[haiku-development] My First Haiku Project?
- From: "Michael Crawford" <mdcrawford@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 23:36:02 -0700
Hi Again,
The bad news is that I still haven't installed either Haiku or BeOS 5 Pro.
The good news is that that's because I had no space on any of my hard
drives, and am too short of cash to buy any new ones. So I set to
work tidying up all my hard drives - I have many of them, deleting
stuff I knew I didn't need, backing up stuff I wanted to keep, and
deleting some of the keepers once they were backed up as I didn't
actually need them online.
Happily, I can devote an entire 80 GB drive to my Haiku work. That
should be enough, no? I'd need four systems: BeOS 5 Pro, Linux for
building Haiku, a stable Haiku install, and an unstable on to test my
current work.
I've been pondering what I could do just to get my feet wet, that
would be enough work for me that I'd learn the basics of the toolchain
and the codebase, but not so hard that it would take me a long time or
even risk failure.
Let me say though that having twenty-one years experience as a coder
on VAX-VMS, DEC-System 10 and 20, BSD starting with PDP-11, Microport
Unix, DOS, SunOS and Solaris, Mac OS from System 6 through Leopard,
Windows from 95 through XP, and embedded work on Texas Instruments
DSP/BIOS as well as naked hardware, and of course BeOS from DR8
through 5 Pro with a Master's Awards Honorable Mention, *nothing* in
the way of software development actually scares me.
Observe:
http://www.goingware.com/resume/
It's just that I'm most productive when I come to grips with a
codebase in a sensible way as outlined below.
I think I found one a suitable first project:
I happened to want a LiveCD to pass out to friends so they can try
Haiku without actually install, and for my own purposes to easily test
on whatever box was handy, without messing with it's data.
It turns out there *is* such a LiveCD, but it is not trouble-free and
I don't think it's been maintained, at least not since March:
The Return of the Son of the Demo CD
http://www.haiku-os.org/blog/mmu_man/2008-03-03/the_return_of_the_son_of_the_demo_cd
Our FAQ says there is no LiveCD available:
http://www.haiku-os.org/about/faq#8
So I think my LiveCD would be useful not just to me and not just to
prospective Haiku users but to the whole Haiku effort as a way of
attracting new users and developers.
- make a CD according to mmu_man's instructions from March 2008
- update mmu_man's LiveCD creation procedure to the *current* state of Haiku
- Document this new procedure so any damn fool can follow it.
While foolproof software is attainable, damn foolproof software is
much harder!
- Write a build script that generates a ready-to-burn ISO image in
either of two ways
---- by checking Haiku's source out of CVS and building it,
---- by using one of the nightly images
- develop a test plan, tools and scripts to verify that a given ISO
would be usable and stable in the hands of a naive user
- automate the generation of ISOs and testing, with test reports
readily accessible for example as web pages
- either fix Haiku bugs that effect the LiveCD myself or assist you
folks in doing so, such as by writing simple and reproducible bug
demonstrations
- develop an automated way for all end-user data, not just their home
directory but all their settings and the like,
to be saved transparently to a USB Flash drive
Once I have storage on USB sticks as well as just one, single stable
and usable ISO image file, nightly or CVS snapshot though it may be,
post the image for public download on the haiku-os website and link it
from other community sites like BeBits and Freshmeat.
- Get Slashdotted when the LiveCD is publicly announced. Best to
offer it via BitTorrent for that.
Kick back, relax, and look for my next Haiku project. I already have
some in mind but they're all much, much harder.
Mike
--
Michael David Crawford
mdcrawford at gmail dot com
Enjoy my art, photography, music and writing at
http://www.geometricvisions.com/
--- Free Compact Disc ---
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