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List:       openbeos
Subject:    [haiku] Re: V\OS Project Announcement (Haiku on linux)
From:       "Thomas Mueller" <mueller6723 () twc ! com>
Date:       2018-07-26 7:43:28
Message-ID: 20180726074345.23A1D2740D () turing ! freelists ! org
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from Dario Casalinuovo:

> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

> Dear friends,
        
> in July due to an attack of Real Programmer Syndrome, I started a fork of
> Haiku with the aim of porting most of the userland to Linux and/or Zircon.
> I planned to release it someday in the future, after summer, however today
> I decided it is OK to share the code and most importantly the aims.
        
> Sincerely I feel locked in a kernel that can't be maintained anymore
> without having full time developers. The only way to ensure long life to
> the BeOS heritage is ensuring an exit way.

> Times changed. When Linus Torvalds started linux it was possible, today,
> no. You need paid people or a countless number of contributors, or probably
> both.
> I already expressed in past my issues with Haiku Inc., but today I think
> this is a more general issue with the project.

> So, I think the NewOS kernel is not worth anymore of being maintained. I am
> not even going to discuss that with the Haiku developers, some people here
> have put a lot of efforts in the kernel and will never accept that it is
> replaced by something better. Additionally, there's really no technical
> reason to state that linux can't work better than our current kernel.
> Eventually, arguments can be done for the opposite hypotesis.
        
> I think Zircon would be a way better replacement in the long term and if
> they manage to get a decent hw support, but since I am a linux user, I
> decided to take the code at Cosmoe and start from there. I will also tell
> you that the Cosmoe kernel_kit implementation is better than I expected.

> The main difference however compared to past attempts, is that my project
> try to reuse as much code as possible and so maintain as much possible
> compatibility with Haiku. This is done by reimplementing libroot on top of
> linux. This allowed me, to port some parts of Haiku in a nice way, without
> changing any code.

> In the foreseeable future I will use V\OS to port some of my software to
> linux. That doesn't mean I will not contribute to Haiku, it means any major
> work of mine will be done on linux and then backported to Haiku,
> eventually. Don't expect a complete product, unless more devs get on board.
> I am not particularly interested in the app_server right now, but indeed
> I'd love to have a framebuffer interface for it.

> Status at the moment:

> * Kernel primitives work (thanks Cosmoe)
> * _basic_ fs functionalities work (we need to build an userland server to
> support queries on top of extattr and solve the remaining open-by-inode
> issues)
> * Most important parts of libroot are stubbed to ease development
> * Support, kernel, interface, locale, network kits compile correctly
> * registrar and app_servers are ported and run, but without a working linux
> backend at the moment. So, people who want to help is welcome.
        
> Keep in mind there is a lot of work to do, but it is definitely possible.
> The code is currently Alpha4 for obvious reasons. I am interested in
> evaluating how we can transform the app_server into a local drawing
> library, so that we can easily support wayland. The buildsystem is kind of
> hacky, it needs to be replaced with the Haiku one for best compatibility.
        
> This is the repository :

> https://github.com/Barrett17/V-OS

Most of us probably don't know what Zircon is (except for the mineral), so it would \
be helpful if you would say something about what this Zircon is.

There was a Linux distribution, ZevenOS, that aimed to look and behave like Haiku.

A few years ago (2014?), there was a Sia Lang who was trying to produce an OS with \
the appearance of Haiku on Linux or FreeBSD kernel (or was he just a troll?)

Some time back, I posted a question about whether Web Positive could be ported to \
Haiku and the BSDs, but the Haiku developers seemed to believe it would be impossible \
or very difficult because of differences in OS structure, and a ported Web Positive \
would carry no advantage over Mozilla (Firefox or SeaMonkey).

Linux is not the only serious open-source OS today.  There are also (Free, Net, Open, \
DragonFly)BSD and OpenIndiana.  FreeDOS also has its limited place.

Tom


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