Haiku: A Perfect Desktop Operating System?
Linked by bcavally on Mon 21st Dec 2009 17:18 UTC
BeOS & Derivatives Today there are many operating systems available. Every vendor or community round it tries to make it as good as possible. Having different goals, different legacy and different cultures, they succeed in it more or less. We (end users) end up with big selection of operating systems, but for us the operating systems are usually compromise of the features that we would like to have. So is there an operating system that would fit all the needs of the end user? Is is the BeOS clone Haiku?
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boldingd
Member since:
2009-02-19

What annoyed me the most was that if the complaints weren't followed up with contributions I could understand why the developers would be unhappy. The reality that I not only complained but I wrote a 70+ page PDF outlining how GIMP could be improved with UI mock ups and so forth. I was booted out of the GIMP IRC development channel then banned - really shows the pathetic immaturity of the GIMP developers.


Honestly... I think the problem there might have been trying to submit a 70-page PDF full of ideas/suggestions/complaints rather than patches.

I pretty much gave up on the *NIX world when in 8/9 years since Mac OS X release there has been but only moderate improvements have occured in the *NIX world. Still riddled with Xorg, still riddled with two desktops that does a lot things but very poorly, and the applications are no further ahead when it comes to ease of use and general visual appeal.


The problems caused by X, KDE and Gnome, while real, are also highly exagerated. I'll repeat it again, X has improved dramatically recently, even if it still isn't perfect yet. X is not inherantly flawed, it just needs to grow the facilities that a good Desktop graphical environment needs. And that's happening! (If slowly.)

I actually have more hope in Haiku-OS turning into the operating system people want - the only thing holding it back is hardware support. Once the basis of Haiku-OS is laid then it is easy to move it to a multi-user system and update the underlying display engine, couple that with drivers - I can see software vendors more willing to support a niche operating system that isn't a mish-mash of different competing technologies, a single desktop with a single widget kit.


You know, you're likely right, but I think that'd be more the success of the FOSS model in general than the failure of Linux in particular.

Reply Parent Score: 2

kaiwai Member since:
2005-07-06

Honestly... I think the problem there might have been trying to submit a 70-page PDF full of ideas/suggestions/complaints rather than patches.


Which is why GIMP keeps limping along like it is - any improvements have to be developed in a formal, logical and coherent manner rather than the current situation of today where ideas are thrown against the wall in a hope that they would stick.

Formal development process includes creating a working document with specifications, getting feedback, making modifications, submitting the paper back to the community, get further feedback - parts which are mature are gradually pulled out into development during that period of peer review.

Simply throwing stuff against a wall results in a incoherent mess with no attention paid to how one change in an area impacts the over all functionality and usability; the change in the UI in one part and how it impacts on the over all usability.

Given the reception I was given - I hope that those programmers don't work in a large institution because I fear what their software looks like.

The problems caused by X, KDE and Gnome, while real, are also highly exagerated. I'll repeat it again, X has improved dramatically recently, even if it still isn't perfect yet. X is not inherantly flawed, it just needs to grow the facilities that a good Desktop graphical environment needs. And that's happening! (If slowly.)


X is here, there are solutions but how many vendors rely on Xorg and how many of them contribute back given the importance it plays within a usable *NIX desktop and server operating system. Xorg can be corrected without throwing out major parts of it but the number who contribute aren't sufficient to do the heavy lifting. Take the move away from HAL - why is there still debate on the issue? why hasn't the libudev code been merged? why is OpenSolaris still struggling along on HAL instead of using the hotplug functionality built into OpenSolaris instead?

You know, you're likely right, but I think that'd be more the success of the FOSS model in general than the failure of Linux in particular.


I'd say it is actually more a success of FOSS when the development is based off a fixed set of specifications than aimlessly wondering along bumping into things as with the case of GIMP. When you have a set of specifications, you know what you're aiming towards. Wine has the win32 specifications and documentation provided by Microsoft, Haiku-OS has the BeOS specifications via the numerous pieces of documentation.

The problem is when you have ground up products like GIMP and developers who don't want to do the formal documentation required; the writing of specifications, the submission, the collating of feedback, the critiquing of design - the fact that such a process might take up to 6 months before even a line of code is written. It is like watching a person jumping straight into painting their house and failing to prepare the surface before hand. The result is a job that only lasts 5 years instead of the usual 8-10 years.

Spend some time preparing as to avoid making decisions that come back to haunt you in the future.

Edited 2009-12-24 01:36 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 2