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I imagine 256MB was all the author had allocated VMware Player, but who needs more than 256MB when Haiku's only using 89MB, anyway?

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

When I saw that I had to get a crane to pick up my jaw it fell that quickly and that low. I look around today, people whimsically flinging their hand going, "ah, who cares, 100mb here, 100mb there, it doesn't matter!". Its nice to see that the availability of gigs at disposal hasn't gone to the developers heads.

Personally, just between you and the rest of the forum, i think that HaikuOS has a lot better chance of challenging Windows on the desktop than Linux has. HaikuOS has a completely standardised setup from the ground up, a stable driver development kit, a great application development kit, a GUI which is easy to use and eye pleasing. It has everything going for it.

In terms of performing as a desktop operating system I agree without reservation. As a by-product of its very nature, I don't think Linux will ever be entirely fit for the desktop. The amount of messing around I'm having to do at this very moment in order to simply install VMware Player really reiterates that to me.

That said, I can't help but feel Linux has too much corporate support for Haiku to ever really trouble it, let alone Windows.

I really hope I'm wrong and acknowledge that there are a lot of people out there who desperately want a viable alternative to Windows, something which through the virtues of BeOS, Haiku has already proved it can be. Compared to Linux even today, BeOS was effortless in my experience, with my only qualm at the time being a lack of support for my sound card.

"As a by-product of its very nature, I don't think Linux will ever be entirely fit for the desktop. The amount of messing around I'm having to do at this very moment in order to simply install VMware Player really reiterates that to me."

Well, no OS is ready for the desktop, if you don't want to do any setting up.

I don't even want to *think* about all the work that needs to be done on a fresh installation of Windows XP to make it halfway decent. Dozens, if not hundreds, of settings scattered all over to change; hundreds of megabytes worth of updates; dozens of programs to install since virtually none of Windows' stock programs are worth using IMO; restart, restart, restart; defrag the drive because by now it's probably running like a slug.

Sure, some things *are* easier in Windows to the point of being a breeze, as your example of VMWare (which I have yet to get VMWare Server running in Linux myself), but really... can Linux really be at fault? Shouldn't it be the sole developer and maintainer of the program, VMWare? Surely they could, for example, at least provide a .deb file in addition to their .rpm (which never worked for me either) and bare .tar.gz.

Now we also have the Auckland Layout Model:
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~lutteroth/projects/alm/

I havn't played much with it myself yet, but it really rocks.

I wish I could mod you up more for pointing out the stupidity of, "My 16-core, 64 GB or RAM, 2 terabyte RAID 15 setup will be the norm... someday... maybe in the next century."

I'm not saying it won't happen, we shouldn't push the boundaries, or software shouldn't evolve, but I would like to see a little more efficiency in the programs I use.

It's pretty amazing what can happen when the entire kit is intelligently designed from the ground up.

Haiku on the Eee PC - I think I've just seen my personal mobile computing heaven :-)

BeOS really did a good job of making low powered hardware responsive; it booted crazy fast, it looked pretty, it acted like a modern solid desktop OS should.

Combining that with the Eee would be awesome :-) Expanding on that thought slightly, lets all hope and wish really hard that a hardware vendor thinks this too: with the new trend in cheap, lightweight, tiny laptop-like devices, software is one place where manufacturers can differentiate themselves. Imagine a hardware developer contributing to Haiku and shipping it as the native OS on a micro laptop, UMPC or internet tablet. Now pick your tongue back up off the desk

I'm not sure if you have a realistic time scale about Haiku's development. Maybe -- if we are lucky -- we'll have Alpha 1 this year, but I wouldn't bet on it.


No, they didn't. There's a source-level compatibility layer for FreeBSD network adapter drivers and there's an Open Sound System port (as a plug-in into Haiku's sound architecture) that provides support for additional sound drivers. Both were probably chosen for its license because GPL stuff is not welcome in the core OS. Haiku's license is the MIT License. FreeBSD's 2-clause license is basically the same as the MIT License and when OSS was ported, it was under the "non-viral" CDDL. Since a while OSS is also BSD licensed which fits Haiku even better.

AFAIK Syllable offers limited source-level compatibility with Linux drivers but I could be wrong.

I'm not sure if you have a realistic time scale about Haiku's development. Maybe -- if we are lucky -- we'll have Alpha 1 this year, but I wouldn't bet on it. "

I would be surprised if we don't see an alpha release before the end of the year. I suggest you take a look at the alpha milestone on Haiku's Trac. There's still work to be done, but a lot of progress has been made over the last few months. Self-hosting was the main requirement for an alpha release and if yesterday's story was any indication, it's a goal they're very close to accomplishing.

I'm sorry if I sound negative but I've read similar statements for the last two years.

"I'm sorry if I sound negative but I've read similar statements for the last two years."

Reading and seeing are two different things. I just used r23948 (the latest RAW version over at Haiku's website) and was quite impressed by how unstoppable it was. I had 10-12 apps all going at once and even tried copying a 1.7Gb folder at the same time. It just kept on going! The CPU usage never went crazy (massive slowdown) and the overall system seemed quite responsive no matter what I did!

Haiku has taken a long time (many years) to get to where it is today, but... to those, like me, who cherish each new perceivable bit of progress we can see and feel, it is well worth it.

Keep up the good work, boys... Haiku's beginning really pick up steam!

OSS is multi-licensed. It's under BSDL, GPL and CDDL. Strangely Haiku specifically uses the GPL, not CDDL/BSDL or multi-license. I asked in late January on the haiku-development mailing list why the GPL is used. I never got a reply. I don't know how the various parts of Haiku are connected internally but this could mean that Haiku is currently under GPL due the GPL's viral nature.


Syllable Server (uses a Linux kernel) has full Linux driver compatibility.

Please don't spread FUD like this...

The OSS port isn't officially in the Haiku repo. It wasn't really an official Haiku project. In the repo, there is essentially a media add-on module that translates from OSS to Haiku's media kit and reviewing all the source files, it is MIT-licensed code (not derived from OSS). The OSS port is actually a zipfile download of binaries that can be installed separately when you build Haiku (see the UserBuildConfig.sample). You clearly opened the text file in that directory and simply jumped to conclusions (when a quick glance at the code would have shown you the license).

In any case, the person to contact is mmu_man (Francois Revol) since he's the one that ported OSS.

And finally, even if the GPL OSS code was in the repo - that doesn't automatically make the entire OS GPL - you should maybe do some research on how this works. There *is* in fact TONS of GPL code in the repo...

Which part of "I don't know how the various parts of Haiku are connected internally" do you not understand? Stop accusing me of spreading FUD. Mkay? If I wanted to spread FUD, I obviously wouldn't confess my limited knowledge first.

The file "src/add-ons/media/media-add-ons/opensound/OpenSound_README.txt" in the Haiku source tree says:
"Released under GPL."
I asked a legitimate question on the haiku-development mailing list about what's the deal about this line and why the license change of OSSv4 is not reflected. When nobody answers me, it's not my fault.

You're right. It's mostly useful for network card drivers.

I read that 3DRealms is currently aiming at fall 2008 for the DN4E release. When Haiku 1.0 is ready by then, I'm happy.

I don't how you did it but I would be more than happy to run Haiku + firefox wirelesly. awesome!
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