HAIKU OPERATING

SYSTEM

HAIKU O/S

• Haiku is a free open source operating system compatible with BeOS. Its development began in 2001, and the operating system became self-hosting in 2008,[2] with the first official alpha version released in September 2009 and the second Alpha release in May 2010.

HISTORY OF O/S Main article: History of Haiku (operating system) Haiku began as the OpenBeOS project in 2001, the year that Be, Inc. was

bought by Palm, Inc. and BeOS development was discontinued; the focus of the project was to support the BeOS user community by creating an open-source backward-compatible replacement for BeOS. The first project by OpenBeOS was a 2002 community-created "stop-gap" update for BeOS 5.0.3. In 2003, a non-profit organization (Haiku Inc.) was registered in Rochester, New York to financially support development, and in 2004, after a notification of infringement upon Palm's trademark on the BeOS name was sent to OpenBeOS, the project was renamed as Haiku. Development, however, would only reach its first milestone in September 2009 with the release of Haiku Alpha 1. This very first release was followed by Alpha 2 R1 released in May 2010 which contains more than 300 bug-fixes/improvements.

DEVELOPMENT Haiku is developed in C++ and provides an object-oriented API. The modular design of BeOS allowed individual components of Haiku to initially be developed in teams in

relative isolation, in many cases developing them as replacements for the BeOS components prior to the completion of other parts of the operating system. The original teams developing these components, including both servers and APIs (collectively known in Haiku as "kits"), included:

• App/Interface – develops the Interface, App and Support kits.• BFS – develops the Be File System, which is mostly complete with the resulting OpenBFS• Game – develops the Game Kit and its APIs.• Input Server – the server that handles input devices, such as keyboards and mice and how they

communicate with other parts of the system.• Kernel – develops the kernel, the core of the operating system.• Media – develops the audio server and related APIs.• MIDI – implements the MIDI protocol.• Network – writes drivers for network devices and APIs relating to networking.• OpenGL – develops OpenGL support.• Preferences – recreates the preferences suite.• Printing – works on the print servers and drivers for printers.• Screen Saver – implements screen saver functionality.• Storage – develops the storage kit and drivers for required filesystems.• Translation – recreates the reading/writing/conversion modules for the different file formats.

COMPATIBILITY WITH BeOS

• Haiku aims to be compatible with BeOS at both the source and binary level, allowing software written and compiled for BeOS to compile and run without modification on Haiku. This would provide Haiku users with an instant library of applications to choose from (even programs whose developers were no longer in business or had no interest in updating them), in addition to allowing development of other applications to resume from where they had been terminated following the demise of Be, Inc. This dedication to compatibility also has its drawbacks though, requiring Haiku to use version 2.95 of the compiler GCC, which is 9 years old.[4] Switching to using the newer GCC version 4 breaks compatibility with BeOS software, therefore Haiku supports being built as a hybrid GCC4/GCC2 environment. [5] This allows the use of both GCC version 2 and version 4 binaries at the same time.

• Note this compatibility is only valid for x86 systems. The PPC version of BeOS R5 will not be supported. As a consequence, the ARM, 68k and PowerPC ports of Haiku use only the gcc4 compiler.

• Despite these attempts, compatibility with a number of system add-ons which use private APIs will not be implemented. These include additional filesystem drivers and media codec add-ons, although the only affected add-ons for BeOS R5 not easily re-implemented are Indeo 5 media decoders for which no specification exists.

• Driver compatibility is incomplete, and unlikely to cover all kinds of BeOS drivers. 2D graphics drivers in general work exactly the same as on R5, as do network drivers. Moreover, Haiku offers a source-level FreeBSD network driver compatibility layer, which means that it can support any network hardware that will work on FreeBSD. Audio drivers using API versions prior to BeOS R5 are as-yet unsupported, and unlikely to be so; however, R5-era drivers work.

HaikuAnew operating system inspired by BeOS

Haiku is an open source operating system that specifically targets personal computing. It is inspired by the now defunct BeOS and reimplements both the BeOS technologies as well as the end user experience. Recently the Haiku team unveiled the first release candidate RC1 by releasing a liveCD of Haiku R1 Alpha1.

The Haiku R1 Alpha1 live CD ISO is only 380MB in size. Succumbing to curiosity, and because of its tiny size, I downloaded Haiku live CD and took it for a run. Simply put, I was really impressed with the user interface and the stability of the OS. I found the Haiku Desktop interface to be unique providing a radical approach to desktop computing.

Haiku live CD at present is more of a showcase and has little applications to be of any use to the lay person. However, it does bundle with it the Firefox web browser though. One thing which impressed me was the smoothness with which some of the demo OpenGL applications ran - even in a Virtual environment. Below are a few images of the Haiku operating system for your peruse

Haiku brings back those BeOS glory days

If you haven't heard of Haiku by now, it's probably for good reason: as of a year ago, the OS could barely connect to the internet, and certainly wasn't anywhere close to replacing your Linux build of choice. Luckily the open source replacement for the gone-but-not-forgotten BeOS of yore is maturing nicely, and it just had a bit of a coming out party at the Southern California Linux Expo this last weekend. There are still plenty of glitches to iron out, with applications like Firefox crashing and glitching frequently, and a shortage of hardware support, but the core elements of BeOS are there and just as lovable as ever. For instance, that few second start time never gets old, same for that 60MB disk image, and the most excellent processor utilization. Check out the in-depth preview on Ars for a better idea of the past future (or is it future past?) of operating systems, or just download the latest nightly on Haiku to find out for yourself.

• Haiku Podcast was founded in April 2006 by Sikosis. I'd been toying around with the idea of doing a podcast for awhile and then one day it dawned on me, what better subject to talk about than Haiku ... ... and what is Haiku you ask ? Haiku is an open-source desktop operating system focusing on usability, innovation, and speed. The first release will be an improved version of BeOS R5, but the team have completely new ideas for the future. Development is currently underway and making steady progress towards its first release.

SUBMITTED BY:• MARICRIS V. RACHO• HONEYLETH JUANICO• MARGIE R. VENTINILLA• KRIS ANN M. RESURRECCION• MICHELLE D. ORIOL

SUBMITTED TO:

MR. FOR IAN SANDOVAL

AIT 1-2