Open source operating system HAIKU is a lightweight, fast, and relatively simple operating system that picks up where the discontinued BeOS left off when its development ceased in 2001.

This weekend the HAIKI team released HAIKU R1 Beta 1, which is kind of a big deal when you consider that the last major release of the operating system came in November, 2012.

I took a look at HAIKU a few months ago when it became clear that the new beta was on the way. Now it’s here, and HAIKU R1 brings a bunch of significant updates.

First and foremost, there’s now a package management system that makes it easy to search for and install third-party applications.

At first glance, it looks a lot like the kind of package manager commonly found in GNU/Linux operating systems. But HAIKU handles things differently: each package is actually a compressed filesystem image. Instead of “installing” an application, what you’re actually doing is “activating” them by mounting the image.

One advantage to this sort of system is it takes nearly no time to install or uninstall an application — all you’re doing is moving the file from one directory to another. Another is that it’s possible to boot into a previous package state if an update causes problems or to blacklist specific files from loading upon boot.

You can use the HaikuDeport package manager if you prefer a graphical user interface, or fire up a terminal window and use the pkgman utility for a command-line version.

Other changes include an improved version of the WebPositive web browser, an updated network utility, user interface improvements, support for streaming media using the MediaPlayer app, and support for EFI bootloaders.

There are also updated drivers, experimental support for Bluetooth (in nightly builds only) and a whole bunch of code cleanups.

You can find more details in the release notes.

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,543 other subscribers

9 replies on “HAIKU R1 Beta 1 released (open source operating systems)”

  1. I think if they could get chrome running they would be on to a winner.

    1. There was some talk of Chromium, but I believe it went something like, “Not going to happen”.
      If you actually meant Chrome, then I can pretty much guarantee that.

      1. Why is Chromium “not going to happen”? Technical reasons, or something else?

    2. The Falkon browser is being worked on and otter browser and qupzilla are available for now.

      Also the native webkit browser is very nice once it has a few kinks worked out.

  2. This article is missing the most important part: Why.

    What is the selling point for Haiku? Why choose it over older OS’es? Is it more secure or more private? Does it have some capabilities that are not commonly found in others? (Or will it, given the work is now actively progressing again).

    For others than those who create it, there has to be some niche or use that it serves other than simply “well, it exists”.

    That’s what this article completely missed.

    1. Because it has an attitude and a personality.
      That’s why I loved BeOS. Let’s hope it carries through to Haiku.

    2. A year ago (or so), I saw an interview with a kernel dev at haiku. And he mentioned that they even had some companies still using BeOS software. These companies now use Haiku.

Comments are closed.