memory usage was about the same (a real shock to me). And I missed being able to use containers. So, I ended up putting Linux back on. This bummed me out because I have been a Haiku fan forever and it has never been better. But when I tried to use it, I could not convince myself there was any benefit (other than diversity). And the reason had nothing to do with applications or drivers.
- ranger_danger 2mo ago
  There are Haiku/BeOS-style window manager/GTK themes if that suits your needs better.
  - em-bee 2mo ago
    could you point them out? i actually did a search but could not find much. there are GTK themes, but nothing i could find that converts a gnome desktop. stuff is either incomplete or outdated. i actually managed to get half BeOS theme together for KDE, and i still use that on my desktop. but it's inconsistent, and in particular the tab style window management is missing, which is really the best part of the interface.
    - ranger_danger 2mo ago
      https://www.opencode.net/phob1an/besot https://www.opencode.net/phob1an/besot https://github.com/B00merang-Project/Haiku https://github.com/B00merang-Project/Haiku https://github.com/B00merang-Project/BeOS https://github.com/B00merang-Project/BeOS https://gitlab.com/metsatron/BeOS-r5-GTK https://gitlab.com/metsatron/BeOS-r5-GTK https://gitlab.com/metsatron/BeOS-r5-XFWM https://gitlab.com/metsatron/BeOS-r5-XFWM https://www.opendesktop.org/p/1012423/ https://www.opendesktop.org/p/1012423/ https://www.opendesktop.org/p/1016430/ https://www.opendesktop.org/p/1016430/
- flatiron 2mo ago
  > The problem is, Linux is improving too quickly for Haiku. Ain’t it the truth. It’s really great now the snowball is fully in flow down the mountain with Linux. But at the same time it’s sad that there’s little time for anything else. We are a bit of a victim of our own success. We beat the drum in the 90s that Linux needs to win and now that it won what does it really mean. Free and open source to do anything but at the same time, why in the world use anything else. We have come a bit of a Chromium in that regard (or it became us?)
- dmacvicar 2mo ago
  Cosmoe and VitruvianOS are two different approaches of "Haiku" you may find interesting. Cosmoe works at the application toolkit level, allowing to build and run BeOS/Haiku apps on Linux. The toolkit is then implemented using Linux classic APIs. Vitruvian is Haiku on the Linux kernel (with some extra modules). https://gitlab.com/haydentech/cosmoe https://gitlab.com/haydentech/cosmoe https://v-os.dev/ https://v-os.dev/
thataccount 2mo ago
I guess this depends on how you see things. Windows was meant to be a desktop OS and crashed all the time. Probably still does, but the wise have abandoned that burning ship. Linux, however, rarely crashes on a desktop, and when it does, it is usually due to a graphic card driver that doesn't want to work there.
- Demiurge 2mo ago
  Windows crashing all the time? I haven’t experienced crashes since WinXP… Or when trying beta drivers and overclocking. As a day to day windows and OSX user, I’ve had more stability issues with OSX than Windows.
  - trinix912 2mo ago
    Nvidia drivers crashed Windows 7 for me multiple times and so did virtualization software (VMware in particular). I had Windows 10 crash a few times when I last touched it doing really nothing special. I'm not using any ancient software or obscure peripherals. But yeah, if it works on your machine then I guess...
    - Demiurge 2mo ago
      Perhaps I’m contrasting it to my Windows ME experience… But, I have seen BSOD multiple times, it’s just that I could trace the problem pretty easily, to something like IRQ interrupts and faulty hardware, MB needs to be replaced, bad driver needs to be downgraded, things like that. And it used to happen a lot more often. Overall, I just think XP and NT kernels kind of solved this, in large part, by improving the system logging, sys internal tools, adding system restore, etc On my MacBooks, however, whenever I get the beach ball, I rarely have any idea what to do, and have reinstalled or changed random hardware multiple times. So yeah, I’ve had my share of problems with all systems, and worked in different environments, but personally I have rarely seen BSOD compared to all the other issues.
  - punchmesan 2mo ago
    Windows has gotten more stable, that's for sure, but I have seen BSOD's on every single edition of Windows, and that's only on my personal life. In my time in corporate IT I can tell you that Windows is generally much more problematic than MacOS for a variety of reasons, though modern MacOS certainly has its share of issues. But again, that's in a corporate IT environment, not regular consumer usage. Not sure how you got away with no crashing in your Windows experience, but congratulations!
BoredomIsFun 2mo ago
> such as how poorly it handles running out of memory What is interesting, FreeBSD last time I used it, had far ,pre simple predictable kernel OOM killer. Anyway, I always either switch off swap on Linux machines or install EarlyOOM.

LeFantome 2mo ago

The problem is, Linux is improving too quickly for Haiku. I have been looking forward to running Haiku as a daily driver for years. And it is almost there. It may even be good enough now for many people. Modern browsers really help. But I was amazed recently when I put Haiku on an old laptop that was already running Linux. I remember Haiku being so lean and fast and multi-tasking so smoothly. But honestly Linux felt faster on this machine. The memory usage was about the same (a real shock to me). And I missed being able to use containers. So, I ended up putting Linux back on. This bummed me out because I have been a Haiku fan forever and it has never been better. But when I tried to use it, I could not convince myself there was any benefit (other than diversity). And the reason had nothing to do with applications or drivers.

ranger_danger 2mo ago
There are Haiku/BeOS-style window manager/GTK themes if that suits your needs better.
- em-bee 2mo ago
  could you point them out? i actually did a search but could not find much. there are GTK themes, but nothing i could find that converts a gnome desktop. stuff is either incomplete or outdated. i actually managed to get half BeOS theme together for KDE, and i still use that on my desktop. but it's inconsistent, and in particular the tab style window management is missing, which is really the best part of the interface.
  - ranger_danger 2mo ago
    https://www.opencode.net/phob1an/besot https://www.opencode.net/phob1an/besot https://github.com/B00merang-Project/Haiku https://github.com/B00merang-Project/Haiku https://github.com/B00merang-Project/BeOS https://github.com/B00merang-Project/BeOS https://gitlab.com/metsatron/BeOS-r5-GTK https://gitlab.com/metsatron/BeOS-r5-GTK https://gitlab.com/metsatron/BeOS-r5-XFWM https://gitlab.com/metsatron/BeOS-r5-XFWM https://www.opendesktop.org/p/1012423/ https://www.opendesktop.org/p/1012423/ https://www.opendesktop.org/p/1016430/ https://www.opendesktop.org/p/1016430/
flatiron 2mo ago
> The problem is, Linux is improving too quickly for Haiku. Ain’t it the truth. It’s really great now the snowball is fully in flow down the mountain with Linux. But at the same time it’s sad that there’s little time for anything else. We are a bit of a victim of our own success. We beat the drum in the 90s that Linux needs to win and now that it won what does it really mean. Free and open source to do anything but at the same time, why in the world use anything else. We have come a bit of a Chromium in that regard (or it became us?)
dmacvicar 2mo ago
Cosmoe and VitruvianOS are two different approaches of "Haiku" you may find interesting. Cosmoe works at the application toolkit level, allowing to build and run BeOS/Haiku apps on Linux. The toolkit is then implemented using Linux classic APIs. Vitruvian is Haiku on the Linux kernel (with some extra modules). https://gitlab.com/haydentech/cosmoe https://gitlab.com/haydentech/cosmoe https://v-os.dev/ https://v-os.dev/

thataccount 2mo ago

I guess this depends on how you see things. Windows was meant to be a desktop OS and crashed all the time. Probably still does, but the wise have abandoned that burning ship. Linux, however, rarely crashes on a desktop, and when it does, it is usually due to a graphic card driver that doesn't want to work there.

Demiurge 2mo ago
Windows crashing all the time? I haven’t experienced crashes since WinXP… Or when trying beta drivers and overclocking. As a day to day windows and OSX user, I’ve had more stability issues with OSX than Windows.
- trinix912 2mo ago
  Nvidia drivers crashed Windows 7 for me multiple times and so did virtualization software (VMware in particular). I had Windows 10 crash a few times when I last touched it doing really nothing special. I'm not using any ancient software or obscure peripherals. But yeah, if it works on your machine then I guess...
  - Demiurge 2mo ago
    Perhaps I’m contrasting it to my Windows ME experience… But, I have seen BSOD multiple times, it’s just that I could trace the problem pretty easily, to something like IRQ interrupts and faulty hardware, MB needs to be replaced, bad driver needs to be downgraded, things like that. And it used to happen a lot more often. Overall, I just think XP and NT kernels kind of solved this, in large part, by improving the system logging, sys internal tools, adding system restore, etc On my MacBooks, however, whenever I get the beach ball, I rarely have any idea what to do, and have reinstalled or changed random hardware multiple times. So yeah, I’ve had my share of problems with all systems, and worked in different environments, but personally I have rarely seen BSOD compared to all the other issues.
- punchmesan 2mo ago
  Windows has gotten more stable, that's for sure, but I have seen BSOD's on every single edition of Windows, and that's only on my personal life. In my time in corporate IT I can tell you that Windows is generally much more problematic than MacOS for a variety of reasons, though modern MacOS certainly has its share of issues. But again, that's in a corporate IT environment, not regular consumer usage. Not sure how you got away with no crashing in your Windows experience, but congratulations!

BoredomIsFun 2mo ago

> such as how poorly it handles running out of memory What is interesting, FreeBSD last time I used it, had far ,pre simple predictable kernel OOM killer. Anyway, I always either switch off swap on Linux machines or install EarlyOOM.