
LibreOffice is now available for Haiku - vermaden
https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/libreoffice-is-now-available-for-haiku/6917
======
dingdingdang
Tried Haiku recently and was much impressed with speed and stability but
without being able to scale to 1920x1080 and having no multi-user capacity
it's hard to see how this fits into modern computing environment.. still, one
can hope the project sees improvements - I've tracked Haiku along with ReactOS
for potential real world usage for years now.. so.. any day now.

EDIT: congratulations with LibreOffice port, that does make a difference in
terms of usability.

~~~
klez
> having no multi-user capacity it's hard to see how this fits into modern
> computing environment

Depends on what you mean by "modern computing environment". I mean, my
computers are mine, an no-one else uses them. I know very few people that
share their computer with other users (but maybe it's just my bubble).

Another story entirely for those who use a smartphone/tablet for their
personal computing (the target use of Haiku).

~~~
Sir_Substance
>I mean, my computers are mine, an no-one else uses them.

That's only half of what a multi-user system does though. The other half is
about fine-grained privilege management.

One of the reasons (not the only reason by any stretch but a contributing
factor certainly) why Windows has so many more problems with viruses than
other OS's is that under windows you're basically either a user or an admin,
there's no in between. Crucially, there's also nothing lower.

Under linux[1] systems, it's totally possible to define a user that can read
and write from one specific folder in the file system tree but not it's
ancestor nodes, read from the keyboard but not the mouse and _absolutely
nothing else_. All of those problems that windows has with random programs
being keyloggers are eminently solvable on linux because you can make a custom
user that cannot use networking or listen to the keyboard as appropriate, and
then launch the process using that user.

Anyway, how well used all these capabilities are depends a lot on the person
administering the linux system, but windows is extremely reactive in this
fashion. Desktop linux users tend not to run outgoing firewalls, for example,
they just don't allow software that they don't trust to access the network.

[1] anyone know how to write star-nix on hacker news without it making
everything italics?

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
> That's only half of what a multi-user system does though. The other half is
> about fine-grained privilege management.

Useful in a networked corporate environment, a lot less so on a personal
computer.

> All of those problems that windows has with random programs being keyloggers
> are eminently solvable on linux because you can make a custom user that
> cannot use networking or listen to the keyboard as appropriate, and then
> launch the process using that user.

You can do that on Windows and have been able to since at least Vista. the
only reason I disqualify XP is that I wrote a keylogger for it so I know for a
fact that you can grab raw keyboard input from any user session. Even before
that though NTFS offered a fine grained access control mechanism for files and
folders.

> Desktop linux users tend not to run outgoing firewalls, for example, they
> just don't allow software that they don't trust to access the network.

My experience is that they just don't run software that wasn't sourced from
their distribution's package repositories. That is certainly an advantage of
the appstore model, but you have to admit it is significantly more limiting
that being able to get the latest version of something by downloading it from
the vendor's website.

~~~
Sir_Substance
>My experience is that they just don't run software that wasn't sourced from
their distribution's package repositories. That is certainly an advantage of
the appstore model, but you have to admit it is significantly more limiting
that being able to get the latest version of something by downloading it from
the vendor's website.

It would be very limiting if it were reality, yes. I frequently download
packages that aren't part of the default distro repo though. There's lots of
PPA's, and I also install a lot of software just by extracting it into a
directory in my home folder and running it.

------
peatmoss
Some day there will be a backlash against UX design that fetishizes
minimalism, hiding features, and rearranging the deck chairs every six months.
And on that day, when the masses go searching for a simple, organic interface
that has logical menus and often used functionality exposed by buttons, I like
to imagine that Haiku will be waiting there to salve the weary souls of my
fellow travers.

~~~
theamk
If you don't like modern UIs, I'd recommend Linux today. The main Ubuntu has
all the crazy UI changes that I stopped following long time ago, but all the
old stuff is still in repos.

For example, this is blackbox 0.60.0 window manager, released around 2000:
[https://www.linux.org.ru/gallery/screenshots/19788](https://www.linux.org.ru/gallery/screenshots/19788)

Almost 20 years later, the "blackbox" package is still around:
[https://packages.ubuntu.com/bionic/blackbox](https://packages.ubuntu.com/bionic/blackbox)
. You can install it, choose it in the dropdown from the login screen and
start using it. Or get a version of Ubuntu with this stuff pre-configured
(like xubuntu or lubuntu)

And the best part? You have all the modern software -- browsers, editors,
compilers. You can be fully productive _and_ enjoy the stable UI

~~~
peatmoss
I'm running bits and pieces of XFCE (via Xubuntu) with XMonad and dmenu :-)

That said, what document viewer do I use when I want to read a PDF? Evince was
the standard GTK/Gnome option, but it has hamburgerized everything to a state
of being unusable. I recently discovered Atril, but I literally have to search
DuckDuckGo for "evince xfce mate" every time I need to remember what it's
called.

Both Firefox and Chromium have buried everything in hamburger obfuscation land
as well. I could name more.

In short, even with my significantly customized Linux desktop, UX-ism still
bites me. Yes I can find alternatives for a lot of things. No, I don't imagine
Haiku being productive for me in the near term. But... Haiku does offer
something of a complete thesis of how desktop UI should work. That desktop UI
is firmly situated in the 1990s, but I'm increasingly of the opinion that is a
good thing.

~~~
theamk
For PDF, try qpdfview or xpdf (you cannot get any more old-style than that!)

For images, you can always try feh or imagemagic's "display". Or if you want a
bit more UI, "geeque" (which is based on gimageview, and still has not changed
the design much)

For web browsers, I am afraid you don't have many options if you want to use
modern web apps. The web evolves too fast for that. There are still
independent browsers (like netsurf), but I gave up on them and just use
chrome.

I doubt that Haiku can ever be practical, unless you live completely offline.
Even PDF format keeps evolving -- version 2.0 was released in 2017 -- so you
cannot keep maintaining versions just for a single OS.

And once you start porting entire programs from different platforms (like
LibreOffice), the platform's unique UI traits will slowly disappear. Who will
notice the unique kernel if it has POSIX compat layer and GTK?

~~~
waddlesplash
> I doubt that Haiku can ever be practical, unless you live completely
> offline. Even PDF format keeps evolving -- version 2.0 was released in 2017
> -- so you cannot keep maintaining versions just for a single OS.

There have been platform-independent PDF handling libraries for over a decade
now. The Haiku-native PDF viewer, BePDF, uses one internally to handle PDF
files. So that's not a problem, really.

> And once you start porting entire programs from different platforms (like
> LibreOffice), the platform's unique UI traits will slowly disappear. Who
> will notice the unique kernel if it has POSIX compat layer and GTK?

BeOS was roughly POSIX compliant, and Haiku is even more so.

Yes, we would greatly prefer native apps to ports (we're not all that
different from the macOS fanatics in that way), but we don't have the critical
mass for that at the moment. But the kernel isn't and was never the truly
"unique" bit; it was built to disappear behind the UI, really.

------
dragonquest
This is a massive achievement. Being able to run a modern browser and an
Office Suite makes it a viable desktop alternative in the coming future. I'm
happy to see variety in the desktop OS space once again!

------
matthiaswh
What makes Haiku better for personal computing, from the end-user perspective?
Or to put it in another perspective, who is the eventual target user for
Haiku? I'd like to find an excuse to test it out even knowing it's in alpha
stages, but this seems to be missing from the FAQs. The only noteworthy
statement is that it is fast, efficient, and easy to use. I'm not sure if
those are sticking points for most users.

~~~
waddlesplash
I guess the "Why not Linux?" part of our FAQ is as much of an excuse as one
can make, besides pure curiosity of course: [https://www.haiku-
os.org/about/faq#why-not-linux](https://www.haiku-os.org/about/faq#why-not-
linux)

> Linux-based distributions stack up software – the Linux kernel, the X Window
> System, and various DEs with disparate toolkits such as GTK+ and Qt – that
> do not necessarily share the same guidelines and/or goals. This lack of
> consistency and overall vision manifests itself in increased complexity,
> insufficient integration, and inefficient solutions, making the use of your
> computer more complicated than it should actually be.

> Instead, Haiku has a single focus on personal computing and is driven by a
> unified vision for the whole OS. That, we believe, enables Haiku to provide
> a leaner, cleaner and more efficient system capable of providing a better
> user experience that is simple and uniform throughout.

~~~
cosmojg
Why not *BSD?

~~~
waddlesplash
BSD only has one less layer as an "external" system (the initial userland
libraries and utilities). X11, the desktop environment, etc. are still
"stacked up."

------
nallerooth
I learned about the Haiku project in 2009, when I was in college. I was
impressed by the community and I'm still a little sad that the hardware we
wanted to use for prototyping (a tablet PC) got stuck in customs for a long
time, so that we couldn't build the prototype we wanted (based on the Haiku
OS).

I'm still very impressed by the community, and I wish you all the best!

------
cwyers
So, I looked into NewOS, the kernel that Haiku is based off of. It hasn't been
updated in 10 years (I gather that Haiku's fork has taken most of the
attention, so that's neither here or there). That said, I found this amusing:

> The system currently can be built to run on the follwing systems: > Intel
> IA-32 (x86) - Tested on desktops through 4-way servers > Sega Dreamcast -
> Hitachi SH-4 > PPC based machines - G3/G4 Macs, Pegasos

Sega Dreamcast!

~~~
Avshalom
The SH-4 is actually still supported by mainline GCC

~~~
cwyers
Almost everything is still supported by mainline GCC. I don't know, it's a
weird choice to me, given that BeOS never AFAICT supported Dreamcast either.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
The Dreamcast has a pretty big homebrew scene because it was super trivial to
run your own code on an unmodded console and it also ran some form of Windows
CE. It was probably low-hanging fruit to add it and someone thought it'd be
cool, though actually doing testing on the DC will give you a good idea of how
much your changes are affecting the performance and resource utilization.

~~~
Avshalom
Renesas also still sells SH2/4 chips

[https://www.renesas.com/en-us/products/microcontrollers-
micr...](https://www.renesas.com/en-us/products/microcontrollers-
microprocessors/superh.html)

------
projectramo
You mean to tell me

LibreOffice is on Haiku

Haiku is complete

~~~
pingiun
Almost, you got one too many syllables in the second sentence.

~~~
projectramo
Don't think I didn't wrestle long and hard on whether Libre is one syllable or
two.

~~~
rishav_sharan
How does one pronounce it anyway? Is it lib-rey or liber (like liver)

~~~
projectramo
I just anglicize the french.

So in french Leeb-grre (kind of like a throaty r, sounds a bit "gruh" but
short)

and in enlish Leeb-ru' (kind of like a very short "ruh"). More like Libra
truncated.

Its half way between a consonant and a vowel so I was torn. Glad we're facing
the big issues here.

~~~
james_in_the_uk
Agree. Libre is a french word.

~~~
estebank
And Spanish :)
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/libre#Etymology](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/libre#Etymology)

------
navjack27
I wrote a thing about Haiku a bit ago

[https://navjack27.netlify.com/post/a-modern-os-
haikuos-/](https://navjack27.netlify.com/post/a-modern-os-haikuos-/)

~~~
return_0e
> A big issue with Haiku is that there really isn’t a modern web browser
> available right now.

The web browsers available to Haiku are all based on a recent version of
WebKit (As of now we have merged commits from upstream dating from 2018), the
same engine in Safari and it also allowed QtWebKit-based apps to run,
previously Otto browser and Qupzilla until they migrated to QtWebEngine (based
on the Blink engine which we don't have yet). So to me, that seems to be
modern for a web browser that has HTML5 and can also play YouTube videos.

Also, I have just replied to your comment on a recent 64 bit Haiku nightly in
WebPositive.

------
bmn__
Somewhat off-topic: does anyone know how to make that BeOS/Haiku window
decoration (B Ⅱ) work in KDE5?

[https://cn.pling.com/img/hive/content-
pre2/5965-2.png](https://cn.pling.com/img/hive/content-pre2/5965-2.png)

[https://discuss.haiku-
os.org/uploads/default/original/2X/e/e...](https://discuss.haiku-
os.org/uploads/default/original/2X/e/ecc6b18f7b41f02fe88276c49b438757addfc4f5.jpg)

~~~
badsectoracula
I don't know about KWin, but there is a BeOS-like XFCE theme [1] so you might
be able to swap KWin with XFWM and use that.

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/emP3Jk4.png](https://i.imgur.com/emP3Jk4.png) (not my
shot)

------
tombert
Out of curiosity, does anyone run Haiku full time? I remember seeing a video
on it a few years ago, but wasn't sure if it would do everything I wanted.

~~~
waddlesplash
A few developers do, and I know of one company that deploys Haiku commercially
(TuneTracker:
[http://tunetrackersystems.com/](http://tunetrackersystems.com/)).

I haven't reached that point myself; I'm still missing WiFi support on my
laptop (hence why there's so many commits from me working on that area of the
system recently ;) But I'm getting close.

~~~
tombert
I'm interested in this; how much work is it typically to port a package over?

EDIT: I'm asking specifically a command-line package.

~~~
waddlesplash
Depends on the package. CLI tools that already work both Linux and some *BSD
usually are pretty easy to port, often requiring only a small set of patches.
GUI tools that use Qt shouldn't be too tricky either (the LibreOffice port is
based on the Qt backend.) Other than that, it varies greatly by application.

HaikuPorts
([https://github.com/haikuports/haikuports](https://github.com/haikuports/haikuports))
is what handles the bulk of the work to get applications up and running. I
guess the Ninja recipe
([https://github.com/haikuports/haikuports/blob/master/dev-
uti...](https://github.com/haikuports/haikuports/blob/master/dev-
util/ninja/ninja-1.8.2.recipe)) and patchset
([https://github.com/haikuports/haikuports/blob/master/dev-
uti...](https://github.com/haikuports/haikuports/blob/master/dev-
util/ninja/patches/ninja-1.8.2.patchset)) are pretty typical for a CLI app,
and the Qupzilla recipe
([https://github.com/haikuports/haikuports/blob/master/www-
cli...](https://github.com/haikuports/haikuports/blob/master/www-
client/qupzilla/qupzilla-1.8.9.recipe)) and patchset
([https://github.com/haikuports/haikuports/blob/master/www-
cli...](https://github.com/haikuports/haikuports/blob/master/www-
client/qupzilla/patches/qupzilla-1.8.9.patchset)) are roughly typical for a Qt
app.

If you have some specific application you're trying to port, joining
Freenode#haiku and then asking around may be worth your time. :)

------
HappyFapMachine
Man, Haiku grew a lot since I tried to use it last time! Neat!

------
tr33house
what's in haiku OS that's not in Linux? Is it like a bundled linux OS?

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Haiku is a recreation of BeOS built on the NewOS kernel (not Linux). BeOS (and
therefore Haiku) had some neat features like a database built into the FS, was
designed to take advantage of multiprocessor systems, and put a lot of effort
into providing great multimedia capabilities.

From my perspective, the project seemed to have been taken over by Linux
Desktop people, introduced a package manager, and I completely lost interest
in it. In that respect, it's basically a much less functional Linux distro.

~~~
hasahmed
This is the first time in my life that I've heard negative words about package
managers in general. What's the downside? You can always just download and
compile from source yourself if your so against it right

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
> What's the downside?

It didn't come from the Apple gods. The same ones who made two attempts to
rewrite an OS with preemption and protected memory support before punting and
buying one instead. Clearly they know best about how to structure an OS.

~~~
chipotle_coyote
In a post about the non-Apple-related open source clone of the non-Apple-
related BeOS, someone starts a thread about how much they don't like the style
of package managers that come from Linux, which I am _fairly_ sure is, again,
not related to Apple, this is relevant how?

------
krylon
This is amazing news!

------
rubyfan
TIL: Haiku OS is still around.

------
Tade0
Last time I heard about this OS was when it was mentioned in XKCD[0]. Out of
curiosity I downloaded the image, installed it on a VM and played around a
little. Later I forgot about it almost completely.

Nice to see that this project didn't die and is making some decent progress.

[0][https://3d.xkcd.com/806/](https://3d.xkcd.com/806/)

------
fithisux
Bravo guys.

------
chatmasta
For context re: Haiku OS (I had not heard of it before)

From the project home page [0]:

> Haiku is an open-source operating system that specifically targets personal
> computing. Inspired by the BeOS, Haiku is fast, simple to use, easy to learn
> and yet very powerful.

From the wiki page [1]:

> Haiku is a free and open-source operating system compatible with the now
> discontinued BeOS. Its development began in 2001, and the operating system
> became self-hosting in 2008. The first alpha release was made in September
> 2009, and the most recent was November 2012; development is ongoing as of
> 2018 with nightly releases.

[0] [https://www.haiku-os.org/](https://www.haiku-os.org/)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku_(operating_system)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku_\(operating_system\))

~~~
waddlesplash
It's called "Haiku" not "Haiku OS". :)

And see also our FAQ, since a lot of these questions wind up getting asked on
these HN threads: [https://www.haiku-os.org/about/faq/](https://www.haiku-
os.org/about/faq/)

~~~
chatmasta
Sorry about that! Reminds me of _Tor not TOR_. :)

------
jlebrech
a killer app would be docker

~~~
klez
For a desktop operating system? I don't see why. Are there any use-cases of
docker on the desktop I'm not seeing?

~~~
projectramo
Maybe the idea is that once you have docker, you have all the environments
(ubuntu, wordpress or anything else).

Is that how it works?

~~~
marksomnian
Still doesn't answer GP's question - what's the point of Docker on a desktop
OS? Why would you run WordPress on the desktop? The only real reason I can
think of would be for developers.

~~~
projectramo
Well if you run Ubuntu, you would get Ubuntu desktop (Gnome or Unity or
whatever it is now), right?

But yes, I was thinking developers.

~~~
klez
At that point I may just be running Ubuntu, no?

------
poisonarena
anyone notice real lag on an otherwise fastish Mac OSX build? Or perhaps add
some insight to why that happens?

------
chrisper
As much as I wanted to love Libre Office I just couldn't stand the UI. Menus
behind menus and bazillion buttons everywhere. Craved in and got an office
license.

~~~
krylon
I totally get you, because for me it is the other way 'round - I despise the
ribbon bar vigorously, and when all the other applications picked it up, I
felt like some higher power was mocking me. ;-)

At least as of version 6, LibreOffice actually has a ribbon bar-mode, but
enabling it was non-trivial, and disabling it was even harder. I hated it even
more than the MS Office ribbon bar; but I am obviously biased. It would be
interesting to hear from someone who likes the ribbon bar how LibreOffice's
version compares against MS?

