Here are some more impressions: https://kconner.com/2025/03/09/haiku-os-study-path.html
The window manager might look a little old-fashioned, but it seems solid as a dev workstation.
There are not that many native applications. But there are a number of GTK and Qt apps that have been ported (like GIMP).
It depends what you need from your OS.
Sorry guys - Haiku is a great idea, but it needs to become a real operating system semi-advanced users can use daily. And it hasn't been at that since years.
Linux works.
https://depot.haiku-os.org/#!/pkg/ruby/haikuports/haikuports...
No it doesn't.
Which distro?
Linux is an OS kernel, not a full operating system.
I still need to know which distro to choose before I install it.
No need to do that with macOS or Windows, but Linux is always a problem.
I want to resurrect an older Mac mini with an installation of a Linux distribution, but choosing a suitable distro is the first step I struggle with. Only thing I know is that it won't be an Ubuntu setup. :-)
I do run Linux-based systems in various forms already: OpenWRT on the router, an older Debian VM —which I just messed up a few days ago by trying to uninstall a wallpaper package which took down the whole desktop environment for some reason— and Raspbian on the PI.
But on some days I feel maybe I just should go for FreeBSD. But it may have similar (to a lesser extend) issues like Haiku with proper up-to-date software, especially in the web browser department? I previously dabbled with Haiku and this was its main issue. The OS itself is pretty nice though.
I personally always install LTSC because there's no ads and less bloat, but sometimes random things don't work. This isn't a problem with Android, but Windows is always a problem
My only qualm is how HaikuOS, and AmigaOS for that matter, fail to carry over their aesthetics to a high-resolution/HiDPI world. I see gradients, overly-empahsized embosses in the UI screenshots. They lack the serene feeling of their user interfaces from 25 years ago, and feel like DVD menus now. I used to feel the same about KDE, but it has since moved on from flashy rendering AFAIR.
What I mean isn't to adopt a completely flat design, which I also dislike, but for instance, Windows 11's UI seems easier on the eyes than Haiku now.
I also know that UI is hard, no question about it. All the good luck and best wishes to the team.
A clever developer making things work on his or her own hardware, is not quite on the same level as daily driver. (Granted, Linux would also have to run on M1 Macs. But I mean this more on the issue of same-hardware or comparable hardware level.)
Honestly... my problem with Apple laptops isn't the hardware, it's the crappy version of XNU/Darwin/NextStep that comes with them. I would buy a Mac if it came with HaikuOS and supported all the peripherals. But what is the chance of that?
FWIW... I still have a powermac with "real" BeOS on it. Haven't booted it in several years. I did look at HaikuOS running on an X86-64 VM and for the tasks I gave it (compile a few package, run emacs, serve a web page or two) it worked like a champ. I think the developer docs could use some help, but maybe I should volunteer to help them out.
What's the issue(s)?
But it all hinged on someone coming up with an exploit and releasing it free to the community ignoring any bug bounty. True altruists. And apple is good enough at whack a mole and paying people $100k that this sort of effort died out. Most low hanging fruit all picked and patched already. It is no wonder that ios innovation has also stalled out now that there isn't someone to copy good ideas from any longer.
Then I installed Haiku on my XPS13 under KVM/Qemu. Everything runs blazingly fast. I’m thinking of maybe using that install for organizing my photos. The metadata functionality built into the BeFS is great for that.
I must say that I am really impressed.
That is not to say that they aren't focusing on performance gains, just that they have ensured the user experience is the top priority.
Hard to tell if this is a major breakthrough or just an incremental improvement.
I would consider the PinePhone, but my experience with it left me cold. And they EoL'd the Pro and the original PinePhone is fairly anemic by modern standards. I'm not sure it could run HaikuOS at acceptable speed. My memory was the PinePhone also had some land-mines with respect to drivers, but it's been several years since I touched mine, so I could be mistaken.
I'll probably have to spin my own hardware again. I really dislike writing drivers from scratch.
Haiku is a community-driven continuation of BeOS, a discontinued operating system for personal computers. It is binary-compatible with BeOS, but also supports contemporary systems, protocols, hardware, and web standards. - wikipedia
