Open Source BeOS Successor Haiku Releases R1/beta 1

Remember Haiku, the open source successor to the Be operating system? Long-time Slashdot reader GuerillaRadio quotes a new announcement from Haiku-os.org: It's been just about a month less than six years since Haiku's last release in November 2012 -- too long. As a result of such a long gap between releases, there are a lot more changes in this release than in previous ones, and so this document is weightier than it has been in the past. The notes are mostly organized in order of importance and relevance, not chronologically, and due to the sheer number of changes, thousands of smaller improvements simply aren't recognized here.

Please keep in mind that this is beta-quality software, which means it is feature complete but still contains known and unknown bugs. While we are mostly confident in its stability, we cannot provide assurances against data loss.

Re:

[Stormwatch]

Ah, that list reminds me of a time when web browsers were not the pointlessly massive resource hogs of today.

Re:

[Hognoxious]

There'll be a Duke Nukem port real soon now.

heavy requirements.

[Gravis Zero]

MINIMUM (32-bit)
Processor: Intel Pentium II; AMD Athlon
Memory: 256MB
Monitor: 800x600
Storage: 3GB

Frankly, those are some heavy requirements. That's even heavier than WinXP requirements! (233MHz/64MB/800x600/1.5GB) [zdnet.com]

Developers are really spoiled by modern hardware.

Bet the OS fits in 64...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Webkit and company responsible for bloating the minimum usable ram requirement to 256 megabytes. And if you compared Windows XP SP3 plus equivalent utilities (including a newer browser than IE7), I bet you would find it being close to that 256 megabyte limit too.

Re:

[Hamsterdan]

And win95 boots with a 386 and 4MB RAM. Doesn't mean it's useable. Running XP under 512MB is punishment.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:We need SJWs

[GerryGilmore]

Let's face it - this is a hobbyist project done totally by volunteers with pretty much zero money, who are just doing it for the thrill of doing it. So, it's not "architecture", but there is certainly no "critical mass" yearning for it. Having said all that, Good on Them! God Bless geeks who do stuff just for the technical thrill of it.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

There's only a handful of dedicated devs working on it. Lots of interest from folks wholly unqualified to contribute actual code or even test releases. Eventually, someone's gotta roll up the sleeves and get on it. OS X pulled a lot of brainpower from the BeOS mindshare (*NIX, POSIX, well integrated GUI) and while running on ancient hardware is a nicety, it's rather novel considering laptops 5 or 6 years ago are still running just fine even with the latest OS updates.

I'd love to see the BeOS folks just focu

Obligatory Haiku

[davidwr]

BeOS reborn
Many years in the making
Spring comes to the south

Re:

[Megol]

Or stay with Linux and do the same?

Compared to Reactos

[Anonymous Coward]

Haikiu is truly impressive. It's alpha release was better than anything Reactos has ever produced. The Haiku alpha release would have been labeled a "stable" release 1.0 by most projects. Haiku has a very, very, conservative attitude toward releases. They under-hype which is amazing in and of itself in these times.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I protest!

[phantomfive]

My biggest complaint about Haiku OS is that there are no haikus anywhere. Not in the comments, not in the name. Talk about a missed opportunity! I refuse to use any OS that so seriously misrepresents itself.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Haiku OS on xkcd

[psnyder]

Obligatory XKCD [xkcd.com] from October 15, 2010.

No hybrid?

[drinkypoo]

x86, or x86_64. Doesn't even appear to be a qmake for x86_64? Used to be able to solve this problem by installing the x86 version on a hybrid install, but now there isn't one?