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Haiku comes with a collection of software packages. They are either installed by default or you can install them with the "installoptionalpackage" command. You can read the list of optional software packages here:

http://git.newos.org/?p=haiku.git;a=blob;f=build/jam/OptionalPackag...


Haiku comes with "Media Player". It has playlist support. It can play every audio format I know of and most video formats I've tried. Although it is a native Haiku application, I THINK it is based on ffmpeg, but I might be remembering incorrectly. I don't know about feed readers since I don't use them.

As for native applications that I use, WebPositive is a great web browser, Media Player I already mentioned, WonderBrush is great for graphics, the Terminal is very comfortable (BASH), there is a nice text editor, and there is the Pe editor for editing source code. The only program I really want that is missing is a native instant messenger program, but there is a very nice IRC program. As far as I have seen, there aren't any games worth mentioning, but I haven't been looking for any.

A lot of work has been put into porting open source software to Haiku. For example, many many Qt4 applications work on Haiku. I haven't been interested in using them, but if you're interested, you can find more information by searching for "TiltOS".


I don't think you will upset anyone with your question. As far as I can tell, besides the Haiku developers, not many people have been writing native Haiku software. That makes sense to me, because there isn't really a "finished" operating system yet to program for.

Even so, I am an open source software developer myself, and have started working on some small Haiku projects simply because I find the API is SO AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL.

drcouzelis pointed out...

Fair enough.

drcouzelis pointed out...


So we could see this changing pretty quickly then? Great!

You can run some KDE apps, but they are not really native.

Is qt creator ported?

They should clearly transition to Qt being the native Haiku toolkit. It is very good, well supported and has lots of pre-existing code.

Nobody is really going to learn the BeOS API if they can write stuff in Qt and have it work on windows, linux and mac too.

Add multiuser support and it starts to look like a very nice OS. I wish they had left bash out though. Including it might lead to people actually writing bash scripts which is generally a Very Bad Thing(tm).

See haikuware.com

There is a twitter client there.
Lots of casual games (Tetris still rocks!)
Some multimedia Software like soundplay which btw. still rocks

I am using the file manager (tracker) and queries to keep my music and image collection up to date.
It needs perhaps a little bit time to kind of "convert" your collection to this system of classification but you won't want to miss it if you once have it.

VLC is there for anyone having problems with video playback and the media player (please report a bug if its so)
and for Office there is a Koffice Port aswell as some other qt4 based applications.

Leszek Lesner reminded...

Oh! I'd forgotten about that site...I was thinking about BeBits when I asked my question, and quite frankly the sad degradation and bit-rotting of that site made me think no one else cared about BeOS or Haiku any more. Nice to see there are still some holding the fort down as Haiku ramps up for its R1!

I'll have to ransack the site after I get Haiku installed later...

--bornagainpenguin

There are of course tools to help extract media attributes and put them in the filesystem. Never leave for the media tag jungle without The Army Knife :0)

http://haikuware.com/directory/view-details/system-files/tracker-ad...

Really ?! you got me

Anyay, instead of asking what does Haiku can do, may be you should tell what you are trying to do. It's an Alpha2 version... it's for testing purpose.

Ikshaar suggested...

I'd like to test Haiku as a daily driver for my eeepc 901, as a possible replacement for the Ubuntu I currently have installed. I know, I know it's only Alpha yet. Still you can't really test out an operating system without adding some applications, so I was wondering if there had been anything written over the last few years as Haiku became closer and closer to a reality.

--bornagainpenguin

I don't know, the hardware is yours. Burn it if you want

Seriously, now is the hour to you play or help (it's an alpha, remember)



Yes, after the alpha 01, and with Haiku gaining stability, the developers are slowly coming back. More OS stability = rock solid apps


I never imagine that someone use news feeder these days, but you can take a look at BePodder
http://www.haikuware.com/directory/view-details/internet-network/ne...
or Album
http://www.haikuware.com/directory/view-details/multimedia/graphics...

The MediaPlayer from Haiku do the task very well for MP3


Here comes to an area that have some progress lately
Widelands
http://www.haikuware.com/directory/view-details/games/strategy/wide...
Heroes Of Might and Magic II
http://www.haikuware.com/directory/view-details/games/role-playing/...
Netpanzer
http://www.haikuware.com/directory/view-details/games/strategy/netp...
Wormux
http://www.haikuware.com/remository/view-details/games/2d/wormux-09...
Jagged Alliance 2 - Stracciatella
http://www.haikuware.com/directory/view-details/games/role-playing/...
to name a few...
Sadly, 3D games doesn't work yet (even win95 do)

What is there for Haiku that isn't poorly optimized code from ten years ago or a port from Linux or *BSD?
What "open source software" means to you? Now only because an app is open is because is a linux 'native'?
But I have something to show you
HaikuTwitter
http://www.haikuware.com/directory/view-details/internet-network/ch...
Seems very native for me, not? It's a best piece of Haiku functionality, a **f--kING AWESOME** app



So give a try!

Edited 2010-05-10 17:29 UTC

Would you happen to know an mp3 ENCODER that works on Haiku? The player seems to work quite well, but haven't found an encoder that works.

Michael Oliveira replied...

The kind of feed reader I mean is something like Liferea or Straw, particularly Straw truth be told, as it has the killer feature of being able to cache feeds for offline reading, text, images and all. Currently it is the only feed reader capable of doing so in Linux and has been slowly wasting and bit-rotting away...

Michael Oliveira boasted...


Whoa! I'm still impressed! I didn't imagine there had been any games available (besides the ubiquitous DOOM or QUAKE ports.)

Michael Oliveira boasted...


I don't use Twitter much (or at all) but this is something I'll have to look into. There seems to be much more movement in Haiku than I anticipated!

--bornagainpenguin

EDIT - fixed dangling tag

Edited 2010-05-10 19:04 UTC

I am at present what could be called a Haiku fanboi, but I have the same question (: As other commenters have pointed out, there are definitely examples of new software being developed. The question is, how many new programs are there? What sort of programs are still waiting to be written? How many old ones are still nice to use?

I've been rooting around http://www.haikuware.com/ and http://www.bebits.com/
Once I install Alpha 2 and start playing with all the software that is out there on the sites above and in the "Optional Packages" collection, I'll start to get an idea as to what's good, both old and new.

Hopefully it's not all "from ten years ago." Even if that's the case, however, sometimes those programs are clean and useful and well-designed. I believe BeAE (found on Haikuware in the Multimedia/Audio/Audio Editing section) is an open source version of a venerable program written many years ago for BeOS. I've yet to test it out though. I am especially interested in what's availabe for sound recording and editing. I understand this was one of the primary uses of the BeOS. (And, it would seem, still is. See iZ Systems RADAR.)

[I realize Haikuware was mentioned in an earlier comment, but I don't think repeating the link can hurt.]

At the moment, Haiku still somewhat suffers from the chicken-and-egg problem of software and users. It's not completely devoid of useful software, as other people have shown, but the situation definitely isn't great, so may not yet be something the average person wants to use.

Still, there's a few positives to be found.

It has a half-decent modern web browser. No, the web isn't going to replace all native software anytime soon, but a modern web-browser can make a system functional and useful, even without all the other bits.

Compared to other platforms, there *is* software, both in terms of native software and ports. Yes, some of it is a decade old, but there is quite a bit of it out there.

It has a well-established consistent reasonably stable API with no aversion to closed-source or commercial software. As a bonus, quite a few developers already know it from the first time around. All of this should help encourage developers.

So while it may not be ideal today, Haiku shows quite a bit of promise in this direction. There's still a long way to go, but there's a lot of potential.

Well if you are a developer there is good news. The Free Pascal Compiler (FPC) supports Haiku (and about 18 other platforms), and the Lazarus IDE works under Haiku too. So developing new modern software would not be a problem at all. FPC can rival any compiler and language out there with features and speed.

I am even considering creating a Haiku backend for my fpGUI Toolkit project. I must be honest, this was the first time I looked at Haiku, but so far I like it a lot, and will definitely spend some more time getting to know the OS better.

Kudos to the Haiku developers!

What you find largely depends on what you're looking for. For example, while I was for years what some would consider a notable Haiku developer, I'm more into checking in patches and stuff now, *but* I actively develop programs for Haiku, like the IDE I've been working on called Paladin. There are other active community developers as well, but I'll be the first to admit that there aren't very many. The photo manager Album has seen a recent release, for example.

Some software has been around for a while but works quite well. BePodder is a great example. Quite a lot of available software is open source (some of it very well -written) that the original developer has moved on to greener pastures.

Right now, Haiku as an operating system just needs developers, both on the project itself and in the community developing applications. I've been writing a series of lessons for people who've wanted to learn to program, but never had the time or someone to teach them or whatever. I'm no genius, so if I could learn to write code using the BeOS (and now Haiku) API. why not someone else?

Anyone who wants to get hold of some good software should go over to Haikuware (http://www.haikuware.com) and download some stuff. There's lots of good stuff over there!