[haiku] Re: A Roadmap Related Question
- From: John Scipione <jscipione@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 17:48:17 -0500
On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 5:23 PM, Martin Vahi <martin.vahi@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Could You please explain, why does the Haiku development community work on
> the operating system part, if the main sales argument of Haiku is a desktop
> experience?
I can't speak for everyone involved in the project, but, I think this
question is fairly answered in the FAQ page on www.haiku-os.org Why
not Linux? [1]
> Why not just develop a new window manager to the x.org and have the features
> that are required from the kernel to support a responsive user experience to
> be added to OpenBSD or other, similar, high quality "kernel and basics"
> project?
Haiku has some kernel level features inherited from BeOS that
distinguish it from Linux and the *BSDs for instance Ports, and Areas.
[2]
Haiku also has a different scheduler design than Linux or the *BSDs
that allows the system to stay responsive even under heavy load. The
scheduler requirements on a desktop OS are different than on a server
OS because on a desktop it is more important to favor responsiveness
of the interface, like allowing the mouse to move smoothly and the
interface to respond while on a server throughput is valued more
highly, as in allowing the machine to process more simultaneous web
server requests.
> Clearly the old BeOS applications will become out-dated at some point and if
> they are not even maintained, ported to newer computers/operating systems,
> then the question might even be, why to choose BeOS as the "computer history
> museum" project in stead of some other old, out of date, system that has
> some interesting properties, like Plan9 or something?
Yes, the BeOS applications are quite outdated at this point, but BeOS
compatibility gives us a library of applications that we can use now
to bootstrap the system while replacements are created. It also makes
Haiku a more authentic replacement for BeOS.
Lastly, there were several projects that proposed to do exactly as you
suggest, build a BeOS like system on top of Linux and X Windows such
as BlueEyedOS [3] and ZevenOS [4] all of which had limited success.
[1] http://www.haiku-os.org/about/faq#3
[2]
http://www.haiku-os.org/legacy-docs/bebook/TheKernelKit_Overview_Introduction.html
[3] http://www.blueeyedos.com/
[4] http://www.zevenos.de/
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