alt Hacker NewsHaiku OS runs on M1 Macs now
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Was just explaining to my offspring about how Apple was looking to buy Be Inc. back before Jobs returned and they allowed themselves to be bought by NeXT. Sort of a fun complete-circle: Be ports BeOS to PowerMacs, Apple passes on buying Be, Be Inc. fades into the distance, HaikuOS kicks off, 20+ years later they port HaikuOS to Apple hardware.
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.
I wasn't familiar with haiku os, so:
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
Sad that we'll probably never be able to run this on M1/M-series iPads.
Was recently looking at the FuriPhone (linux phone that runs Debian) and now I'm thinking it would be a fun project to port HaikuOS to it.
You can also try out a demo in your browser at https://distrosea.com/select/haiku/
Is it only M1 macs, or are other M-series supported too (or maybe they were previously)?
Hard to tell if this is a major breakthrough or just an incremental improvement.
Using BeOS was a fantastic experience in 1999, and it's sad that it hasn't caught on. I'm rooting for all OSes that bring different perspectives to the OS world instead of being another textbook Unix variant.
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.
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Neat! Not sure why the comments on this post are immediately asking if it’s useful. Not everything has to be immediately useful to exist. Kill the capitalist in your head.
Yet I still can not use ruby on it ...
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.
This weekend I installed Haiku on my old Thinkpad X40. It’s fast and surprisingly stable. Emacs, VLC works like a charm. Computer to slow for web browsing. The BeProductive office suite is a masterpiece of application at a 9MB download; although not open source.
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.