HAIKU R1 Alpha 5 Release Notes

These are the release notes for HAIKU R1 Alpha 5. For this fifth alpha release, we strove to provide an improved version of Haiku that is more stable, introduces more features for both the end-user and developer, and has a greater chance of properly booting on more hardware.

We have tried hard to make this release as good as possible. Still there are a few known issues and missing features, some of them collected below. Please keep in mind that this is alpha software, which means it is not yet feature complete and still contains known and unknown bugs. While we are mostly confident in the stability of this release, we do not provide any assurances against data loss.

Another goal that has driven the release of the Alpha 5 was to provide current and future Haiku developers an updated and (mostly) stable operating system to work on their software projects. Therefore we have included the basic build tools. This release of Haiku is capable of building and running binaries using either GCC 2 or GCC 4. The use of GCC 4 is discouraged however if not absolutely necessary, as no API compatibility is guaranteed with future versions of Haiku.

System Requirements

Haiku currently only works on x86 systems. Minimum memory required is 256 MB. If compiling Haiku within itself, 1 GB of memory is recommended. Haiku has been tested to work on CPUs as slow as a Pentium II 400 MHz, and requires as little as 700 MB of drive space.

New Features

This is a glimpse into some of the more notable improvements and additions to Haiku, since the previous release, R1 Alpha 4. It should be noted that over 900 bugs closed as fixed since R1 Alpha 4.

Additionally, more than 80 subtle bugs have been fixed, which were discovered by Coverity.

Package management. Haiku now has full package management with a graphical interface to browse package repositories and manage installed software. Haiku package management is unique as compressed software packages are mounted over the running system reducing boot time and improving disk performance. Haiku packages currently follow a rolling release model while the operating system is in alpha.

Experimental in-place OS upgrade. The core operating system can now be upgraded using remote repositories.

The native Haiku browser WebPositive now utilizes the latest WebKit rendering engine. This greatly improves rendering of modern web pages. WebPositive has also gained HTML5 video support enabling rich web audio and video content.

Various enhancements for hardware support, such as video drivers (radeon hd, intel extreme), and network drivers.

Improved translations

Numerous potential memory leaks fixed

Update of the secondary and experimental compiler to GCC 4.8.2 (available via setarch x86)

Update of OpenGL kit to newer Mesa3D 7.9.2

Missing Features

LiveCD and first boot performance: After an initial installation or a boot into LiveCD mode, some background tasks are executed to finish the installation setup. This is known to degrade performance. On hard disk installs this usually is not a problem as the tasks are done quickly. In LiveCD mode the performance hit is more prominently visible due to the usually bad seek performance on CDs. Since the CD is read-only, this setup takes place on every start of the LiveCD. On writable media it will only be done once, so further boots shouldn't experience the same delays.

Due to the uncertain situation about patents, the official release has disabled code, which is known to be patented. This sadly includes the subpixel code used by FreeType. Once the situation is better understood and a decision has been made, subpixel font rendering may get re-enabled for official releases.

Copying large amounts of data from faster to slower disk drives (like USB sticks) can cause the system to start paging.

The Haiku boot loader has been reported to hang on some hardware.

Support for localization/internationalization is still a work in progress. Some applications might only be partially translated and have issues with long strings in languages other than English.

Firmware for some wireless network cards need user acknowledgement, prior to their installation. This includes Broadcom 43xx, Intel ipw2100, Intel ipw2200 and Marvell 88W8335. As a temporary measure, a script is included to assist in this process (available via install-wifi-firmwares.sh).

The IMAP protocol for the mail daemon replacement (MDR) has been removed from this release, due to concerns of losing server side data.

Due to size constraints of CDs, several developer related tools have been removed (e.g., hg, svn, cvs, python. They can be installed via pkgman or HaikuDepot)

Source Code

The source code of Haiku itself, the source code of the required build tools and the optional packages (except for closed source ones) is made available for download at: ​​​http://www.haiku-files.org/files/releases/r1alpha5/sources/

Reporting Issues

There are over 2400 open tickets on Haiku's bug tracker and over 6600 closed items. If you find what you believe to be an issue, please search our Trac to see if it has already been reported, and if not, file a new ticket: ​​​http://dev.haiku-os.org/

To see the list of tickets reported in Haiku R1 Alpha 5, visit ​​​http://dev.haiku-os.org/wiki/R1/Alpha5/ReportedIssues

For information about major issues that have been fixed since the release, visit ​​​http://dev.haiku-os.org/wiki/R1/Alpha5/ReleaseAddendum

For more help see the 'Welcome' link on the Haiku desktop, or visit the Haiku Project's website at www.haiku-os.org.