Please Don't Ruin Haiku

As far as I know, you can do this in the deskbar preferences.

I agree almost 100% here. I think that there should be one root and one normal account, even if its a family computer. On the family computer I use, no one cares which user account their using, just so long as they can get done what they want. You could just simply make different user document folders.

Tho I'll probably never use a tablet, I hope Haiku can get to tablets and possibly phones, but if they do, I hope they use a different interfaces, because a tablet interface was NOT meant for a desktop. We could have the user select an option at install that asks whether they are using a tablet or desktop. For desktop, keep the interface the way it is, where the interface gets out of the way to let you work. For tablets, we could get trade the deskbar for a start screen that is separated into apps, preferences, documents or similar. For tablets, we could also just have the apps be automatically zoomed(possibly full screened), enlarge and autohide the toolbars, and generally make the apps more touch friendly. This way, the desktop will get out of the way to allow for productivity, while the tablet will be touch friendly without causing the need for a complete reprogram of the app for the tablet/desktop.

Everything else I agree with and I think Haiku could be the best OS that ever lived. :)

i do agree 100% with you, Linux, as in kernel) is nice and all but GNU/Linux is a mess since the dawn of the age... i do believe that once lightworks is released as open source there will be a chance of getting more software available to haiku and gnu/linux. Intel has been writing open source drivers for its Intel HD gfx (Sandy bridge and Ivy bridge) on mesa porting those will grant us OpenGL 3.0 (+ or - complete). Then it's possible to get better games and perhaps some proprietary drivers from nvidia (though it isn't gona happen).

So no way that Haiku will get ruined.

You should upload your results to HaikuPorts in order for your changes to available to others who might wish to have a go.

You should also check out the Common Problems page, which might be of help.

I have an older version of emacs built that I never added to the ports repo(somewhere in the 23.3 range). I still maintain the patch against the current repo but emacs is getting a runtime error now. Eventually I'll either upload the older version or try to fix the current development branch.

If you just need something emacs-like in the meantime, jed can be built pretty easily. I do have patches for both slang and jed but I don't think they are required to build it. I also have jasspa microemacs built and stashed away somewhere but I generally use jed.

I absolutely agree, I love haiku and i absolutely adored BeOS when it came out too, what a refreshing change it was!! I wish someone would donate a lottery win so that Haiku could be what it should be in a short space of time, I hate waiting :D BUT good things come to those who wait! I got a new laptop, the resolution is great now (not good on my desktop!), once I get WiFI and upto date browser and maybe a few more apps it will definately be my every day OS without doubt. The developers deserve a pat on the back and much more for their dedication to this OS.

I absolutely agree with things like the multi user support too, it's ok for an OS like windows where the whole family will use the PC, but being a hobbyist OS its 99% likely your the only one in the house using it, I think the time could be spent on getting the fundamentals sorted first.

It's not that I dont think those things shouldn't be added but it should be an afterthought.... I just want a speedy nice looking OS that is configurable, supports my hardware and lets me browse the web and check my emails, Haiku would be perfect.

well, if you "love" haiku that much, perhaps you should indeed not spend time waiting.
Suggestion:
1) start learning c++ and start with development

if you try and fail with development, try to work and to donate money, so that other people are developing haiku. How big is your love? How many hours of work you are willing to contribute?

if you think more exactly about that, you will notice, that in fact your "love" is very weak. That you are not willing to do much sacrifice.
I guess (i dont know), you are more or less in a state of "dreaming with open eyes", "how great it would be if...". It's like father would be saying "i love my children a lot", but just at the level of "ideology", not also at the level of really doing something for them and supporting them with all his power.
Real love needs facts, and not just declarative words.

All what i was writing was not with the intention to attack you, it was with the intention to help you understand better the situation and to make you understand not to say too easy "i love". The ones who can easily say "i love", and not really doing it in a serious way.

Thanks for this post. I agree with a lot of things you're saying. I would add though that I think Haiku needs to be very careful about the package management issue. While package management felt cool back when I started using Linux, in the end it's pretty bad. It's almost impossible to install anything without an internet connection and there is very little flexibility in terms of storing apps where you want and keeping them even when you need to reinstall the OS. In Windows I have most of my apps on another partition and they don't get affected when the system partition needs to get formatted. In fact, most of them were never "installed" in the first place, they were just extracted from a zip file. The only thing they tend to need is basic stuff, like DirectX being updated or having working GPU drivers. Now I know that a lot of apps don't have this flexibility in Windows, especially apps like web browsers for example, but I still think that this serves as a good example of what an OS should be like.

Back when I was using Linux, I always had to install every little application. There was no way to store any apps on another drive/partition and just fire them up immediately after getting the OS and all its drivers working. And even if there's one or two apps that are not installed system-wide, you still can't just run them because all libraries are shared, which means you have to have an internet connection present and you have to install all of the dependencies. And in this case I don't really care if my apps take up a few MB's less because of shared libraries; the hassle involved is not worth it.

What's this semantic squabble about "love"?
xsive, are you prepared to sacrifice a goat to demonstrate your love of Haiku? Otherwise I recommend taking back that "I love" and go with "I kinda like", to appease cipri.

Regards,
Humdinger

Each contribution is actually something done. I do use Haiku also i donate as much as i can. I do love haiku since it's a great OS and specially because many ppl (Devs, end users, forum users) do contribute that makes Haiku a better OS.

Mocking someone just because he says that "he loves" something shows that you aren't really bright. can you guys truly estimate how much you like/love an operating system? i can't, though i can tell that i love more haiku than linux (production OS on my PC) and i do hate windows more than any other failed OS out there.

All this to say that you can't just come here or any where else and disrespect someone's preference just because you can't comprehend it.

@leavengood: thanks for your sacrifice i truly apreciate but remember to take some time off to spend with your family, please. Cheers

Thanks for that! As I said i was only voicing my opinion, I do greatly admire the free time people dedicate to the programming of haiku and their commitment, I didn't realise using the word 'love' when talking about an OS was so offensive to 'certain people' :D And I strongly agree, whether its an end user or a programmer, as long as its using or programming haiku simply supporting it is great and raising its awareness. Thanks again, what can I say, some people are just plain rude :D

@Edglex: Yes, I am not completely against some form of package management, and perhaps there can be a middle ground. I'm just worried that Haiku will take on the way of Linux with this issue, which I think would be a very bad idea. I remember back when one of the developers laid out the plans on how to do package management, and pretty much every single issue that I just mentioned was there just like with Linux. Sure, I'd probably use Haiku anyway, but it's still scary to see an almost-perfect OS go down that road.

I understand that we probably can't avoid system-wide installs completely. I do think however that it can be avoided to a high degree. I think that most of the applications that need to be installed on Windows only need it because of convention; it's the standard design choice on that OS. Let's say you write an app that needs libsdl and libcdio. Then you can simply include them with the app. We can call the app "abc". Then you could have a directory structure like this:

abc/ <-- abc's root folder
abc/abc <-- executable
abc/lib/ <-- abc's library folder containing dependencies
abc/lib/libcdio.so <-- libcdio library
abs/lib/libsdl.so <-- libsdl library

Very simple and organized, and no mounting magic, installation or anything like that. In most cases the dependencies won't need that much space for each app and, at least for me, the system partition is usually the smallest partition anyway (I'm actually about to fill up my Windows partition right now). Even if you were to include a library file from Qt for example, the file would only need a few MB's at most. The only time where I can see the necessity of installing something system-wide is if it needs to mess with the system somehow, like in the case of compilers or drivers. Here are my suggestions about your points:

1) A zip file should work fine in most cases. If the app is not self-contained and it messes with the system, then I suggest a custom installer for that particular app.

2) I have an idea that might satisfy both sides. You could add a feature to Haiku that simply lets the user register an app at will. If an app is already extracted somewhere and working, you could right-click on either its root folder or the executable file itself, and click "Register this application" in the context menu. If you're about to extract it, you could tick an option in the archive manager called "Register application after extraction has finished". When you try to move a folder containing a registered app, the system could give the user a message saying "This folder contains a registered application. After moving this folder, would you like Haiku to modify the registry settings to reflect the change?". Also, to keep track of all registered apps, there could be a simple "Application manager" program where the user can add, delete or update registered apps, or change what directory a registry entry points to.

3) The app could have an update file in its root directory, containing things like version info and where to obtain updates. It could be a simple XML file or similar, nothing fancy. In the case of "abc", this file would just be called abc.update to reflect the fact that it belongs to abc. If the app is registered, you can use the "Application manager" and select the update option. Being able to update through the context menu in the file manager would be pretty cool too.

4 and 5) Not sure what you mean by this.

7) Along with the app's own version info, there could also be info about what version of Haiku the app is designed for. Either in the abc.update file or in a separate file in the same directory.

8) A link pointing to where you can obtain source code could be included in a file similar to what I described.

You guys are discussing package management in Haiku, correct? I don't know how long you've been following the Haiku developers' blog posts... The Haiku package manager has been designed and half implemented.

You can read about the design on zooey's blog:

http://www.haiku-os.org/blog/zooey

And you can read about the implementation on bonefish's blog:

http://www.haiku-os.org/blog/bonefish

Spoiler: It's not "like Linux", it'll be easy to use, supports both repositories and single-downloaded packages, and applications can be run from anywhere.

Regarding point 1, you can change that behaviour in the tracker preferences.

Does Slackware still rely on Linux software that uses three or four entirely different UI toolkits and arbitrarily reinvents whatever other UI standards the author feels like?

I'm not really familiar with the BeOS way of doing things myself (though I do kinda like the look, reminds me of my Classic Mac days,) but I don't come to an OS that's a reimplementation of BeOS and expect it not to look like BeOS. As for flexibility, to a certain extent I agree, but if every behavior and feature were to be completely optional, Haiku would have the same absolutely-no-standards problem with its UI that Linux has today.

I agree completely, but this is already configurable. Have you even looked through the options?

While I do think adding some configurability to the drill-down menus might be a good idea (I could certainly use a little longer delay before the next level pops open,) you really seem to be coming at this from an attitude of entitlement, as if you have a fundamental right to never be reminded that you're not using Linux. Making a design decision and sticking with it, on a free operating system that doesn't even come preinstalled on anything, cannot possibly be construed as "ramming things down people's throats" in any way.

(If you know you like Slackware and the things you dislike about Haiku all seem to be the ways in which it differs from Slackware, I'm not sure why you don't just stick with Slackware...)

A big part of the reason Linux has a tough time staying alive, though, is because it's so arcane under the hood, and because every attempt to make it "friendlier" has been limited to putting a shiny new veneer on top of the arcana and maybe introducing a system to resolve some of that complexity, like Synaptic or what-have-you. You can only hide so much of that complexity before things begin to get either unnecessarily restrictive or just plain balky and broken.

Haiku's advantage is that it's actually a simpler system that's been designed for desktop computing from the ground up, not built into that from the baseline of a '70s mainframe OS. It still shares the problem of getting people aware of it and willing to experiment with adjusting to its own way of doing things, but it is by nature much better suited to the job, and once it's in a state of more completion, I really do think it could gain some ground (especially as both major players seem to be hell-bent on turning into tablet OSes and everybody who's not interested in that is going to be looking for an alternative.)

The problem I have personally with Haiku is that its goals can too easily be recreated by its competitors, particularly Linux. Trying to develop an OS, almost from the ground up from a platform that was rightfully deceased more than a decade ago is not the best way to solve a problem you have with the current OSes. Development, funding, and interest have been ridiculously slow or lacking in (I scrambled that sentence together, sorry), and it really isn't hard to see why. There is still not a convincing reason why anyone on Linux, Mac OS X or Windows should switch over. There's no target market, and what there is by perception has already been filled by Linux.

You forgot to mention fully multi-threaded OS, even in alpha is stable as much as Mac Os X, database-like FS, way smaller compared to linux (4 GB on HDD), to windows (anything is smaller than windows, 40 GB), true multi-tasking. And ain't a mess linux linux based distros, no desktop war (KDE VS GNOME), no switching API just because something new and broken is released (alsa replaced by pulseaudio), gfx driver's nightmare (X.org+Mesa+kernel), no multimedia API such game API for haiku Or DirectX on winblows. My opinion is, despise using linux daily as main OS, Haiku once is has better drivers and some new apps it will surpasse linux easily.

Yeah I have to agree, the development is kinda slow but that can be expected without the huge financial backing etc... but I agree the only things missing for me is the webpositive experience and WiFi, but this is nasty BSD fault for not having drivers for my adaptor yet :D

I remember when Haiku first started out, linux fans promised that it would be the year of linux the desktop and Haiku wasn't necessary. No, it had serious deal breaking problems and they are still with us today. Unfortunately, Haiku is still not in a final version so the critics were correct in that sense.

Windows 8 looks to me like a total disaster, even more than Vista. Apple will take advantage of it but I hope it also means that people who love PC's will help make Haiku work out.

I just typed a nice reply but lost it. Kids. Seriously. It's one of the reasons I don't use Haiku as an every day OS. I need a Molly guard of sorts. Multi user OSes fit who I am better for most things but I like running Haiku in a VM. If it had VirtualBox guest additions I'd probably feel inclined to try porting some things that I use and mostly work from that.
It's nice and neat and small. Linux has been my main OS since the 90s and it's gotten so huge and convoluted that it's often easier to flatten and reinstall to fix an oops than try to figure out where the root of a problem is lurking.
I like the UI of Haiku as it is. Simple and effective. Now give me those guest additions with working working passthrough drivers and I'd probably use it for software development. I'll let Linux handle the hard stuff.

Huge OSes bother me. A lot. They don't need to be. Windows is the worst offender. Mind blowingly massive footprint and it still can't do much on its own. At least linux has this ecosystem of individual programs all stacked up to provide higher functionality. Except that's slow and unwieldy. I mean it's possible to have a working desktop OS of linux in the tens of MB. Haiku isn't quite that small but it is well integrated and not a scattered mess. Or at least that's always been my impression of it. I just wanted to say thanks again to the developers for doing the impossible and essentially causing the rebirth of something which was killed by the same thing that has killed so many other good ideas.
Just keep at it, replacing the missing bits. Not hacking in things that aren't meant to fit for the sake of keeping up with the Joneses.

Thanks for the heads up on the guest addition source being on the Oracle server. Wish I'd been a bit more selective. Just kicked off the svn download for "additions". This is going to take a while.

I was a Be programmer way back when - I even had a BeBox (which I sadly sold... ). I am really happy and impressed to see the work that has been put into keeping the spirit of BeOS alive. It was really exciting to be part of something new, and rather frustrating when they stopped making hardware, then shifted to Macs, then to Windows. It was hard to watch, and while I had intended to write software for the platform, I gave up with the constant strategy shifts.

I'd love to get into development again, but without an IDE, this may be over my head. I have not looked at the APIs yet, but the original Be APIs were awesome. I learned to program in a GUI, so working from the terminal is a challenge in itself. I miss CodeWarrior!

I haven't been able to get the current nightlies up and running on any device besides VirtualBox, where it runs perfectly, and fast! I understand the challenges of drivers, and that said, it would be nice if there was a hardware maker who could put together a cheap box made with parts that would run the current version of Haiku, much like the original BeBox concept... I've never built my own computer, so I wouldn't know where to start. But if there were a list of recommended parts even... I'd go for it.

I think e-mail is another show stopper for a lot of people. The integration of e-mail into the tracker is a beautiful concept, so the thought of going to a standard 3-panel e-mail program seems kind of sad. The browser works great!

I think the point I'm trying to make is there are a few key pieces missing before casual programmers, or even casual users can use Haiku... but I'm sure that isn't lost on anyone.

Sorry for rambling, and I hope nothing said here sounds ungrateful... a sincere thanks to all the devs who have kept this alive. Outstanding work and I am very impressed!

http://youtu.be/g7_cmk5xHOo