Haiku Os Arm Port Confirmed Gsoc

[cb88]

Mailing list topic about the port
CODE

http://www.freelists.org/post/haiku-development/In-My-Infinite-Free-Time,1



GSoC annoucement
CODE

http://www.haiku-os.org/gsoc2009_announced_students




The target is likely to be the beagleboard and thus the pandora should also be an easy leap

It seems there are actually several developers interested in this besides the GSoC student

Also gallium3d has already been ported to haiku but hasn't been merged into the trunk repo .... there could be hardware 3d support soon if the planets aline etc...

from my experience ram requirements of Haiku are also fairly acceptable on x86 at 70mb at bootup and that stands to be improved

 

[lulzfish]

I can't seem to find anything from the Wikipedia about this:

Does BeOS / Haiku follow the FHS or does it use something more sensible, like Gobolinux's file tree?

 

[cb88]

Haiku on wikipedia CODE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku_%28operating_system%29


well BeOs has its own files system

BFS Be File System you can wikipedia that (edit)

CODE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be_File_System


structure is like
/boot

with
/haiku
/home
/dev

and

system files would be under haiku

user files under /home (even user libs etc although haiku currently isn`t fully multiuser it is partially there i think)

and dev...well..

thats all I remember off the top of my head it is different than Linux but by default you are presented just a Desktop where you can put files and a home directory that contains the desktop folder settings and libs are under .config

if you have an older PII - P4 computer you can try booting BeOS on it by getting BeOSmax here CODE
http://www.beosmaxfiles.org/
ImgBurn(Windows X.x) is the only program i could get to burn the .cue/bin files (they have to be that way since the iso burning programs don`t recognize BFS)

or you can boot haiku in virtualbox (require intel vt enabled to work) or qemu or Vmware ... you can get those packages from haikuware.com

 

[lulzfish]

The Wikipedia article for BeFS was about the file system, not the directory tree.

I really just want to know whether it stores files by program like Windows / Mac OS X or by file type like Linux.

 

[cb88]

not sure what you mean.... it has mime type support like linux im pretty sure of that it was one of the big features of BeOS the speed you could search for files by type

There is also a program that pops up if it doesn't know what to do with a file

maybe I don't understand what you mean also there isn't all that much difference between how windows and Linux treat files afaik and probably even depends on what desktop environment you are running on Linux

 

[Ravnos]

not sure what you mean.... it has mime type support like linux im pretty sure of that it was one of the big features of BeOS the speed you could search for files by type

There is also a program that pops up if it doesn't know what to do with a file

maybe I don't understand what you mean also there isn't all that much difference between how windows and Linux treat files afaik and probably even depends on what desktop environment you are running on Linux

He's referring to the directory layout of the installed system. Basically, similar to how Windows puts the system in C:\Windows and the user apps in C:\Program Files, and the user stuff in C:\Documents and Settings or C:\Users. Or how Linux has /home for user files, /bin for the base system binaries, and about a million other things. He was mainly curious whether BeOS/Haiku follows the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, which specifies which directories are expected to hold what files on a Linux system and most distros ignore anyway. It doesn't, by the way, but it does use similar conventions and is not entirely alien to a seasoned Unix user, especially one who's also dabbled with other Unixes like the BSD's or Solaris.

 

[lulzfish]

well, not really filetype like MIME type.

In Windows, program data is in /Program Files/program_name/ [aside from the registry]
In Mac OS, program data is in like /Apps/clever_name/ or something.
In Gobolinux, program data is in /Programs/name/

in Linux, program data is conveniently located in /usr/bin, /usr/local, /usr/share, ~/.name, /usr/local/share, /etc, and occasionally, anywhere else.

I just ran Haiku in QEMU, it seems to use the more sensible /something/apps/name/

 

[cb88]

ic

there is also .config/apps/name I think in the home dir

they definitely target desktop easy of use and the menn system would probably work nicely on a touch screen and or mapped to the menu key and dpad

 

[streak]

Awesome news, yeah! What more i can say

 

[dflemstr]

well, not really filetype like MIME type.

In Windows, program data is in /Program Files/program_name/ [aside from the registry]
In Mac OS, program data is in like /Apps/clever_name/ or something.
In Gobolinux, program data is in /Programs/name/

in Linux, program data is conveniently located in /usr/bin, /usr/local, /usr/share, ~/.name, /usr/local/share, /etc, and occasionally, anywhere else.

Ah, so THAT's what you have been talking about in your choice-of-Linux threads...
But I don't see what you mean when you say that applications aren't well-structured in Linux in general... They are sorted after purpose and level-of-importance, allowing you to perform optimizations like multiple partitions etc. The system is very well-planned and not complicated at all.
I mean, it's pretty easy to understand:

Binaries:
/bin - Important programs that are part of the basic Linux/UNIX system.
/usr/bin - Programs added by your particular distro or installed through packages ("user"-added packages).
/usr/local/bin - Programs installed through Makefiles etc ("local" programs that only exist on your system, placed there to not conflict with other apps)
*/sbin - System or administration binaries

Libraries:
/lib - System libraries and UNIX libraries
/usr/lib - Distro and program libraries
/usr/local/lib - Libs used by "local" programs
*/lib64 - 64-bit libraries

Data:
/usr/share - Information shared by applications that is cross-platform (aka non-compiled) like images etc.
/var - Data that changes VERY rapidly and requires high performance. Many servers mount their var folder on a separate SSD for extreme speeds

Configuration:
/etc - System-wide configuration
/usr/local/etc - System-wide configuration for "local" programs
~/.* - User-specific configuration that overrides the system-wide config
~/.config/* - Cross-platform confugurations that can be reused on multiple machines (as per the FSF standards)

Don't see how this isn't well-structured.

Off-topic
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On-topic

Haiku is the OS with the best future ahead of it imho. It is the most innovative of the OSs and has some very modern design choices.

Pity that there aren't enough applications for it.

 

[Ravnos]

Haiku is the OS with the best future ahead of it imho. It is the most innovative of the OSs and has some very modern design choices.

Yes, BeOS was definitely ahead of its time when it came out in the early 90's.

 

[lulzfish]

I don't like relying on the package manager that much.
So far, I've only had one program / system partition, so it would be a lot better for me if the programs were confined to their own directory, so I don't have to go hunting in 4 different places for one of the files that makes up this bizarre concept called a 'package'.

It would be great for a video game, though.
"In order to successfully un-install $some_program, you must find the 3 executable binaries and the 2 data archives, which have were separated and scatter across the 4 corners of the file system in order to seal away their power"

I suppose with the partition thing you meant something like keeping critical system stuff on one each partition and user stuff on other? You could probably still do that. I think Gobolinux has something like "utils" that has all the "grep, ls, chmod" programs in it, you could separate that into another partition and then union-mount or something.

edit: It's certainly well-structured, but I don't think it's the right structure for the job. We should continue this in the Off Topic forum.

 

[streak]

Haiku is the OS with the best future ahead of it imho. It is the most innovative of the OSs and has some very modern design choices.

Pity that there aren't enough applications for it.

Its truth if we speaking about NEW apps, otherwise, -> bebits.com explains everything [+4000 apps / games /drivers ].

 

[cb88]

@lulzfish oh yes.... nearly all except large programs are distributed as .zip files for BeOS/Haiku programs like firefox have .pgk files.... other wise just drop it in the apps directory and your set

oh and a load of screensavers too check out the neblula one

 

[dflemstr]

Its truth if we speaking about NEW apps, otherwise, -> bebits.com explains everything [+4000 apps / games /drivers ].

Was aware of that site, but many apps there aren't really... what should I say... up-to-date...
And btw, two things about Haiku in general:
1. Is there some kind of centralized package manager? To have to download installers through a web-browser seems to be such a leap backwards if you ask me.
2. I don't seem to get a network connection in VMware (and it's not VMware's fault, I can tell you that much), where do I diagnose network stuff in Haiku?

 

[streak]

...have .pgk files.... other wise just drop it in the apps directory and your set

Theres a PKG manager in development, something like Add/Uninstall Apps in Windows.

1. Is there some kind of centralized package manager? To have to download installers through a web-browser seems to be such a leap backwards if you ask me.
2. I don't seem to get a network connection in VMware (and it's not VMware's fault, I can tell you that much), where do I diagnose network stuff in Haiku?

1. Author of BeOS MAX {Vasper} prepared [ there was screens with running app ] something similar for BeOS Max but unfortunatelly never released it
2. Wireles will not work [ no wireless stack ] bluetooth will not work [ BT stack in dev ], but LAN should work fine...
anyway network settings are in -> /boot/home/config/settings/network

 

[dflemstr]

...have .pgk files.... other wise just drop it in the apps directory and your set

Theres a PKG manager in development, something like Add/Uninstall Apps in Windows.
I have a dream.
That one day, Haiku will have PackageKit support
Hopefully that day will be soon.
Anyways, now that Haiku is being ported and all, will we have access to a big assortment of applications on ARM? Or are the Haiku/BeOS packages still in that very annoying stage that:
1. They use platform-specific hacks to work (aka are written in non-portable C)
2. They don't have their source-code readily available (like SRPMs or arch source packages)
3. They fail to specify their dependencies with versioning so that a dependency hell arises when you try to port a package?

And to the network problems: I run my machine on a 1 gigabit/sec line and have access to the net from my other VMware VMs. But it's probably a subnet issue, or that's what ifconfig and ping tells me in Haiku. I'll look into it some more.

 

[streak]

1. They use platform-specific hacks to work (aka are written in non-portable C)
2. They don't have their source-code readily available (like SRPMs or arch source packages)
3. They fail to specify their dependencies with versioning so that a dependency hell arises when you try to port a package?

Rep.1 Only older BeOS apps uses this
Rep.2 Like in linux world, some app have source , some not, but mainly if you have actual and working email to original author of the program, you'll get sources Haiku community is even more open than Linux community [ my opinion , dont flame me ]
Rep.3 Hard to tell , depends on ability of the original app maker....

These are good questions to ask to somebody that will be porting Haiku 4 beagleboad.

 

[lulzfish]

I'm not really sure what all these *Kit things are, but PackageKit looks... intriguing.
I think compressed directories are the only type of package one really needs, so I'd rather just use those and a file manager with an 'unzip' script.

Also: "will not allow shutdown in critical parts of the transaction." - Wikipedia article on PackageKit.

Would suck if it broke and you couldn't restart. VLC sometimes leaves processes open and then I have to convince Ubuntu that shutting down is a good idea even though VLC is "playing some media". Lying piece of junk.

 

[dflemstr]

Rep.2 Like in linux world, some app have source , some not, but mainly if you have actual and working email to original author of the program, you'll get sources

What I meant was that it would be like in Fedora or Ubuntu. In Ubuntu every package that has sources available has those sources 'attached' to it. So you can say "apt-get source <package>" and you get it's source. Then you wouldn't have to contact all the authors to port all the packages, but could instead do it with a bash script and a cross-compiler.

@lulzfish PackageKit transactions only break if the backend doesn't support resuming. On Ubuntu, deb transactions can crash if you turn off the machine, and so can PackageKit transactions since PackageKit uses apt as it's backend.
But if PackageKit gets a resuming backend as its backend (say, RPM), it can't crash because of a reboot.