| Haiku | |
|---|---|
_logo.svg){kind=logo} | |
 Screenshot of Haiku (Beta 3) | |
| Developer | Community contributors andHaiku, Inc. |
| Written in | C,C++ |
| OS family | BeOS |
| Working state | Beta |
| Source model | Open source |
| Initial release | February 15, 2002; 23 years ago (2002-02-15)[1] |
| Latest preview | R1 Beta 5 / September 13, 2024; 14 months ago (2024-09-13)[2] |
| Repository | |
| Available in | Multilingual |
| Update method | Software Updater and pkgman |
| Package manager | hpkg |
| Supported platforms | IA-32,x86-64,[3][4]RISC-V[5][6] |
| Kernel type | Hybrid |
| Default user interface | OpenTracker |
| License | MIT License and Be Sample Code License |
| Official website | www |
Haiku, originallyOpenBeOS, is afree and open-sourceoperating system for personal computers. It is a community-driven continuation ofBeOS and aims to bebinary-compatible with it, but is largely a reimplementation with the exception of certain components like the Deskbar.[7] The Haiku project began in 2001, supported by thenonprofit Haiku Inc., and the operating system remains inbeta.[8]
On 17 August 2001Palm, Inc. announced the purchase ofBe, Inc., marking the end of BeOS development. The day after, Michael Phipps started the OpenBeOS project[9] to support the BeOS user community by creating an open-source,backward-compatible replacement for BeOS.[10] Palm refused to license the BeOS code to a third-party,[11] meaning that OpenBeOS had to bereverse-engineered.[12] In 2003, Phipps founded the non-profit organization Haiku, Inc. inRochester, New York, United States, to financially support development.[13]
In 2004, the project held its first North American developers' conference,WalterCon;[14] it was also announced on this day that OpenBeOS was renamed to Haiku[10] to avoid infringing on Palm's trademarks.[15] The BeUnited.org nonprofit organization, which promoted open standards for BeOS-compatible operating system projects,[16] announced that Haiku would be its "reference platform".[17] In February 2007, the project held a Tech Talk atGoogleplex, attended by ex-Be engineers as well asJean-Louis Gassée who voiced his support for the project.[18][14] There is also an annual conference, BeGeistert, held in Germany since 1998 when BeOS was active.[19][20]
Apart from thegraphical user interface (Tracker and Deskbar, which were open sourced with BeOS 5), Haiku is original software.[21] Themodular design[22] 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.[citation needed]
The first project by OpenBeOS was a community-created "stop-gap" update for BeOS 5.0.3 in 2002, featuring open source replacement for some BeOS components.[23] Thekernel of NewOS, forx86,SuperH, andPowerPC architectures was successfully forked that same year,[24] and Haiku has been based on it since.[25] Theapp_serverwindow manager was completed in 2005.[26] In July 2006, Haiku developer Stephan Aßmus introduced Icon-O-Matic, an icon editor, and a storage format (HVIF) with a rendering engine based onAnti-Grain Geometry.[27] The PackageInstaller was created by Łukasz Zemczak at the 2007Google Summer of Code.[28]
Java support was eventually added by a team from BeUnited who had ported it to BeOS,[29][30] followed byWLAN from theFreeBSD stack.[31] Alongside a port toGCC4, the firstalpha release finally arrived after seven years of development.[32] Initially targeting full BeOS 5 compatibility, a community poll was launched to redefine the future of Haiku beyond a free software refactoring of BeOS from the late 1990s. It was decided to add support for contemporary systems, protocols, hardware,web standards, and compatibility withFLOSS libraries.[33] On October 27, 2009, Haiku obtainedQt4 support.[34]
The WebPositive browser was first preloaded with Alpha2, replacing BeZillaBrowser.[35] After this, much time was spent on building apackage management system, which went live in September 2013.[36] Beta1 arrived in 2018, and one of the most notable new features[37] was the PackageFS and package installation through the HaikuDepot and pkgman; Beta1 was the first official Haiku release to support full package management.[38]
Wine was first ported to Haiku in 2022.[21]
| Version | Release date | OS name | Architecture | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unsupported: Haiku R1/Alpha1 | 2009-09-14[39] | hrev33109 | IA-32 | |
| Unsupported: Haiku R1/Alpha2 | 2010-05-10[40] | hrev36769 | ||
| Unsupported: Haiku R1/Alpha3 | 2011-06-20 | hrev42211 | ||
| Unsupported: Haiku R1/Alpha4 | 2012-11-11[41] | hrev44702 | IA-32,X86-64 | |
| Unsupported: Haiku R1/Beta1 | 2018-09-28 | hrev52295 | ||
| Unsupported: Haiku R1/Beta2 | 2020-06-09[42] | hrev54154 | ||
| Unsupported: Haiku R1/Beta3 | 2021-07-26[43] | hrev55182 | ||
| Unsupported: Haiku R1/Beta4 | 2022-12-23[44] | hrev56578 | ||
| Preview version: Haiku R1/Beta5 | 2024-09-13[45] | hrev57937 | ||
Legend: Unsupported Supported Latest version Preview version Future version | ||||
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As with BeOS, Haiku is written inC++ and provides anobject-orientedAPI.[46] The Haiku kernel is a modularhybrid kernel which began as afork of NewOS, a modular monokernel written by formerBe Inc. engineer Travis Geiselbrecht.[47] Many features have been implemented, including avirtual file system (VFS) layer andsymmetric multiprocessing (SMP) support.[citation needed] It runs on 32-bit and 64-bitx86 processors, and recently has been ported toRISC-V;[48] there is also a port forARM under development, but is currently far behind the x86 port.[49]
Theapplication program interface (API) is based on that of BeOS, which is divided into a number of "kits" which collect related classes together and bear some relation to thelibrary which contains the supporting code. In 2007,Access Co Ltd, the owners of Be, Inc's intellectual property, released the text of this (BeBook) under aCreative Commons licence.[50][51] Theboot loader isfilesystem agnostic and can alsochainloadGRUB,LILO andNTLDR.[citation needed]
Since the Beta1 release, Haiku's memory management includesASLR,DEP, andSMAP.[52]
Graphics operations and window management is handled by the app_serverprotocol.[53]VESA is used as a fallback video output mode.[54] Haiku isPOSIX compatible and has translation layers forX11 andWayland.[7]
Thegraphical user interface is formed of Tracker, afile manager, and the Deskbar, an always-on-toptaskbar that is placed in the upper right corner of the screen containing a menu, tray, and a list of running programs. Tracker is an evolution from OpenTracker, which was released under a license with twoaddenda restricting the use of Be Inc.trademarks;[55]Zeta also modified OpenTracker on their own operating system.[56]
Theicons in Haiku are namedstippi and were designed by Stephan Aßmus.[57] Aßmus also created the Haiku Vector Icon Format (HVIF), avector storage format to store icons in Haiku, and is aimed at fast rendering and small file sizes.[58]
Package management is done by the graphical application HaikuDepot, and a command-line equivalent calledpkgman.[59] Packages can also be activated by installing them from remote repositories with pkgman, or dropping them over a specialpackages directory.[59] Haiku package management mounts activated packages over a read-only system directory. The Haiku package management system performs dependency solving withlibsolv from theopenSUSE project.[citation needed]
It comes with a number of preloaded applications, such as aWebKit-based web browserWebPositive, a document reader BePDF, a simpleweb server PoorMan, text editorsPe and StyledEdit, anIRC client Vision, and aBash-basedterminal emulator Terminal.[60]
Haiku R1 aims to be compatible with BeOS 5 at both thesource and binary level,[61] allowing software written andcompiled for BeOS to be compiled and run without modification on Haiku.[62] The 64-bit version of Haiku, however, does not have BeOS compatibility at the binary level, but the API still does. (The same would apply to other non-IA32 ports, such as RISC-V.)[62] Installation of these PKG format files are done using the PackageInstaller.[63]
In 2013 after the release of Haiku Alpha 4,Ars Technica reviewed the operating system and praised it for being fast, but ultimately stating that it "may not be much more than an interesting diversion, something to play with on a spare bit of hardware".[64] Haiku Beta 4 was reviewed byZDNET in 2023 where it stated: "Haiku is for those who experienced eitherNeXT orAfterStep and want an operating system that looks and feels a bit old school but performs faster than any OS they've ever experienced." It further praised Haiku's kernel, file system, and object-oriented API.[46]
As of 2018, theFree Software Foundation has included Haiku in a list of non-endorsed operating systems because: "Haiku includes some software that you're not allowed to modify. It also includes nonfreefirmware blobs."[65]
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