> I'm not convinced this is actually necessary - I wouldn't expect the > devs to shift their development platform to Haiku after the alpha, so > self-hosting is more a symbolic milestone that demonstrates the > stability of lots of different OS subsystems. Linux is a very nice > development platform for Haiku - rock solid, quick at compiling, and > allows fast turn-around using emulators. Zeta also still help a lot for small tests. But yes linux is much faster. > > 2) For 'users'/hobbyists/enthusiasts [...] that do not > > have the knowledge, nor the will, to create partitions under Linux, > > format them, copy the Haiku tree over, make it bootable, etc. This > > process needs to be doable from the alpha 1 CD itself. > > I'm not sure we should have a partitioner in the alpha. I'm not sure > I > would trust the first "alpha" release of an OS to resize my > partitions > with all my important data. If we destroy anyone's data it will be a > very hard impression to shift. If we get to the state where we can be > sure it would all go smoothly, I'd argue we're much closer to beta > territory! :) Indeed, if it gets in it might better be read-only, to allow playing with the gui without risking loosing data. > I'd suggest a smooth read-only experience when booted from a Live-CD > should be a priority. USB-drive booting would also be great, though > probably shouldn't be a blocker for the alpha. USB booting shouldn't be that much harder, once the mass storage driver works, it should just happen transparently, when the BIOS works correctly. Old BIOSes might need a boot floppy :p Reminds me I never really finished that floppy driver... I guess it's not urgent anymore. > The absolute best > solution, IMHO, is the nifty R5 trick of using an image file on a > windows or linux partiton, combined with a bootloader on CD. Dead > easy > to install, much less chance of Haiku messing with existing data, as > fast as booting from a dedicated partition, and easily removed when > the > tester has finished with no extra unwanted partitions lying about. I > have no idea how much work this would be, though. It's possible, in fact I started adding it long ago. It "just" requires fat and ext2 fs support in zbeos, and an fmap driver that uses the filemap. François.