[haiku-development] Re: Busted!

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Most of the computers I would use Haiku on don't boot from USB or don't have a floppy drive. For those systems a bootable CD is the best solution. I probably have 20 old computers around here and I think every one of them have an optical drive. The ability to boot from CD is far more common than the ability to boot from USB at least as far as older hardware is concerned. 

Marcus Jacob wrote:
*This message was transferred with a trial version of CommuniGate(tm) Pro* Sorrt for top posting, but this message is just to long to delete parts from a phone.
Actually I don't understand all the complaining and fuss around bootable cd images. Most of my systems (notebooks) don't even have a built in optical drive!
Grabbing or building a raw image is pretty easy and dumping such an image on an usb stick as well! Just boot from the stick, start installer and of you go.
This method to update or install Haiku requires the same level of skill as burning a cd. And quite frankly, who fails with this shouldn't use alpha software on real hardware. For certain emulators prebuild images are also available ...
I don't experience any issues installing this way ;-) well mostly, sometimes it is advisable to read the commit logs prior to updating to catch known and mentioned issues like conflicting drivers vs. optional packages or directory layout changes. But this applies to updates only, a clean install always worked for me!
Btw, the installer dialog mentioning that the selected partion is not empty could make some people feel less intimidated by mentioning that no data is lost by the update except certain settings ;)
And btw, reusing an usb stick, especially if the install is more or less frequently updated, is far more environmently friendly than producing toasted cds on and on ... 

Cheers,
Rossi

--
Marcus Jacob

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On 24.05.2009, at 18:12, Zaranthos <Zaranthos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
*This message was transferred with a trial version of CommuniGate(tm) Pro* There are also other people, like myself, who have wanted an easy way to use Haiku for years. A bootable CD release has been talked about for years. Until it actually happens it's just more talk. I've waited so long I won't believe it until I see it. I had Haiku running on a laptop well over a year ago as the main OS. It ran very stable on that machine. But if you want to actually help by reporting bugs or hardware issues you have to have an easier way to update. That's not a problem if you're a developer and build it yourself. If you're less of a developer, or just don't have the time to build and install continually, then it's not a good option. As a project Haiku has held itself back by trying to get things too perfect before making a release that's community friendly. That delay kills off some of the old and faithful community members. Too much attention has been paid to the reasons not to release a CD. 

Matt Madia wrote:
*This message was transferred with a trial version of CommuniGate(tm) Pro* On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 2:48 PM, Zaranthos <Zaranthos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Can't say I agree with a lot of your comments, or your tone, but I agree 
with this. It's time for Haiku to get out of the test tube.



As Michael and Stephan have mentioned, there are developers,
contributors, and users that use Haiku as their primary OS.  I'm also
included in this group.

It's safe to say that anyone contributing to Haiku is helping to bring
it closer to release. Until then, there is nothing stopping an
individual from at least trying to use Haiku. If there's something
that's actually preventing someone from using Haiku, then it needs to
be reported.

Just recently, the ability to create pre-alpha cd's was added to the
build system. I'm hoping to work with the maintainer of
Haiku-Files.org to start providing pre-alpha cd's and hybrid images.
Though, i'm not sure if ISO's of hybrids should be made available or
if both types of hybrids should be made available, etc...

This will allow people to test and report issues of cd's from an
official source, as opposed to a 3rd-party distributors that may
contain unknown software or source file changes.

Ideally, many non-C++ tasks need to be squared away --
 website documentation is another big issue that needs more attention.
It'd probably be wise to move our bugtracker to another webhost provider. 
 There's a few tasks for the main www.haiku-os.org website that are
in the works

Granted, these things are 100% necessary, but they add to Haiku
support infrastructure and will provide a better experience for new
users.

At some point, we each need to ask ourselves if there's anyway to make
a contribution. Yes, financial donations help, but putting one's own
time into the project is typically a better contribution.

--mmadia

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