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Haiku OS Will Get New Service Manager
jones_supa writes: Axel Dörfler writes in his blog that he is working on a replacement for Haiku OS's current shell script based boot process. It would be replaced with something more flexible, a solution similar to OS X's launchd and Linux's systemd. While there is still a lot to do, the new project called launch_daemon is now feature complete in terms of being able to completely reproduce the current boot process. Since the switch to their package manager, there was no longer a way to influence the boot process at all. The only file you could change was the UserBootscript which is started only after Tracker and Deskbar — the whole system is already up at this point. The new service manager gives the power back to you, and also allows arbitrary software to be launched on startup. Alternatively, you can prevent system components from being started at all if you so wish. Furthermore, it allows for event based application start, start on demand, a multi-threaded boot process, and even enables you to talk to servers before they actually started.
Why does this happen?
Bad existing manager?
Hopefully this one not suck.
The people complaining about systemd aren't complaining because it's different. They're complaining about it because it's utter shit!
For crying out loud, systemd's most vocal opponents are career sysadmins with the most experience. These are the people who are least bothered by change! They're completely accustomed to it. Change has been the story of their careers. In fact, they're the biggest supporters of change, when it's done right.
When you're a professional admin who has dealt with various versions of Windows, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, OS X, Linux, BSD/OS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and many other OSes each week for years or decades, change itself is a total non-issue.
People have a problem with systemd because it has so often done something that no init system should ever do: prevented the operating system from fully booting.
Read through the mailing list archives of the major Linux distros that have switched to it. Read through the bug reports. It's disturbing how many problems people report with it. It's especially disturbing when a project like Debian, which for so many years prided itself on a very high level of reliability, has its reputation tarnished thanks to its awful transition to systemd.
The opposition to systemd has never been about change itself. It has been about changing to something that experience shows is rife with serious problems.
The opponents of systemd would gladly accept change, but this change needs to bring improvements, not problems.
I always thought that system startup should be controllable by the user, but that dependencies ought to be mapped graphically so that you have some idea of what ELSE you're going to be knocking out by stopping, for instance, system interrupts or the RTC.
That said, I'm pretty fond of init.d and crew. :/
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
We aren't trying to be a "viable operating system" for the masses. Yet. That comes in R2, after we drop compatibility. If you want the latest not-really-greatest slidy transparent Operating System of the Future, we aren't it. We have much different goals (like: actually being usable! Actually being configurable!) Not the "systemd takes over the whole operating system" or "Ubuntu writes their own window manager" crap that Linux has to deal with. In that sense, we're lightyears ahead of Linux, the only forks we have are the POSIX fork() function. :D
You have to use the nightly build to get HaikuDepot, it's not on the alpha release. And the nightly's web browser runs JS with a JIT and YouTube to boot.
The irony is that BeOS was designed specifically to take advantage of modern computer hardware of the day and cared nothing for binary compatibility with other OSes, and today Haiku is clinging to an ancient compiler and a dead x86 architecture... in the name of compatibility with BeOS apps, no less. BeOS itself moved from Hobbit to PowerPC to Intel x86 with little care for compatibility.
What made BeOS exciting 20 years ago was it promised to give users better multimedia support and responsiveness. Other OSes have caught up with the innovations and surpassed them. (Multithreading, multiprocessing, multitasking, journaling file systems, etc.) Some users liked the GUI and lauded it as a clean and a great interface. I hated the yellow tabs. Still, that's just personal preference -- Mac OS X has a clean and polished interface that suits that purpose today. In fact, the death knell of BeOS was when Apple declined to purchase BeOS and bought NeXTSTEP instead... because it was superior and led to today's OS X.
Point being that BeOS offered new, cutting edge features and better functionality on the same hardware than other OSes at the time. It seems that Haiku is the last of the BeOS clones and it's not progressing at a rate that will ever offer users significant benefits over modern OSes today.
What does Haiku have to offer? I mean - when it's finally released in a few decades or centuries at this rate and our ancestors get to enjoy it on their x86 or even AMD64 emulators?
There's a nice bit of fluff at : https://www.haiku-os.org/about , but that doesn't really answer the question. The key strength compared to Linux seems to be that a single team is developing and integrating everything with a common goal. Why couldn't that same team (or one as dedicated) simply fork a Linux distribution and all software it uses to customize and integrate towards the same common goal?
Seems a waste to re-invent the wheel creating new drivers and struggling to build on the Haiku platform for backwards compatibility without any clear, solid, user-recognizable benefit.
I get that it's interesting as a project and great practice for coders, and I truly wish Haiku well in its continued development... I just don't see the point if the development will never release outside of Beta with support for modern hardware. If Linux still struggles to get decent drivers, I can't imagine Haiku ever getting proper support.
Haiku seems like another stagnant AmigaOS, Syllable Desktop, or other relic. ReactOS at least has some benefit to Linux and potentially former Windows users by furthering WINE development even if it never makes it out of alpha (going on 17 years now btw.)