Haiku Archive

Haiku Developers Discuss the Future

Haiku 56 Comments
Adrien Destugues sent an email to Haiku developers after the BeGeistert forum, addressing their inability to get R1 out the door, and proposed that they rededicate themselves to getting a beta out ASAP. He then asks a question that hangs above the heads of all developers of alternative and hobbyist OSes: is their goal "to create an operating system that specifically targets personal computing? Or have we evolved to the goal of a fun playground for OS-developers to play around with modern OS concepts?" He concludes ... "I do think that the PC-landscape has changed dramatically since the inception of the project, and I also underscore that there is a clear lack of focus when it comes to accomplishing our current mission. I would go so far as to say that the severe lack of interest of developers into finishing R1 is a great indication in that there really hardly seems to be any place for a new (mainstream?) desktop operating system anymore? Even the Linux on the desktop guys seem to have ceased preaching their gospel." That's some sober talk that's important for alternative OS fans to consider.
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Haiku debates kernel switch (but it’s not happening)

  Submitted by mikeanderson Haiku 96 Comments

A very interesting discussion is taking place in the Haiku mailing list right now. A developer has created a working prototype implementation of the BeOS API layer on top of the Linux kernel, and he is wondering if the project is worth pursuing. He's got the App, Interface and Networking Kits in good shape within a few months' work.

While there are some minor downsides to having the kits on top of Linux (or one of the BSDs), the upsides include all the drivers in the world (well, the gpu driver situation could be a tad better), a rock solid kernel that works on all kinds of devices (who says BeOS can't run on a phone, mine can), and a working BeOS clone with comparatively little effort (as a musical engineer, my biggest worry was sound system latencies, but it turns out many Linux schedulers can easily be tuned to handle the loads I expect in a BeOS system.)

I think the Haiku project made a monumental mistake in not using an existing kernel - it's simply no longer practical for a small project to keep up with the hardware evolution, handling security requirements and so on. Sad but true, and it was sad but true back in 2001.

A very interesting and in-depth discussion follows. Both 'sides' make a lot of compelling arguments, and it gives a lot of insight into decisions that went into the Haiku project, both past and present. For once, I have no clear opinion on this matter; both sides have merit, and it in the end comes down to what the actual developers want to work on (hint: it's not Linux).

Still, the developer in question will be putting up a repository of his Linux work, so we'll get to see what it's like.

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Interview: Haiku developer Pawel Dziepak.

  Submitted by Premislaus Haiku 68 Comments

My area of interest is broadly defined kernel development. In the spring of 2013 I implemented ASLR and DEP which caused minor confusion due to "activation" of bugs that have been hidden but I think that overall it worked out well for Haiku. Later I tinkered a bit with RTM (Restricted Transactional Memory), new extension introduced in Haswells but the code will need a lot of work before it will become usable. From October to mid-January, I was employed by Haiku, Inc. to work on the scheduler and adaptating Haiku for work on systems with more than one logical processor. Among other things, I got rid of the 8 processors limit, which was quite firmly rooted in the ABI inherited from BeOS.

Great interview with a low-level Haiku developer.

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Haiku improves its processor support

Haiku 43 Comments

In a blog post from Haiku developer Pawel Dziepak he describes the work he has been doing on improving processor support. Most notably removing the 8 processor limit. From the blog post:

The main scheduler logic has been completed and now I am concentrating mainly on bug fixes, adjusting tunables and some minor improvements. I also removed gSchedulerLock, a spinlock I mentioned in my last post, and replaced it with more fine grained locking. An new interfaces for cpufreq and cpuidle modules has been created together with a cpufreq module for Intel Sandy Bridge or newer cores and cpuidle module for all processors that support C-states and invariant TSC. Furthermore, IRQs (including MSI) can be now directed to an arbitrary logical processor. Implementation of inter-processor interrupts has been improved so that it avoids acquiring any lock if it is not necessary and supports multicast interrupts. And, last but not least, 8 processor limit has been removed.

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Haiku package management goes live

  Submitted by Alan Searchwell Haiku 13 Comments

I'm proud to announce that, at last, the package management branch has been merged into the main development line, aka master branch. The builds and nightly images from hrev46113 on will include the new feature.

I only notice now that I should probably have given Matt a heads-up upfront, since due to the somewhat changed build process the build bot will need an update. So there might be a bit of a delay until the first Haiku PM nightly images will hit the website. Sorry for that.

Onwards to beta 1.

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Haiku’s package management: the return of the hybrid

Haiku 22 Comments

Although I have been a lazy blogger lately we haven't been lazy working on our remaining tasks at all. So, unsurprisingly, since my previous post we have reached and passed a few nice milestones. The latest one is that we're finally able to build the gcc2/gcc4 hybrid Haiku images again, including all the software needed for the official release.

While that in itself isn't a particularly impressive feat - after all we were already able to build the complete gcc 2 part before - the interesting aspect is how we are doing it.

Interesting progress for Haiku.

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TuneTracker System 5 released with Haiku

Haiku 38 Comments
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
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Haiku gets ASLR and DEP

Haiku 34 Comments
"Starting with hrev45522, address space layout randomization (ASLR) and data execution prevention (DEP) are available in Haiku. These two features, which have actually become a standard in any modern OS, make it much harder to exploit any vulnerability that may be present in an application running on Haiku, thus generally improving system security."
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Hands-on with Haiku alpha 4

  Submitted by Straylight Haiku 35 Comments
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.
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Haiku edges toward general release

  Submitted by kragil Haiku 44 Comments
"Haiku, the open source re-creation of BeOS, threatens to become 'The Duke Nukem of operating systems', joked long-time contributor Ryan Leavengood. Actually, after eleven years of development, Haiku still falls four years short of Duke Nukem Forever's long delay, but few other projects have been so long in development. However, with the recent release of Alpha 4.1, Haiku is at last nearing general release." 2013 is going to be very exciting for Haiku.
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Haiku R1 alpha 4.1 bugfix release update

Haiku 18 Comments
Haiku R1/Alpha 4 had a couple critical bugs that were immediately identified and resolved shortly after release. These issues affected a significant number of users, and Haiku developers felt it made sense to do an Alpha 4.1 point release to provide a better experience for subsequent user downloads. The new download links and torrents have been provided, and they encourage people to update.
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Developer interview: how Haiku is building a better BeOS

Haiku 33 Comments
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.
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