Hi! This is my first post here, and my first time using Haiku since before the Alpha stages (back when the milestones only ran on my old Dell D600 Laptop!) I'm probably the target audience for the OS, so a fresh look is probably exactly what we all need. So without further ado, the details:
The Rig:
Processor: Pentium Dual Core E5400
Chipset: Intel X3100
Video: VisionTek AMD Radeon HD 5450 1GB GDDR5
HDD1: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM -- EXT3
HDD2: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM -- NTFS
Download/Installation:
So, Haiku has made HUGE strides in it's download and installation procedures. Since I am already running a *nix system, the dd command was trivial at best. The flash drive booted up right away, From there I was easily able to repartition, reinitialize and reformat another flash disk. Then I opened up the installer and installed the system to the new drive (so I had some root file storage). The installation was smooth and only took about 5 minutes, it is only USB 2.0
First Boot:
The first boot into the fresh system was crazy fast, less than 1 minute from the moment I pressed the power button to a useable system. For the first time on real hardware though, I had a working network connection! (Wired, Intel Pro 10/100/1000 MBit) It appears that there is no native video driver for my card though, as some elements are blurred on my 1440x900 monitor, through a DVI connection. It's a minor fault though, The system did misidentify my processor as a Core 2 Extreme, a minor flaw, since they are both based on the same archetecture.
Video Tests:
So, as I said, there is no native resolution support for my monitor. Regardless, I decided to try a few video tests. I opened the 3D Haiku, 3 GL Teapots with 3 teapots, fog, and 3 colored laps each, a .MKV video file (which I'm surprised is supported by Media Player!), and the resource monitor. Not a single slowdown or glitch. Nice job devs! That's no easy feat! Text is a little fuzzy, but readable.
Media Tests:
May I just say...WOW! Just WOW! I knew that Be was the gold standard for media playback and production, but the Haiku team has taken it to a whole new level! This system played every file that I threw at it: MP3, WAV, MP4, MKV, MOV, AVI, M4a, OGG, FLAC, all without a hitch! The quality was well above anything I had on Windows, OSX, or any *nix variants. Again, HUGE kudos to the devs. This OS can finally make my 5.1 system SING!
Networks Tests:
So, the netowrking works...FINALLY! So after that, I refreshed the installoptionalpackage. I heard that this was a hacked-together attempt at modern package management, so I had to try it. It took a little longer than I expected to refresh only about 25 packages, especially since I'm on a 20MBit cable connection. The next test was with Web+. It...works...without any real support. no flash, no java, no HTML5. Also, GMail was snail slow. Is this a JavaScript engine or AJAX problem? I'm starting to think that there's a resource leak in the networking stack as a whole. The applications need work, but they're coming along for being such complex applications.
Overall:
I'm going to use Haiku for a few days, it's coming along, and I want some time to play. The quality and features so far impress me and bring me back to a time when computers were enjoyable, not the pain I deal with every day! Great job devs! As a side note, if someone can help me along, I'd love to help work on documentation. I love the project and want to contribute!
