[UFO Chicago] Haiku (was: Re: Tech Support)

[Brian Sobolak]

On Wed, October 20, 2010 10:20 pm, Matthew T. Gibbs wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----
>> From: Jay F Shachter <jay at m5.chicago.il.us>
>> To: Michael Sphar <mikesphar at gmail.com>
>> Cc: ufo at ufo.chicago.il.us
>> Sent: Wed, October 20, 2010 7:33:31 PM
>> Subject: Re: [UFO Chicago] Haiku (was: Re: Tech Support)
>> However, the Haiku that  is referred to in http://xkcd.com/806 is a
>> computer operating system.  Many thanks to  Michael Sphar for referring
>> us to the website:
>>
>> >
>> > I this  case, I believe it's referring to  http://www.haiku-os.org/
>> >
>>
>>
>> I had never  heard of this operating system before, and I am
>> intrigued.  We now have  one more operating system to talk about at our
>> UFO meetings, instead of just  talking about Linux all the time.  Does
>> anyone on our mailing list have  actual experience with Haiku?  If not,
>> does anyone want to volunteer to  try it out?
>
>
> I downloaded the VMware image and ran it for a few minutes.  Seems to be
> quite
> fast; however, I didn't have time to look into it further.  It is supposed
> to be
> an open-source re-write of BeOS.
>

BeOS was bitchin' and a lot of fun to play with back in the day.  It's of
interest for those who are interested in OS design, I think, but it was
folded into Palm (or Apple?) and quickly disappeared.

It was particularly good for multi-media work, which in 1999 was kind of
new and helpful.  No one really ever developed software for it, and though
BeOS tried to become a good OS for embedded devices, it never took off.

The haiku project took off shortly after, and I'm glad to see they've made
it all the way to alpha.  Their screenshots are compelling, as they have
very detailed pictures of installing Haiku, not actually doing anything
with it.  (though maybe it's a nice change from the manga
chick/irc/i'm-also-compiling-a-kernel screenshots that are popular with
Linux distributions.

Good timing to mention it -- if anyone is truly interested you could get
on a plane on Friday and still attend the conference in Duesseldorf this
weekend.  It's only 35 EUR.

brian


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