Haiku or what?

On the previous post a discussion has started that seems interesting. Instead of answering in comments I thought it would be an interesting article. So here we go:

Emil, posted a comment that proposes a few things and a short reply by two more bloggers followed (read them here). So here is my response:

Development of Haiku is now in a very good stage, and being a clean room implementation of BeOS R5 has advantages that I am afraid buying the code from Access won't have.

To elaborate, even if Access sold the rights to the code, they wouldn't allow certain patents to go with it. So open sourcing the code would be illegal even if someone owned it. Only Access can open source it and I don't think it will or will sell it for any amount under the 11 million US$ it cost Palm.

Even with 1/100th of that amount, haiku can go far and finish at least R1. So perhaps calling for a Haiku donation round would be better. We should address that question to Michael Phipps.

To start, I have already given about 200$ to the Haiku project in one way or another (mostly with direct donations) but I will be willing to put out another 200$ if an organized donation round starts.

Continuity of magnussoft Zeta

It seems that Magnussoft was expecting Zeta to bring profit very quickly. I don't know how much they have invested, but the short period they had financed Zeta for wasn't enough to bring more sales. Features like Multiuser and a couple of games are fine, but it needs more to get out there.

Fortunately they appear to be listening to the community as the post on the Zeta-OS site says. We will wait and see. Perhaps the horse isn't dead yet. Perhaps it is just a tired little pony :-)

BeOS Max gets Wireless

Today I added some wireless drivers and tested them with real hardware I happened to have. Guess what (it's easy). They work great. So for now, Intel PRO Wireless 2100 and 2200BG are supported. The second seems to be found on a number of laptops, and mine has it too.

Intel PRO Wireless 2200BG work is closed source, so I have sent an email asking for permission from Patrick Lafarguette to use it in Max. Intel PRO Wireless 2100 is open sourced and it is the work of Michael Lotz.

No... not again!!!

Being a member of the BeOS/Haiku community for 7 years now, has been very exciting and it has also been a series of joys and disappointments. Lately everything had been going quite well... so I thought we are out of the woods. And then this happens. I guess you have heard about Zeta and Magnussoft. They have parted ways. This is the third time this has happened with this OS.

My personal belief is that Magnussoft should have tried more. However it is their decision and we can do nothing but respect that. As for Zeta, it is a great product and I have used it since RC1. It has made great strides and works with much more hardware than any other BeOS variant or derivative.

I disagree with those who say that there is no place for BeOS, Haiku or Zeta in the marketplace. I believe that those OSes are what an OS should be. Blazing fast and simple. Neither Windows nor MacOS X have that. As for Linux, despite its success (heck, I am using it as my main OS 50% of the time), it is becoming bloated and slow, and has more hardware problems than most people would care to admit (just try getting the latest ATI or NVidia card to work with it in 3D).

However, I agree that the price of Zeta is too high. Perhaps that is a problem. I mean, with my income it is not hard to put aside 100Euro every now and then for software, but it isn't so for every computer geek.

Finally I wish Bernd and his team the best. I hope they find a new home for Zeta soon. I wish I had a few million to spare...

First impressions...

Anyone care to comment on Max V4 beta 1? Have you installed it? How did you download it (link or torrent?). Do you have a mirror site for it? Is it missing something important or something you use every day?

Post comments here. Later I will prepare a special forum for discussing V4 b1 and post the link here.

Fire away...

Max V4 beta 1

Go to BeOSMaxFiles.org to download the first beta of Max V4. Enjoy and give feedback.

Update: A torrent is now available at ThePirateBay

Beta Version

A beta of Max V4 is being uploaded as I write these lines. Beware, this version is not for the faint hearted, although it is as stable as it can be since only a few things have changed in the driver section.

Also, it doesn't include the MaxUpdater yet, as it isn't ready.

It will take several hours to upload it on BeOSMaxFiles.org, since I only have a 256kbps upstream speed.

Anyone who wishes to try it and give me feedback is welcome to download it as soon as I have the link up.

Things that will be added in the next few days, on route to a beta 2, will be the Haiku Built system and several dev utilities. For the final version there will be 3 releases. A MiniMax with only basic system and apps, DevMax with all essential tools and Max (with everything on top...)

A few steps forward.

Did some cleaning up of the system today, updated the default bookmarks for Firefox 2.0 and added some feeds. It would be interesting to know what feeds the BeOS community follows more (even outside the confines of Haiku/BeOS) so I can include them, so don't be shy and comment.

One major update I did today was the inclusion of USB Patches so more usb devices will work.

Development on Max V4 restarts today

After a month and a half pause, development will restart tonight. The pause was due to the workload I had. This is all behind me now and I am returning to my normal routine.

You may have noticed I already did some work on the HaikuMax.org site. I will update you with my progress starting tonight.

Haiku should be the first...

It should be the first to do this:

Zeta 1.5 and Games

Zeta 1.5 is now shipping so I decided to take a look at it. The time delay though to get them to send me an update to 1.21 and send them back my copy, together with the cost of all that delay and posting made buying a full copy of 1.21 a better choice (at least compared to the alternative).

Now don't think for a moment I am going to stop developing Max V4 because of this. I just would like to satisfy my curiosity, plus I have a couple of hundred Euros lying around I wish to spend.

So,I ordered all products (except Wonderbrush) and I am going to start a full review as soon as I get them.

This is what I ordered:
Zeta 1.21
Zeta 1.5 Pro update
MediaFire Pro
Amiga Classix Gold
Airline Tycoon Deluxe
Robin Hood: Legend of Sherwood

note: The reason I didn't order Wonderbrush is that I already own copies of Refraction and Pixel32 and I believe a third drawing program would be an overkill.

News on Max v4

These past 3 weeks I have had to put aside the development of BeOS Max V4 for a number of reasons.

1) Got sick...
2) My Linux system got updated with a kernel that doesn't like the Nvidia drivers and now I can't get dual screen up, so I don't have the desktop space I am used to working on.
3) Last week we got 2 more contracts at work, with big organizations for our Law Office program and the Finance Ministry of Greece announced the change of property taxes, so we have to update the program (and database) we create for our customers (notaries, tax evaluation officials, Banks etc.).

All these set me back a lot and I don't think I will have much free time until mid March. As soon as I have more news, I will post them.

out of order...

I have been sick (came down with the flu) these past few days, and I couldn't get much work done. Hopefully this week will be more productive. Not sure yet what I will do first, but I have a couple of things planned so that next Sunday I should have something interesting to post.

Slow week

Actually I didn't have time to work on BeOS Max, because work at real life (tm) has been quite demanding.

It might go on for a few weeks, because just today a change in our property tax system has been announced that requires me to update my company's GIS driven property taxation software, but I think I can manage to do some work on Max too.

Even faster

I don't know how i did it, but MaxUpdater is now even faster. It loaded the 800 application info in under 6 seconds. It seems that serializing the read works best when all pieces of info are parsed with the code I wrote.

Now I start writing the code to handle the actual download and update. First update will probably be ready sometime on Sunday, because I have real life work to do also.

By the way, I will also give this to users of BeOS Max V3.1b1. The updates will start from that version. Any takers with unaltered Max V3.1b1 who wish to test it when it goes into beta?

Yab / MaxUpdater Testing performance

Yab amazed me today.

I tried to get MaxUpdater to show an extremely large number of applications and dynamically create tabs, views, checkboxes after reading a text file with the info needed.

What was the result? Well, not only did it do it for 800 applications, but it took only 14 seconds, when I was told that just reading a file of that size would take a lot longer. However that wasn't what amazed me. It was the fact that dynamically creating the 800 views (1 view per application) didn't take more than a few milliseconds and only raised the usage of memory by 1/7th (from 7500kb to 8600kb) !!!

This is cool. Hope I have enough time this weekend to get further along with the MaxUpdater. Next step is to do a real update/install of an app from the Internet repository. So keep watching this blog for more news of progress.

The mandatory screenshot.

D20 Dice Roller app for BeOS

The Be Dungeon Master Dice Roller 0.9 is now online for download at BeBits .

The break from Max Version 4 is over. Development will now continue. I plan to do a break every 7 days, work on a different app for 2 days and then continue on Max Version 4.

So, what kind of app would you like to see next? Please don't say a new Word Processor!!! Some simple app you think is missing from BeOS.

I am planning to do more apps for DMs in the future too as I have outlined.

Logic behind MaxUpdater

First let me say this: BeOS way of installation is excellent. It is simple and brilliant.

So after saying that, it comes to terms that MaxUpdater is not going to change that nor should it and neither should any other package management application in the future.

MaxUpdater is just going to help users find what they need, or want, or must install and do it as simply as 1-2-3. In fact it is just that:

1. Open MaxUpater
2. Select Application(s) you wish to install
3. Press install

Simple yet brilliant? Well it is the BeOS way, only in fewer steps if you need to install more than 1 application at a time.

All the other features are just add-ons. Useful, but not essentials.

Taking a break and DMing...

Yesterday I took a break and played a small Dungeon and Dragons game.

Before playing I did a little search to see if there are any programs on BeOS that can help Dungeon Masters (yeap, I am a DM... geeky heh?) and I found there is none. So today I decided to start a series of small programs. Don't worry, MaxUpdater and Max V4 are proceeding as scheduled. I just had a little more time off work....

So here we are. Introducing the BeOS DM Dice Roller

I will upload the program with the code as soon as one more feature is implemented.

more progress

MaxUpdater is progressing quite well. It now loads, parses and displays lists of Updates and Applications. It even creates categories on the fly and puts all applications belonging to a category on the correct Tab.

Next step will be to know what applications you have already installed, so they will be checked by default and shown on a different tab with installed apps. Unchecking them would mean unistalling them. Installed updates will not show on the list by default.

Now if anyone can help with making the interface better looking (I am a software engineer, not an artist) I would be very grateful.