Haiku Archive

Ars 'reviews' Haiku, and concludes that "at the end of the day, Haiku may not be much more than an interesting diversion, something to play with on a spare bit of hardware on a rainy afternoon just for a bit of fun. But even if it amounts to no more than that, Haiku is still worth checking out." The article is a bit scant on content, but it does give me the opportunity to link to my review of Haiku alpha 1 from 3 years ago. I try Haiku every now and then to see if that review needs an update, but it always amounts to 'it got a bit more stable' - which is fantastic, but not a reason to redo it.

Can you believe they've come this far by now? Once known as OpenBeOS, Haiku today announced the release of the fourth alpha for Haiku R1. It seems like only yesterday when BeOS died and OpenBeOS rose form its ashes, generating a new hope among the legions of avid BeOS fans. Now, almost twelve years later, we've hit the fourth alpha.

BeOS may be dead, but over a decade after its lamentable demise the open source Haiku project keeps its legacy alive. Haiku is an attempt to build a drop-in, binary compatible replacement for BeOS, as well as extending the defunct OS's functionality and support for modern hardware. At least, that's the short-term goal - eventually, Haiku is intended significantly enhance BeOS while maintaining the same philosophy of simplicity and transparency, and without being weighed down with the legacy code of many other contemporary operating systems. Computerworld Australia recently caught up with Stephan Assmus, who has been a key contributor to the project for seven years for a lengthy chat about BeOS, the current state of Haiku and the project's future plans.

"During the coding period, I will first work on the boot loader. I intend to modify the existing x86 boot loader so that it is capable of loading both a 32-bit Haiku kernel and a 64-bit one. Once this is done, I will work on implementing the x86_64 architecture functionality in the kernel. Finally, I will port modules and drivers to the 64-bit kernel. Should I have time, I will also begin work on porting userland." Heck. Yes.

"So... I have finally gotten around to finishing the Haiku tutorial I set out to complete over a year ago. I was hoping to have it done sooner, but I decided to then prolong graduation for another year. However, my thesis project has been a rocking success, and you can finally see the fruits of my labors. This production should be incorporated into the project as official tutorial material." Okay so yeah it's a tad bit cheesy, but heck, it's BeOS, so shut up.

This article provides a brief overview of the Haiku operating system from a programmer's point of view, with sample code for an inter-application communication application. The Haiku API is simple and powerful and by the end of this article you will be able to use a variety of objects to write your own Haiku applications. Some C or C++ coding experience is useful.