Haiku Could Change the World
Linked by Razvan T. Coloja on Mon 3rd Jan 2011 23:30 UTC
BeOS & Derivatives To understand what the BeOS and Haiku operating systems are, we first must remember that BeOS was developed with the multimedia user in mind. BeOS wanted to be what OS X has become today: an easy to use, attractive operating system. However, BeOS was a niche OS, destined for the media-hungry user. The percentage of audio and video applications available for Haiku is greater than the one in Linux, OS X or Windows, and the inner workings of the operating system were created in such a way, that the same multimedia passionate would find it easy to work with the user interface and files. Each application can interfere with other applications of its kind. A WAVE file selection can be dragged from a sound editor and onto the desktop, to create an audio file. Audio applications can interfere with each other via the Haiku Media Kit -- the corespondent of a Linux sound server. Applications like Cortex are a perfect example of how BeOS and Haiku deal with multimedia files: you can have more than one soundcard and use each one of those soundcards independently or separately. You can link one soundcard to the Audio Mixer, start a drum machine application and link that software to the Audio Mixer. If you want to output whatever you create with the audio application, all you have to do is drag the microphone and link it to the application's icon in Cortex.
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xaeropower
Member since:
2005-12-16

Lack of multiuser on desktops? So you mean winxp, win7 with terminal server enabler patch is a good "multiuser desktop" environment?

Besides privilege elevation, daemons which run with other UIDs, a desktop envi does not need multiuser mode.

I noticed its possible to add other users on Haiku and su in with them then run programs or ssh in so its still there.

For first test the 2 things I didn't like was WebPositive crashing like hell (some case have to kill the bg process otherwise it wouldn't resolve hosts anymore) and the vmware 7 audio card is not recognized so I can't test the sound.

The blog entry is great so as this OS. Keep up the good work and keep it simple.

Someone also wrote that its just another crappy linux distro, its not but from those I srsly had enough. I don't even bother spending any time anymore on testing new garbage like Zenwalk because there is no reason to do so and the online package repos might just die out for good for a version after 3 months then you can go QQing to their forums with 5 active users...

Some day during the holidays I had to use a compiler environment which was installed in ubuntu interpid then noticed that the distro is obsolete and deleted out from the archives as well so the "just works tm" no longer applies for apt-get. Thats exactly what describes these small crappy linux distros.

Their only use is to build targeted stuff from it like net sharing gws, webservers what you install once then runs for 5 years.

Linux desktop setups can be very reliable but over the years I saw the exact opposite, for example old SuSe distros were crashing more than windows did (even tho the kernel was still running in the background but the deep consoles + X completely died). Not to mention the DBUS screw ups which still causing applications misbehave, crash, disappear from gnome toolbar. Throw in next to this more automated crap like avahi daemon, hald, udevd and you might just hope your ubuntu desktop won't die at next update ;)
At least most of these dbus "issues" are fixable with rming .gnome2 specific dirs from your home but some user reinstall the whole OS for sure.

Reply Parent Score: 1

nt_jerkface Member since:
2009-08-26

Besides privilege elevation, daemons which run with other UIDs, a desktop envi does not need multiuser mode.


So you are fine with desktops always booting to root?

(complaints about Linux distros)


The Linux desktop has issues that need to be resolved like updates which is why I have said that it needs to bake for 3-4 years. Haiku would take even longer and would be a major step back in security. New systems should provide greater privilege separation, not less. They should have forked FreeBSD and added a Haiku like interface on top. I understand coding for fun but....a single user, 32 bit system? Why not build upon all the work that has gone into improving *Nix security models?

Reply Parent Score: 2

Neolander Member since:
2010-03-08

So you are fine with desktops always booting to root?

There are other security models than multiple users. In my opinion, an capability-based and app-centric security model would be a better fit for desktop use.

They should have forked FreeBSD and added a Haiku like interface on top. I understand coding for fun but....a single user, 32 bit system? Why not build upon all the work that has gone into improving *Nix security models?

They wanted BeOS compatibility, and it'd have been hard to provide that starting from a FreeBSD fork. Besides, current Unices are not necessarily perfect for desktop use (monolithic kernels, scheduling not targeting responsiveness, user/admin security model...), so it's not necessarily bad to see a new breed of kernels better suited for that, even though it means that progress will be much slower.

Edited 2011-01-04 17:43 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 2

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Sauron Member since:
2005-08-02

(and the vmware 7 audio card is not recognized so I can't test the sound. )

Install the OSS Driver package from Haikuware.com and sound works perfectly in VMWare 7. Card is detected as (ES137x).

Reply Parent Score: 1