The Haiku OS alpha 2 release did not go unnoticed here, and I gladly downloaded the USB-bootable version and tried it out a few days ago. I really didn’t mention it though because in my case, there wasn’t much that had changed.
Haiku is incredibly fast even over USB2.0, booting in a matter of seconds on this machine. The default desktop is snappy, crisp and attractive, and the software that it comes with, even at this early date, is rather impressive. This could easily become a system I use on a day-to-day basis for surfing and so forth, just for being quick and clean.
The only thing holding me back at this point is Haiku’s rather stubborn refusal to link up with my network. I am no Haiku expert, but managing interfaces and DHCP seems to be very similar to Linux. And generally speaking I can find the network, ping it, ask for an address … but the browser and other applications seem to think they are still offline.
I am not criticizing Haiku on that point; I have learned over the years that these things are usually my own doing, and not necessarily the fault of the software. Being that close to a working, online desktop with a fast and clean OS like Haiku does whet my appetite though. … 😀
I like Haiku OS’s style. It’s snappy and it’s simple.
But I can’t find a proper use for it. This is one of those things you’d really like to use fulltime, but don’t know what for.
Do you have any idea’s?
I tried this from a USB boot on my netbook (Asus EEE 701). I was also impressed with the speed of it. But it seems that to get the wireless working you have to jump through some hoops; only get a maximum of WEP encryption at the end (which my WLAN is not).
I would have liked to have tried this as my main OS for the netbook, but not without wireless support. (I wanted to try Moblin, but it doesn’t support my Celeron CPU.) So I’ll have to continue to run Arch with Pekwm.