After eight years of hard work, the day has finally arrived. Today, September 14, the Haiku project has released its very first alpha release. With the goal of recreating one of the most beloved operating systems in history, the BeOS, they took on no small task, but it seems as if everything is finally starting to come together. Let's talk about the history of the BeOS, where Haiku comes from, and what the Alpha is like.
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Member since:2007-01-22
well, that's the problem. There is no OS that you can point to called linux. Linux is just one part (and hidden) of a system that can look and act like almost anything. It can be fast, it can be slow, it can be simple or complex...there's no single platform that developers can rely on and say "this is what linux is, this is what it will be like." That's a problem that won't go away after time and zillions of developers.
8 years ago people said "what's the point of Haiku? linux will be everything you want and take over the world!" Well, they couldn't because you can't make a user friendly OS by cobbling many different parts together from different groups. So we are here today and Haiku is still relevant because it is the one OS that is open source *and* unified.
Member since:2005-07-06
Thank you. It should be noted that Haiku have far more developers and contributors than Syllable does, sadly.
Why? The installation process is transparent to you as a user and if we split the base package up into separate packages, you'd have to install all of them anyway so the same files would end up on disc just as they do now.
Member since:2008-01-07
I was thinking the same, it's sad that despite greater maturity and usability of Syllable, I'm waiting for Haiku simply because it promises(?) me BeOS experience. I feel that Syllable should try harder to get an Amiga feel (which it's also inspired by). I read in Haiku website that Haiku and Syllable have both almost same motives, unfortunately the can't merge it.
Member since:2005-07-06
Hi Vanders,
I'm always glad to see you posting on here - it's really nice to see a real lead developer's opinions.
I'm not sure if this is the appropriate forum in which to ask; I have no wish to troll or to hijack the discussion. But I do wonder what the pros and cons of Syllable are, when compared to Haiku? Particularly from a architectural perspective. Not that I doubt that they exist, just that they're not immediately obvious to me.
I *had* thought that BeOS (and therefore Haiku) was a microkernel but I'm told this is not the case (allegedly it's a hybrid kernel, which in my usage of the terminology is a variant on monolithic since everything still shares the same address space). Syllable is, AFAIK, monolithic too?
If the answers are "for variety" or "for fun" or "because Syllable has more flexibility in development direction", those would all be fair enough. I'm just curious as to what other considerations there are.
I apologise for asking this here; I think it's somewhat relevant to the discussion, though. It's not my intention to question the excellent work you've done on the project. If this is more suitable for the Syllable (or even Haiku) forums, I can take my questions there.
Thanks,
Mark
Member since:2006-12-06
Understand that I'm coming at this as someone who's never coded, just an end-user who relies on personal computers in his daily life for work and pleasure, and has felt the impact different operating systems can have on that aspect of my life.
People use personal computers for.. personal computing: writing documents & e-mails, web browsing, work stuff, pics, music, videos, games. All of which they would find pretty difficult if they couldn't actually see anything their computer did.
The fact that graphics/windowing isn't even part of *nix but of "third-party" packages like X.org just demonstrates *nix was not designed for modern personal computing, the primary purpose of modern personal computers.
A system designed from the get-go for modern personal computing would not have to rely on graphics/windowing system from others as an afterthought. It would have it on the drawing board from day one. BeOS had that. And so has Syllable. (Shame on me for forgetting about them. Must check out their latest version.)
And not having been designed for it, the end-user eventually suffers (just watch me when I'm dumped to a blinking cursor!) We can play the blame game (and I too am not a great fan of X.org) but that doesn't change the fact end-users still suffer, and it happens largely because a very basic requirement of modern personal computing was not a requirement of Unix and so not part of its clones/heirs.
Which is why I'm pretty tired of them. Roll on, Haiku. Roll on, Syllable.
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it."I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)"."The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight.""And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.
Member since:
2006-12-05
Huh? Linux was designed as a general-purpose kernel, which started with features that were excellent for servers. Fair enough. Even so, performance can be quite good for desktops. Ironically, in my experience it seems that the fastest of all distros usually *don't* use X.org... coincidence? I doubt it. That said, I recently saw an article on Slashdot about the Linux kernel getting features to improve its performance on the desktop.
What I would really like to see is X.org fixing its problems (ie. speed/latency and requirement of running as root) on the desktop. I honestly think the biggest performance gains are to be found by fixing the display server... not the kernel. Though I'm sure kernel mode-setting will help some too (at least with switching resolutions and starting the server, I would guess).
Note: I'm not very familiar with the BSDs, but I'm sure it's the same there. I doubt that their kernels are that big of a drag on performance, and it's probably X over there too.
By the way, Syllable seems to be an interesting operating system to keep an eye on, for similar reasons as Haiku: Small and fast. I really wish they'd do away with the "thousands of files packed into one massize .zip file" installation method though, and use separate files for each package...