second beta release of the operating system . The project was originally created in response to the closure of BeOS and developed under the name OpenBeOS, but was renamed in 2004 due to trademark claims related to the name BeOS. To evaluate the performance of the new release several bootable Live images (x86, x86-64). The source code for most of the Haiku OS is distributed under a free license , with the exception of some libraries, media codecs, and components borrowed from other projects.
Haiku OS is aimed at personal computers, using its own kernel built on a modular architecture optimized for responsiveness to user actions and efficient execution of multithreaded applications. Developers are provided with an object-oriented API. The system is directly based on BeOS 5 technologies and aims for binary compatibility with applications for that OS. Minimum hardware requirement: Pentium II CPU and 256 MB of RAM (recommended Intel Core i3 and 2 GB of RAM).
The OpenBFS file system is used, which supports extended file attributes, journaling, 64-bit pointers, support for storing meta-tags (for each file, attributes can be saved in the form of key=value, making the file system resemble a database) and special indexes to speed up queries on them. The directory structure is organized using "B+ tree" structures. The Tracker file manager and Deskbar panel, which were part of BeOS, have been included in Haiku, with their source code released after BeOS exited the scene.
In the nearly two years since the last update, 101 developers have contributed to the development of Haiku, making over 2800 changes and closing 900 bug reports and feature requests. The main :
- work has improved on high-density pixel (HiDPI) screens. Proper scaling of interface elements has been ensured. The font size has been used as the key factor for scaling, automatically determining the scale of all other interface elements.
- The Deskbar panel has a 'mini' mode where the panel takes up the entire screen width and dynamically adjusts based on the icons placed. The automatic panel expansion mode has been improved, which increases the size only when hovering the mouse and shows a more compact version in the normal mode.
- An interface has been added for configuring input devices, which combines mouse, keyboard, and joystick configuration. Support for mice with more than three buttons has been added, along with the ability to configure mouse button actions.
- The web browser has been updated. , which has been migrated to a new version of the WebKit engine and optimized to reduce memory consumption.
- Compatibility with POSIX has been improved, and a large number of new programs, games, and graphic toolkits have been ported. Applications such as LibreOffice, Telegram, Okular, Krita, and AQEMU, as well as games like FreeCiv, DreamChess, and Minetest, are now available to run.
- The installer now includes the ability to exclude optional packages present on the media during installation. More information about the drives is displayed when configuring disk partitions, encryption use is determined, and information about free space in existing partitions is added. An option is available for a quick upgrade from Haiku R1 Beta 1 to Beta 2.
- The terminal now emulates the Meta key. In the settings, the left Alt/Option key can be assigned to perform the role of Meta (the Alt key on the right side of the space bar will retain its function).
- Support for NVMe drives has been implemented, allowing them to be used as bootable media.
- Support for USB3 (XHCI) has been expanded and stabilized. Booting from USB3 devices has been established, and proper operation with input devices has been ensured.
- A bootloader for UEFI systems has been added.
- Work has been done to stabilize and improve kernel performance. Many bugs that caused freezes or crashes have been fixed.
- The network driver code has been imported from FreeBSD 12.
Source: opennet.ru
