Slashdot Mirror
HaikuOS Hits Kernel Milestone
Professor Cool Linux writes "HaikuOS kernel team has a working implementation of fork(), exec(), and waitpid(), as well as a TTY layer. 'Despite some minor issues (you still don't see what you type), we can now have a fully functional bash running on our kernel. A lot of other shell commands, even those using our own libbe.so are working, as well.'Things are really moving."
``Before you know it will all fall into place and there will be a fully open-source BeOS clone''
Or maybe Hurd will come first.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
"Things are really moving."
That may be true, but they're still a long, long way away from their destination. They still don't have an alpha-quality kernel or interface kit, 3 years after work began. There's a heck of a lot of work to be done, by a pretty small team. Also, the developers are trying to clone BeOS 5, an OS released in 2000 - so when they finally get something usable and stable, at a guess sometime in 2006, they'll have a copy of an OS that is over six years old. Sure, there will be some differences, but that is the gist of it. Tiger will be out by then, Longhorn will possibly be out in that timeframe, and GNOME and KDE will be more advanced than ever. Meanwhile, Haiku will still be single-user!
I hate to be such a pessimist, BeOS was a great OS for its time, but it seems circumstance will relegate Haiku to the fringe, used only by hobbyists. It's a shame really that they were so ambitious (maintaining binary compatibility, pretty much doing it all from scratch), and that the efforts to implement the Be API over a Linux kernel stalled.
This OS is free
Like the autumn wind and leaves
Why another though?
Like stars in the sky
Open-source OSes shine
Too many to count.
Bold and daring though
Like the lion in its den
HaikuOS lives.
Reflecting the sun
Haiku's website shines, I hope
The OS does too.
With their lofty goals,
Like the eagle, they will soar
If success they find.
As the seasons pass
I have no time to try out
Every new OS.
Promising and new
As in spring the world will be?
Maybe, maybe not.
One complaint I have
The article does not say
What HaikuOS is.
A BeOS clone
That is what I've determined
Kudos! Keep it up.
(Ok, those last two weren't really related to nature, but it's late. Bedtime. For more information on what goes into making better haikus than I have made here, check out the Wikipedia entry on the topic)