The folks at Haiku have put out another newsletter, with two more articles from the series on coding Replicants, and another editorial from the quotable MJP.
New Haiku Newsletter
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Even with my opera browser maximised on my 1152×864 display, the text didn’t fit in the width of the screen. bleh
I think he overdid this time. Bringing religion into a newsletter is just too much.
they should have created thumnails for their images so their page layout didn’t get so messed up.
BeOS is an interesting operating system thats intrigued me for a long time, but i have to say the gui of it is horrid. And from what i understand because the gui is essentially directly part of the underlying kernel you cant swap in another one which is too bad.
Its also unfortunate that so many good programmers are putting their time into recreating old operating systems like BeOS and even Amiga rather then pooling the best and the worst of each to create a next generation open source operating system.
And frankly i honestly dont understand why this is the case.
Boy that page must be hell to load on a dialup. Im also gathering that the people that created it were using a seriously large screen size which i know some computer types do to allow for more information to fit.
But yeesh.
I do like all of the code they include though. Thats kind of cool!
I don’t know what you mean about the gui being horrid (I think it is one of the most elegent guis ever created); but as far as I understand it, the entire Operating system is modular. You can easily kill off deskbar (the start-menu like button) and tracker (file browser and desktop) and replace them with another; I just don’t know of anybody that has.
first they got the page real bad
it’s not usually like that with those news letter.
I each time really like to read Phipps, he’s one of the most intelligent thinker in the OS world (i can’t comment on him as a coder).
For those that want to learn about BeOS/Haiku, those news letters added to the old Be inc one are an incredible source of information that beat any OS doc that i know.
On the “old os re-creation”, do you realy beleive OSX,Gnome and company and Windows are that new? Not for me. Plan 9 is, uninumium is etc… BeOS R5 cloning is not the goal, it’s a necessary checkpoint to be able to expand on it. And yes lot of work is already been done on such a post R5 OS.
If you want an OS to be revolutionary, having more coder will not help at the desing stage. It will only help at an implementation stage.
If the page layout is a problem – it was for me on a PBook – just grab the printabe version. Takes less time than posting here about the layout!
As regards the BeOS GUI, it does look a little dated these days but it just worked If I could I would be running it again just because it was so much fun!
Don’t all browsers support “Fit to window width”? It was a simple ‘CTRL-F11’ for me, and presto, perfect fit.
Opera.
Whoa! Nice! Ihad completelyoverlooked that feature of opera. One more win for that browser
That was about the most silly comment I’ve read here. If you bother to look it up, you’d notice that Haiku/Zeta/Phos is themable.
Besides, many would claim you different and say that the BeOS GUI is brilliant, which also might explain why there is at least one distro based on the Linux kernel.
To me personally, the Dano UI is the sweetest one I’ve seen so far, and if I can choose from that to KDE, Gnome, Windows, OSX… I’d easily choose the Dano layout as well as the way Dano works.
Still, I’m unsure why I answer you at all, you’re obviously one of many OSNews readers who are not at all interested in diversity of Operating systems…
I dont personally like the gui of beos. I’ve also only seen one theme probably so maybe its just the theme that i dont like.
But rather then making completely useless criticisms and attacks towards me why not offer some links to new themes and whatnots that I can look at.
I’m very open to alternative operating systems and even played around with BeOS Personal Edition a few years back and liked it very much. But for me a gui has to work in a certain way and look a certain way. For me OSX is probably one of the nicest guis ive seen. ANd lately VidaLinux is my favorite gui.
For others gui is less important. Different strokes for different folks.
I just searched for BeOS Dano and found some images. I must say thats VERY nice although the windowsish taskbar is a tad annoying. But still. Thats considerably better then the last screen shots i saw of what was most certainly an older version of the operating system.
If anybody is still reading these comments where can I get a copy of this version so I can play around with it???
Thanks.
Thanks, I noticed that too, but wasn’t sure if it was worth the compromise. If I make thumbnails, then you have to open new windows to see the images in their proper coolness. OTOH, it makes the paragraphs really wide. I’ll consider doing thumbnails next time…thanks for the input, folks.
Kev
> I think he overdid this time. Bringing religion into a
> newsletter is just too much.
But that’s the problem; he *didn’t* bring religion into it. He didn’t mention the obvious fact that the reason most those Mennonites help eachother raise barns is because they fear displeasing their Master. Most very likely help their neighbors not because they are “good people”, but because they don’t want to go to the place they think of as Hell. The rest probably do it due to peer pressure, and then there might be a few stragglers that actually do it to help their fellow earthlings.
he finally writes:
Our little community is like those Mennonite Barn Raisers. When we all band together to work on something, we can get a huge job done in short time. Working separately, our crops will rot before the first barn is completed.
Hmm… the Open-Sourcers tend to be doing it because they want a high-quality product developed in an open way. The Free-Software folks tend to be doing what they do because they believe it’s the right thing to do — they tend to care much more about the philosophical issues of freedom involved.
I wish the Haiku project luck, as much as anyone else here. And I figure they’re doing a lot of good work. However, it sounds like that article is appealing to the FSF types, and I thought only Open-Sourcers were working on Haiku (it’s, of course, an MIT-licensed project).
The Dano GUI is almost exactly the same as the R5 GUI, except for colring and the tab on the left side of the window…
Do you say it is bad because it doesn’t have drop shadows, effects, etc? This is not what makes a GUI.
Also, you may want to search Google for Scott Hacker’s “BeOS Bible”, it has a wealth of information, including easter eggs for different themes you could use from R4.5
As a previous BeOS enthusiast I must say that Be Inc managed to create an incredible OS and great User Interface. Judging a UI on a few screenshots is impossible, the nature of judging an interface is you actaully have to interface with it. While it’s UI may not be as ‘pretty’ as current interface designs, it’s usability is still better in many categories then Linux desktops, Mac OS X, and Windows….
That said, the comments claiming that UI features such as drop shadows and effects are useless eyecandy also show a lack in understanding of user interface. Such effects can be used to make an interface not only more pleasing to the eye but also more intuitive and allow you to complete tasks faster (for example expose).
This isn’t about Free vs Open, it’s about the BeOS community.
My interpretation:
The crop is the future of “BeOS”, Haiku and/or Zeta are the barns and the Mennonites are the user/dev community.
The BeOS community is divided over whether or not YellowTAB and their BeOS R6-beta (codenamed “Dano” by Be, Inc.) -based Zeta is a good thing or a bad thing. (The preview releases of Zeta could have used more quality assurance, and less glitz) And, from the Zeta POV, I presume, whether or not Haiku can deliver on time.
I believe the rift is largely in the user community. Some of the Haiku developers are also Zeta users and at least one (that I know of) is employed by YellowTAB. There are parts of Haiku in YellowTAB, Haiku being MIT-licensed. So there is possible synergy. YellowTAB is for-profit, Haiku is non-profit.
I believe Michael is trying to say it’s OK to be using Zeta. If your old barn (BeOS R5) doesn’t cut it anymore, or you just plain prefer Zeta, it’s OK. It doesn’t hurt Haiku. We’re still one community. Plus, with the BeGeistert devcon coming up and Michael coming to Europe, it’s a sign of good faith and cooperation. YellowTAB is based in Germany, as are some of the most active Haiku developers.
If you’re a BeOS developer/user (whatever flavor you prefer) BeGeistert/Duesseldorf is where you want to be on the 2nd and 3rd of April.
Of haiku newsletter publishers who permanently expects than everyone has 1600*1200 (or such) screen resolution at least:(