[HN Gopher] Haiku has hired an existing contributor to work on H... ___________________________________________________________________ Haiku has hired an existing contributor to work on Haiku full-time Author : aarroyoc Score : 213 points Date : 2021-08-25 18:33 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.haiku-os.org) (TXT) w3m dump (www.haiku-os.org) | Decabytes wrote: | I would love to go about writing a toy operating system, but I | only know Python, and I feel like I would need to learn a lower | level programming language (Rust, C++, or C) before I could even | start. | | I wonder if it would be simpler building on top of one of the | linux or BSD kernels (I've heard NetBSD's is pretty cool) | cpach wrote: | Very cool! | | Fun fact: Despite the name, "Haiku, Inc." is actually a 501(c)(3) | non-profit (^_^) | im_down_w_otp wrote: | I ran BeOS many, many years ago on a PowerComputing Mac-clone and | remember it fondly. I had high hopes that when LG acquired WebOS | that perhaps some form of BeOS as a general computing platform | might resurface. | | One question I've always had about Haiku is how faithful it is to | the underlying implementation and architecture of BeOS, not so | much its resultant API compatibility? Because it was the guts of | BeOS which seemed to make it so special, not its component | interfaces. | winrid wrote: | What's the web browsing experience like on Haiku? Really if it | could run a modern browser and IDE I'd try it out. | | It looks like there's an OpenJDK port - that'd open up a lot of | possibilities[0]. | | https://openjdk.java.net/projects/haiku-port/ | waddlesplash wrote: | WebPositive is based on modern WebKit but quite a few features | have not yet been enabled (because they depend on platform code | that is not implemented) or function not so well. But there is | potential for sure. | | Nothing prohibits porting Chromium or Firefox, they are just | huge projects with a massive surface area. (Even WebKit, | smaller than both of those, is larger than all of Haiku | itself.) So we have put our time into WebKit instead. | | There is Qt Creator already in the package repositories, and I | think someone got Code::Blocks to at least build if not start. | I've heard NetBeans used to work, though I'm not sure it still | does. Eclipse would require much more work. | snazz wrote: | The JetBrains IDEs at least start on Haiku (or they did at | one point): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18893648 | | Not sure how good that experience is but it's very impressive | nonetheless. | dleslie wrote: | WebPositive uses WebKit, and recently updated it. So it's | fairly functional. | | As for an IDE... | | https://github.com/adamfowleruk/Paladin | waddlesplash wrote: | Hello HN, I'm the developer that has been hired. Happy to answer | questions! | | Or you can go make a (tax-deductible) donation to Haiku, Inc. | directly to support my contract: https://www.haiku- | inc.org/donate/ | dleslie wrote: | I want to start using Haiku _outside_ of a VM. What sort of | hardware should I be looking at, considering mostly that I need | stable WiFi available? | waddlesplash wrote: | We reuse FreeBSD's WiFi drivers (I assumed responsibility for | that port some years ago), so most things that work on | FreeBSD work on Haiku. | | FreeBSD has fallen behind a bit, so you may want to check | model numbers carefully before buying something. Intel | hardware of the "9200" series and anything before it | generally works (though it may not have all features | enabled.) Atheros hardware is the next best, with anything | before the "Killer" series especially well supported. | | Slightly older ThinkPads tend to do very well. I have an E550 | (from 2015) and a T60 (I dunno, 2009?) that are pretty great. | My main machine is a custom Ryzen desktop where I carefully | picked out hardware that I knew either was already supported | or would soon be (e.g when I bought it, the NVMe driver was | still in an unstable state and I had more work to do on it, | but now it's pretty solid.) | Klonoar wrote: | But then I take it that means the wifi is relatively slow, | no? FreeBSD IIRC lacks 802.11ac support still. | zdw wrote: | Do any of the BSD's have 802.11ac support? I know OpenBSD | hasn't worked on it yet. | | Not criticizing, just observing how hard it is to work | through new alphabet soup of standards without hardware | vendor support. | waddlesplash wrote: | You are correct, unfortunately. | | FreeBSD has one WiFi driver ("iwm", or on Haiku we call | it "idualwifi7260") that supports 802.11ac hardware, and | supposedly the 802.11 stack is ready for ac (there is an | out-of-tree driver that crashes a lot but does get ac | speed), but nobody added ac support to the "iwm" driver. | | Actually both my laptop and desktop use that driver, so | who knows, maybe I'll poke at adding 802.11ac support to | it one of these days. | squarefoot wrote: | Are there any problems preventing the adaptation of Linux | ac drivers, I mean are they technical or licensing etc? | Klonoar wrote: | I believe that's one ongoing effort to solve the issue | (since it'd also ensure things like 802.11ax support). | It's just low dev resources, I think - but this is from | my just browsing the situation over the past few weeks, | mind you. An actual FreeBSD dev should correct me if I'm | wrong. | | I also believe there's a hack floating around to forward | ac from a Linux VM, which some use. | Klonoar wrote: | Huh, curious about the out-of-tree driver - I haven't | seen that. | | I've considered donating funds to FreeBSD with the idea | of earmarking them specifically for Wifi, but I don't | know how much that actually helps... | cpach wrote: | Kudos! | | What are the top three features that you like the most with | Haiku? | waddlesplash wrote: | The single biggest thing for me is the unified system design | and implementation. | | That is, it's not like Linux/BSD desktop environments where | the kernel, display server, window manager, desktop shell, | file manager, distribution ... are all developed by separate | teams in separate code repositories with separate goals, | schedules, standards, etc. In Haiku, you can change the UI | toolkit, display server, and init system all in a single | commit to one repository. | | This has a massive array of advantages. It means we never go | back and forth about where responsibility for a bug lies, | only where it should be fixed. It means we can decide to go | with or against trends and standards as it makes sense to | (our package manager is probably the biggest example of | this.) | | Virtually everything else I like about Haiku stems from this, | whether it's the timeless UI, the overall system | architecture, or even the code itself (which is a genuine | pleasure to just read, not something that one can often say | about any project.) | em-bee wrote: | is there a roadmap? | | there is mention of R1 and R2. | | what are the goals for R1? any time estimates when R1 will be | ready? | | what's in store for R2? | | there is discussion of multi user support for R2. what other | interesting goals are there? | dleslie wrote: | The roadmap is actively updated here: | | https://dev.haiku-os.org/roadmap | waddlesplash wrote: | R1's original goal was "feature-complete replacement for BeOS | R5". I think we have at this point achieved that, but we also | have a vague goal of "usable, stable, daily-driver OS" which | we are not quite there for (mostly on the stability and | daily-driver front; there are users who use it as a daily | driver, but in a limited fashion.) | | The Haiku kernel and CLI already supports multiple users, you | can add them and SSH into them already. Permissions checks | aren't quite there yet, and the GUI is totally non-multiuser- | aware. It is a R2 requirement, but it could come sooner... | intricatedetail wrote: | In many countries a for profit company cannot accept "free" | contributions, as this is in breach of minimum wage regulations | and volunteering. E.g. here you can only volunteer for charities. | xupybd wrote: | I like the idea of more operating systems to pick from. I'd love | to try Haiku or BSD one day soon. What motivates people to invest | in these very niche systems? | | I'd love to play around with them for fun but is there more to | it? | peterkos wrote: | Maybe to get a more considered word in about features you need? | I can't really think of anything specific os-wise, but I'm | thinking, if you rely on some cool cross-app functionality | (e.g., macOS drag-icon-from-toolbar-to-move-corresponding-file) | you can have a good shot at contributing to/owning that feature | on a small OS project vs. something like Fedora which would | require a lot more buy-in | em-bee wrote: | _I like the idea of more operating systems to pick from_ | | well this would be one motivation really. | | personally, i like the ability to break with conventions and do | things differently. especially on the user interface level. | | like hurd or plan 9, haiku has some unique aspects. | | now i just need to find a machine to actually run it. | klyrs wrote: | I keep wishing that I could run Haiku on a Raspberry Pi 4, | just so I could have a little sandboxed machine to play with. | donatj wrote: | As someone who used BeOS in the 90's, I think people investing | their time in Haiku comes down to love, plain and simple. | | In the 20 years since, I have not used an OS that has made me | as _happy_ to use as BeOS. Early OS X around 10.4-10.5 came | closest. | RamRodification wrote: | Doesn't that apply to everyone's OS of choice though? | Actually maybe it doesn't... But it's not very helpful unless | you can be at least a little bit specific about why it makes | you happy. | donatj wrote: | > Doesn't that apply to everyone's OS of choice though? | | Do people have love deep in their hearts for Windows or | even macOS 11? | | It's hard to explain these days, but back in the late 90s | it was just so far ahead of everything else except maybe | NeXT and NeXT was entirely out of reach for 99% of the | world. | | The UI was ridiculously smooth and fast and everything | worked together like a well oiled machine. | | - https://youtu.be/cjriSNgFHsM?t=350 | | Here they play an mp3 and a video that continue to render | while you move the windows around, on a 133mhz machine | without it even putting up a sweat. Clearly that's nothing | today but that was unheard of at the time. | | Beyond that it had amazing features you still don't see on | operating systems today like the file system being an | actual queryable database. Common metadata like ID3 tags | from MP3's were entered into this and queryable. | | The standard email client stored emails as individual files | and just queried the file system. I believe the address | book did the same for people. | | The tabs of the individual windows stack together across | apps! There were just so many little wonderful fit-and- | finish things like that you don't get these days. | | - https://www.haiku- | os.org/docs/userguide/en/GUI.html#stack-ti... | | I feel like most desktop OS's strive for parity with | eachother. BeOS was trying to be better. | ori_b wrote: | They're pleasant to work in. | | -- posted from netsurf on 9front. | azinman2 wrote: | > What motivates people to invest in these very niche systems? | | Nostalgia, curiosity, and hobby | diskzero wrote: | I may contribute to Haiku, now that they are putting full-time | resources into place. | | Why would I do this? It is more than nostalgia or fun, although | that is part of it. I believe that diversity is vital to | keeping the technological landscape healthy. Most people are | happy to go with the status quo, fewer are willing to work to | make positive changes and even less are willing to fund their | efforts. | | Will something come of Haiku because of this? Directly or | indirectly, yes. Someone will be working on a vision that may | differ from that of Apple/Microsoft/linux, etc. This will have | a ripple effect as either Haiku succeeds, or those who work on | it take their viewpoints and knowledge to other companies and | efforts. Either way, this sort of diversity helps out in | keeping the technological ecosystem from becoming more and more | of a monoculture. | iamevn wrote: | A while ago (2011ish maybe?) I had a hand-me-down laptop whose | processor speed was measured in MHz (it even had a floppy | drive!). The previous owners had windows XP on it but that | didn't really run well. I tried various Linux distros/desktop | environments/window managers and found that even running a | barebones AwesomeWM setup was sluggish. I decided to give Haiku | a shot and was surprised by how smooth it felt. I'm pretty sure | the only sluggishness I had when opening applications or | booting up was because the hard drive was very slow. I don't | know how they did it but somehow it worked wonderfully on this | really weak laptop. (Unfortunately I couldn't get the floppy | drive working, idr why but some driver issue blocked me.) | | Since then I've kept an eye on it and plan on going back to it | with some more powerful and better supported hardware to really | get to play around with stuff like the interesting filesystem | and get some things I use all the time ported over. Would love | to switch over from mainly using Linux to having a Linux home | server, and using Haiku as a daily driver and sshing in for | Linuxy stuff. | waddlesplash wrote: | One of the other Haiku developers had this [1] response to an | inquiry about why Haiku is so fast: | | > The system is not all that well optimized, uses a 15 year | old compiler which does not uses any modern CPU features, and | by default, the kernel is built in debug mode which makes it | much slower than it could be. | | > How do other operating systems still manage to feel slower? | I have no idea. | | (Those kernel debug options are no joke, they are a massive | slowdown. The ones for the TCP stack alone take network | throughput down to 1/5 of what it is without it; the ones for | SMP, the virtual memory manager, lock facilities, etc. | combined make the system visibly less snappy. We disable | these on beta builds, but they are enabled on nightlies, and | back in 2011 they were on by default.) | | [1]: https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/why-is-haiku-so-fast/6317 | codetrotter wrote: | > I'd love to try Haiku or BSD one day soon. What motivates | people to invest in these very niche systems? | | My interest in FreeBSD began about 12 years ago, when a friend | of mine told me about the BSD operating systems and he said | that the one he was using was very secure (OpenBSD) and that it | had good documentation and that these BSD operating systems | (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and others) are each developed "as a whole", | as opposed to Linux which I had recently begun seriously using | but which is developed as a bunch of separate much more | loosely-tied projects and then bundled together in the form of | various distros. | | I installed FreeBSD and liked it a lot. I just felt at home, | somehow. And for a good while I was running FreeBSD also on my | desktop and my laptop. | | Fast-forward to present day. On my laptop I run macOS. On my | servers I run FreeBSD. My MacBook Pro M1 laptop is my daily | driver. I have a desktop that I run Linux on but I rarely boot | it because mostly I have no reason to. Almost everything I do I | can do with my MacBook Pro M1 and with my servers that run | FreeBSD. | | But even though I like FreeBSD so much, I feel and fear that | Linux keeps advancing in much bigger strides than FreeBSD, | because of the many many more people contributing to Linux | compared to how many people are developing FreeBSD. | | I really want to get into eBPF on Linux soon and explore that. | It seems like it could help me gain both insights into the | execution of the software that I develop, even more than is | possible with DTrace maybe. And I want to explore what can be | done on Linux using kTLS and eBPF together. And I am curious to | find out more about things like what they talk about at | https://pchaigno.github.io/ebpf/2020/11/04/hxdp-efficient-so... | | And all of those things have me thinking a lot about whether | the positives of using FreeBSD (jails, OpenZFS in base, a | system that is developed as a whole, etc) actually justify | staying with FreeBSD. Or if I should ditch FreeBSD and focus my | energy on Linux instead of on FreeBSD. | hellcow wrote: | I use OpenBSD because it's a very pragmatic choice for servers. | Nearly everything is "off" by default and I can add only the | specific things I need, reducing the attack surface. | Pledge/unveil makes sandboxing my applications very simple. The | pf firewall is much easier to use with confidence than | iptables. The manpages are great and the system is small | relative to most Linux distros, so you can understand how | everything works and fits together -- great for infra. It's | well-designed and consistent throughout because the kernel, OS, | and all core tools are designed by the same people. As of yet, | no conntrack-style edge cases requiring days digging through | kernel code. :) | | This of course involves many trade-offs (losing access to | common "modern" tech like containers, slower performance) but | for my company the trade-offs were justified. | clipradiowallet wrote: | > The pf firewall is much easier to use with confidence than | iptables | | Tell me more! I cut my teeth on ipchains/iptables back in the | early 90's, and feel _very_ familiar with it. That said, I | know that doesn 't mean it's the best/easiest at all. I've | tried to grok Pf once or twice, but never ended up getting | very far. I wanted to ask you if you began with Pf, or if you | came from something else? More or less, I'm trying to figure | out if Pf was difficult for me just because it wasn't my | first. | cpach wrote: | FWIW: No Starch Press has a book about PF. I haven't read | it myself, but it might be worth having a look at. | | https://mwl.io/archives/2232 | chaircher wrote: | haiku has hired an | | existing contributor | | who will work full time | dddw wrote: | At first I thought, weird comment, then I thought: Ah! Weird | title! | omarhaneef wrote: | The trend is quite clear: | | Any mention of Haiku | | Creates a cascade | Mertax wrote: | Ya the original title isn't a haiku, right? This appears to be | a 6-7-5 pattern Haiku and is more concise | lostphilosopher wrote: | Haiku tangent: I'm no Haiku master, but as I understand it a | proper Haiku should succinctly convey the experience of a | moment in time. That's really the hallmark of a Haiku. Use of | "seasonal words" is a traditional, but not breaking | requirement. And the 5-7-5 thing is somewhat misleading since | the Japanese (rough) equivalent to a "syllable" is shorter | than an English syllable such that a 5-7-5 Haiku in English | tends to be ~30% longer in time taken to say than a Haiku in | Japanese. (This is what I can recall off the top of my head | from The Haiku Handbook. Which is much more worth reading | than my comment if you're interested in Haiku.) | vondur wrote: | I like how they announce the new developer only as their | username. Pretty cool. | waddlesplash wrote: | Well, I do have a real name, and if you look in the right place | you can find it, but >=99.9% of people in the Haiku community | and those who have heard of it know me only as "waddlesplash", | so why bother announcing with anything else? | khazhoux wrote: | Let me fix this for them: | | --- | | Haiku has hired | | existing contributor | | to join us full time | LeoPanthera wrote: | I'm still nostalgic for OS/2. Apparently it still exists in the | form of "ArcaOS" but I never hear anything about it. | clipradiowallet wrote: | For what it's worth, a couple of years ago I saw an ATM machine | reboot.... and saw the OS/2 splash screen. Wonder if it's | popular in that industry, or if it was an older/one-off | machine? | LeoPanthera wrote: | OS/2 was extremely popular throughout the entire banking | industry and ATMs running on OS/2 was almost the norm for a | few years. | cpach wrote: | Fascinating. I wonder who their customers are these days. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-08-25 23:01 UTC)