this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2026
94 points (99.0% liked)

Technology

88329 readers
3943 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
L3s@hackingne.ws
94
Haiku OS rises / Beta 6 sails open web / Virtual winds fly fast (theregister.com)
submitted 3 weeks ago by 503@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/technology@lemmy.world
16 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Crossposted from https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/74960425

A great article on Haiku and the overall state of alternative operating systems.

However, the author skipped mentioning that NetBSD has taken an anti-AI stance as well. From developer guidelines:

  1. Do not commit tainted code to the repository. … Code generated by a large language model or similar technology, such as GitHub/Microsoft's Copilot, OpenAI's ChatGPT, or Facebook/Meta's Code Llama, is presumed to be tainted code, and must not be committed without prior written approval by core

The developers’ announcement on Mastodon: https://mastodon.sdf.org/@netbsd/112446618914747900

top 16 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 503@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I have tried past Haiku betas on an old-but-no-so-old ThinkPad X31, and the experience wasn’t buggy enough to go back NetBSD.

I really liked the conclusion of the article. As someone who uses NetBSD as my primary computer, an old Nokia with Symbian as my secondary phone, self-host whatever I can, and with a general aversion to Electron apps, the conclusion really resonated with me.

We like to imagine a world of Haiku clients, talking to NetBSD back-end servers, and nothing but feature-phones – maybe running a revived Symbian. No AI, no Electron apps anywhere. A sky as clear and blue as the Haiku desktop, with no trace of a Cloud to be seen. That sounds idyllic to us. If it does to you as well, we think you might enjoy trying Haiku.

[–] muhyb@programming.dev 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Gotta ask this: Can we finally directly print from LibreOffice or exporting as pdf is still necessary? Asking for a relative.

[–] 503@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

On Haiku? I haven’t tried it.

[–] muhyb@programming.dev 2 points 3 weeks ago

I see. Thanks for the reply. I hope someone who tried sees my question.

[–] kokesh@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Is that based on BeOS? I ran that back in 96!

[–] daggermoon@piefed.world 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yes, and why BeOS?

[–] kokesh@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

?

[–] daggermoon@piefed.world 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yes, it's based on BeOS and why were you using BeOS over Mac OS, any other Unix system, or even Windows. I wasn't alive back then so my knowledge is a bit limited.

[–] NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 weeks ago

When it came out, Macs were a mess. They were even beginning to let other people make their hardware. BeOS ran on PowerPC archtecture, so it was like a mac option. Windows was just kicking off win 95 which was a gui shell on top of DOS.

BeOS was the multimedia machine. Everything ran smoothly, and played smoothly, built for speed on light systems while doing multimedia work.

It was too little too late, and Apple would would acquire Next, and windows would start the NT kernel and Win 98 lines that were on the computers at the store.

BeOS couldnt get a foot in the door and the rest is history.

Why Haiku and BeOS now? I guess why not?

[–] aproposnix@piefed.social 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm one of the few that bought a license :) it was before i started using Linux :)

[–] kokesh@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago

I remember my colleague buying it. It ran so fast on my old 386 (or maybe K5, not sure). The only problem was eager to run it and wiped my HDD during installation:)

[–] rozodru@piefed.world 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I like Haiku, i've installed it a couple times. An incredibly easy and insanely quick install. If you're looking for a simple OS to browse the internet and do some light dev work and need it to run on old hardware you honeslty can't go wrong with it. Out of all the none linux OS' I was honestly surprised it had Floorp, don't even have that on any of the BSDs.

[–] 503@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 weeks ago

I agree. Haiku is a great option if one wants to give their old computer a new lease of life.

However, anyone trying it out must be aware that it is still in beta, and the OS does behave as such. Performance takes a hit at times. It is not at all optimised for battery usage. Suspend/resume do not work (and as per the developers, it is not a priority). I could go on.

Having said that, it is a distinct piece of software as well as philosophy, which one must definitely try out at least once.

Also, none of the newer OSes (besides NetBSD, Puppy Linux derivatives, and maybe Antix Linux) even support the computers that this OS targets. :-)

[–] leg@leminal.space 3 points 3 weeks ago

Deeply disturbed by the fact that the title sounds like a haiku, but is definitely not a haiku.

[–] daggermoon@piefed.world 1 points 3 weeks ago

Can they make UEFI setups not a pain in the ass?