dr_dank's comment on Slashdot ( <a href="http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=66224&cid=6095472" rel="nofollow">http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=66224&cid=6095472</a> ) pretty much sums up its awesomeness:<p><i>BeOS was demonstrated to me during my senior year of college. The guy giving the talk played upwards of two dozen mp3s, a dozen or so movie trailers, the GL teapot thing, etc. simultanously. None of the apps skipped a beat. Then, he pulled out the showstopper.</i><p><i>He yanked the plug on the box.</i><p><i>Within 20 seconds or so of restarting, the machine was chugging away with all of its media files in the place they were when they were halted, as if nothing had happened.</i><p>If you've never played with BeOS on an old Pentium II, it's hard to imagine the kind of performance it was able to squeeze out of that hardware. Here's a rough idea:<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsVydyC8ZGQ#t=17m36s" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsVydyC8ZGQ#t=17m36s</a>
I was an occasional user of BeOS 4 and 5. Got the free upgrade to 5 in the mail.<p>It's anachronistic I know, but I think the biggest issue with the OS was timing. If the FOSS movement had as much commercial maturity as today, I think the story of BeOS would be way different. It was pretty well placed at the time in terms of offering a solid media experience coupled with a POSIX compliant environment. I'm pretty sure it would be used like OS X is today by many devs, but without the hardware lock-in.<p>It was super fun to use BeOS, I just didn't have a workflow that matched it at the time.
> Linux, for instance, is based around a core—called a kernel—that was originally designed for use in servers and only later modified for desktop systems<p>As far as I understand the history of Linux, this is just plain not true: Linux was originally a toy project with little focus on either desktop or server systems.<p>Am I missing something?
"What really sets Haiku apart, though, is its efficiency and speed. On my three-year-old desktop computer, Haiku boots up from a cold start in 10 to 15 seconds, and when running it uses only about 170 megabytes of RAM."<p>Sounds good to me, but 10-15 seconds running on what specs?<p>Also, looking at the video, it seems like this OS is stuck in the 1990s. That is fine as long as it runs a standards compliant browser, but it just seems lacking based on this video- has this changed?: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixvppiSB7hc" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixvppiSB7hc</a><p>I do like that it is just the basics though.
"Where BeOS drove ahead of other operating systems of its time (and where Haiku is still ahead of contemporary operating systems) is that each individual application uses many threads. The core of the application itself has one thread, and each window the application creates has a thread."<p>I might not have been around when BeOS was first created, but this is certainly not a new concept today. I don't think I can name a major OS today that <i>doesn't</i> support this model. Both Android and iOS are well known for this technique, but they were hardly the first to adopt it.
I like the idea of Haiku OS, but from what I've heard, for binary-compatibility reasons (kernel drivers? All applications? I'm not sure) it still ships with GCC 2.95.<p>Requiring a compiler over a decade old for a modern OS doesn't seem like a good long-term strategy.
I remember trying BeOS back in the days. It had a nifty feature where you could download an executable and install directly from inside windows, and then boot up in BeOS afterwards. I used to hang out at OSNews where OpenBeOS was heavily promoted and discussed when they started the project. Sure is a long time ago.
I LOVED BeOS back in the R3-R5 days. I switched over to it completely for a time and started writing software for it. Work carried me in a different direction, and my hobbyist enthusiasm lost steam as I saw that Be was going nowhere corporate-wise. Once Apple decided to go with NeXT instead of BeOS as the basis for its new OS, that was all she wrote. I was disappointed with the technology decision by Apple, but that was way offset by getting Jobs back into the company... and we all saw how well that turned out.<p>Anyhow, the C++ API of BeOS was amazing. OSX/Objective-C still don't give you that OO access to the OS feel that BeOS had. My one major gripe with their approach was in the way that they managed run-time binding -- it was very brittle from release to release of the OS. As a developer, you had to ship separate binaries for each OS release you wanted to support. Nasty.<p>I'd love to see Haiku take off and become a viable platform. If for no other reason, just to have a reference version of how things CAN BE DONE.<p>That cheerleading aside, I have to say that with a fresh OS install, my OSX Lion 2009 PB performs great. Very snappy, runs cool, starts up quickly. It's only when you start installing all your apps, VMs, widgets, drivers, and misc. junk that it slows down. Would Haiku do any better if it had that rich of a software environment?
"Linux, by contrast, has hundreds of APIs..."<p>Wait, there's only one set of system calls into the kernel. What exactly are they talking about here, anyone know?
"Haiku is probably the best positioned to challenge the mainstream operating systems like Microsoft Windows and Mac OS."<p>This is an absurd statement. Stop wasting time solving problems that don't exist for 98% of the market. "More choice" is not a better than if the choices suck.<p>"Within 20 seconds or so of restarting, the machine was chugging away with all of its media files in the place they were when they were halted, as if nothing had happened."<p>This was really cool in the early days of BeOS. But that was more than a decade ago.<p>People of earth: there is a talent crisis right now. The world needs great developers to build awesome apps for a whole new class of machines. If you feel an urge to "start from scratch" — help rebuild everything for mobile. It's a big job, there are too many projects and not enough developers, and you'll be contributing to a seismic shift in computing.<p>Stop solving problems that don't exist for most people. Build apps that people will use. Do big things that address 98% of users. These guys clearly have dev chops that I admire, so don't waste them on a project like this.
The problem with open-source OS's is that they can't take advantage of things like attractive fonts for the user interface.<p>There has got to be a better open-source font than what Haiku is currently using (<a href="http://www.haiku-os.org/docs/userguide/en/deskbar.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.haiku-os.org/docs/userguide/en/deskbar.html</a>).
"Generally, there is one thread for each application and one for the operating system’s user interface as well."<p>I think the article writer meant "process" -- there are many threads per process, and that is present in most "contemporary operating systems". If this is their (Haiku Inc.'s) attempt at PR... they are not doing it well.
Back when I wanted to get involved (I had a lot more free time), I saw it as an opportunity to have a graphically friendly operating system á la OS X, but actually completely open source.