ARM defeated, Haiku OS

Every now and again, I look around to see what is happening with alternative operating systems.

Yesterday, I took a good look at Haiku, which is an open-source re-implementation of beOS (a defunct commercial OS). Actually, what lead me there, indirectly, was I checked out progress on Lima, the open-source project for a GPU driver for the Mali GPUs used in many ARM chips -- only to be very disappointed when I found the last git commit was in February 2012 -- in other words, a lot of activity and publicity late last year, and early in 2012, then the development has faded.

Which makes me think that perhaps the ARM chips are going to miss their window-of-opportunity to supplant x86 in small netbooks and even tablets, and running a good OS. Intel will bring out their low-power 22nm low-power SoC x86 chips, and maybe it is game over? Even if the Intel SoC's consume more power, relative to other components such as screen, overall it won't make much difference.

This lead me onto thinking about x86 OS's, and I also reflected on the Unix security model -- which I don't like.

I was looking at various alternatives to Linux, many of which are extremely immature or too specialised, or not very active. Then I looked at Haiku and was very impressed with the level of active development. This is a very nice OS, and they are looking at a release-candidate in 2013. This has been a long time coming, I think the project started in 2001.

Haiku home:
http://www.haiku-os.org/
Haiku news:
http://dailyhaiku.net/
Introduction to Haiku:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/the-dawn-of-haiku-os/0

However, I am on the lookout for an OS that has a builtin security model that is superior to Unix, but Haiku has no security at all. It is a single-user system, which is fine by me, but I still consider there must be security mechanisms -- the Haiku forum has discussion on this, but nothing has been implemented.

I really don't think it is something that can be tacked on later. It needs to be designed into the OS.

Looking at their apps, there isn't even a firewall.

Haiku is designed for traditional mouse/keyboard and there does not seem to be any consideration for running it with a touchscreen. I think that is another serious oversight, as Haiku could have found a niche for itself with touchscreen computers.

...these are just some of my rambling thoughts about ARM, security and Haiku!

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Comments

But...


Not. Nil. No.
Username: dionicio
"do not compile that kernel module do not aggregate that linux util do not install that package do not use more computing power than you need do not use more storage area tan you need do not use those high speed links do not visit those places ... do not use your computers? Mitigation is the last resort.

Haiku
Username: disciple
"> This has been a long time coming, I think the project started in 2001. Nowhere near as long as ReactOS... but then I guess you'd expect it to take forever to create a [i]good [/i]implementation of a chronically [i]bad[/i] system... and it is a moving target, too.

freeBSD !
Username: L18L
"That could be fun woof3 ?

One Linux for all ARM systems
Username: Grndoor
"Please see: http://www.zdnet.com/one-linux-for-all-arm-systems-7000005348/

+1 for BSD
Username: Jota
" +1 for BSD In particular, the Kfreebsd port of Debian, that works very well!

puppi
Username: darkcity
"Is Puppy for the RaspberryPi still under development, or are you waiting to see how things progress?

Parallella: A Supercomputer For Everyone
Username: dionicio
"Barry: Maybe you will find this of some interest. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adapteva/parallella-a-supercomputer-for-everyone

F2FS
Username: 01micko
"Samsung has developed "flash friendly filesystem" for nand flash. This could be a very interesting development for ARM. No doubt it will find it's way into samsung smartphones and smartTVs soon enough. https://lwn.net/Articles/518718/

Tags: general