Haiku Lite
I am a Windows Refugee that is considering Haiku but am also realistic enough to realize that this is a work in progress. As a result only want to develop small application specific software until things get finalized.
With Windows 9X my co developers and I were able to reduce all versions significantly. Our favorite ver was Win95B since it did not have the early flaws of A and the IE bloat of C. We were able to get basic sizes of around 5-10 MB.
Have read that the first version of Haiku will be essentually BeOS5 so would like to start working with a minimal install of BeOS. Have done a number of searches but have been unable to find any documentation as to the minimum necessary files to get a working BeOS5 with GUI.
Appreciate any suggestions or tips.
Gene OHara
Comments
Re: Haiku Lite
For the system to start you must have the kernel_intel, libroot.so, libbe.so, the app_server, disk drivers, PCI bus drivers, mouse/keyboard drivers and a few other things. These add up to a few megs.
However, a working system customised to run just on your own hardware, minus MIDI and joysticks support, is around 17MB. You won't get it as low as a 95 install, but you'll have to admit that the 95 install was completely useless at 10MB - BeOS is still very usuable at 17MB.
You can easily make a 100MB Zipdisk install of BeOS R5, even with the addition of extra software. Unfortunately you can't boot BeOS off a USB key :-(
Haiku Lite
MYOB,
Yes the 5-10MB Win95B were custom builds for specific hardware. The lowest figure was for apps that needed no Dlls like Solitaire, but it only took a few Large Dlls to get it over 10MB.
Do you have a File List for your 17MB BeOS? Am especially interested in the Core System Files that are needed for all or most hardware.
Thanks
Gene
Haiku Lite
this will also be important when I get Haiku running on Dreamcast. It only has 16MB RAM. But then again, it only needs a few custom drivers. No IDE, or PCI.
Edit: Don't ask when it will be ready, cause I've not even started. I've got as far as taking a look at NewOS on dreamcast, and it's borked. :x
Haiku Lite
Have been searching for info on BeOS File names and what they do. That way I am not totally guessing when decide to delete specific files.
The best I have found so far is this http://www.beatjapan.org/mirror/www.be.com/documentation/user_docs/app_b...
Only problem it is for BeOS 3 am wondering if there is an updated one for BeOS 5? I only have BeOS 5 PE so hope it may be included in the Pro or Developer Docs.
Gene
Required files for booting
You probably want to look at /boot/beos/bin/makebootfloppy - it's a script that copies all neccessary files from your computer to disk; if you know your way around PC hardware you'll able to tell (in most cases, I guess) what to keep and what to throw out.
Also, for a full system you'll need most of the stuff in /boot/beos/system/lib, e.g. libtracker.so, libbe.so (~1.5M, IIRC), libtextencoding.so, libnet/bind/socket, and some other things. You'll need the boot script, /bin/sh and various others...
Basically, just start off with the default /boot/beos folder and start deleting things you know you can be without; last time I looked at it, it wasn't possible to fit in BeOS w/ Tracker and Deskbar on an 1.44M floppy, but I believe it'd be possible on a 2.88M one, so you'll definitely have a usable system in ~5M.
If you're not going to use Tracker and Deskbar, i.e., some kind of embedded system running only one app at a time, you can remove libtracker.so/Tracker/Deskbar, but you need to add the BFilePanel class and various helpers from libtracker.so (get them from the OpenTracker sources) to your own library named libtracker.so. It's used in Open/Save dialogues.
Re: Required files for booting
But BFS itself would eat around 1MB of the 2.88MB disk...
tracker+deskbar+appserver+kernel+basic drivers would bring you over 2.88 anyway, ignoring the BFS headers
However, BeOS on a 100MB Zip disk or an LS-120 is easily done. It'd even fit on a 16MB USB stick if we could boot off USB - but R5 can't
Re: genosmm
I've got just the thing for you. A friend of mine in the community named Ken Olsen has actually done what you're describing. I don't remember if the file list includes drivers, but if it doesn't, that's the only variable in the whole thing.
http://darkwyrm.beemulated.net/downloads/MinimumBeOS.txt
Hope this helps. :)
--DarkWyrm