The second beta version of the Haiku R1 operating system has been released

Published second beta release of the operating system Haiku R1.

Originally, the project was created in response to the closure of the BeOS OS and was developed under the name OpenBeOS, but was renamed in 2004 due to trademark claims related to the name BeOS. To assess the performance of the new release several bootable Live images (x86, x86-64) have been prepared. The source code for most of the Haiku OS is distributed under a free license the MIT 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 based on a modular architecture, optimized for high responsiveness to user actions and efficient execution of multi-threaded applications. An object-oriented API is provided for developers. The system is directly based on BeOS 5 technologies and targets binary compatibility with applications for that OS.

Minimum hardware requirements: CPU Pentium II and 256 MB of RAM (Intel Core i3 and 2 GB of RAM recommended).

The OpenBFS file system is used, supporting extended file attributes, journaling, 64-bit pointers, support for storing meta-tags (attributes for each file can be saved in key=value form, making the FS similar to a database) and special indexes for speeding up queries on them. B+-trees are used to organize the directory structure. The Tracker file manager and the Deskbar panel from BeOS have been integrated into Haiku, with their source codes released after BeOS's departure from the scene. Over nearly two years since the last update, 101 developers have contributed to Haiku, preparing more than 2800 changes and closing 900 bug reports and feature requests.

Key innovations:

• Improved performance on high pixel density screens (HiDPI). Correct interface element scaling has been provided. Font size was used as a key factor for scaling, based on which the scale of all other interface elements is automatically selected. Standard font size is 12 points. (default size) and font size is 18 points.

• The Deskbar panel features a 'mini' mode, which allows the panel to dynamically adjust its width based on the placed icons, rather than occupying the entire screen. The automatic panel expansion mode has been improved, increasing the size only when the mouse hovers over it and displaying a more compact version in 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 built-in translator has gained support for Basque and Galician languages. web browser WebPositive, which has been migrated to a new version of the WebKit engine and optimized to reduce memory consumption.

• Compatibility with POSIX has been enhanced, and a large number of new programs, games, and graphic toolkits have been ported. This includes the ability to run LibreOffice, Telegram, Okular, Krita, and AQEMU apps, as well as games FreeCiv, DreamChess, Minetest, OpenMW, Open Jedi Academy, OpenArena, Neverball, Arx-Libertatys, Colobot, and more.

  
  

• 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.

Original article here.
Release notes in English here.

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Source: linux.org.ru