DRAFT RELEASE NOTES

The fourth beta release of Haiku continues the trend of more frequent releases in order to provide our users and developers with an up to date and stable platform to work on.

Please keep in mind that this is beta-quality software, which means it is feature complete but still contains known and unknown bugs. While we are mostly confident in its stability, we cannot provide assurances against data loss.

System requirements

This release is available on the x86 32-bit platform, as well as the x86_64 platform. Note that BeOS R5 compatibility is only provided on the 32-bit images, but the 64bit version is recommended if you don't need BeOS compatibility.

MINIMUM (32-bit)

• Processor: Intel Pentium II; AMD Athlon
• Memory: 384MB
• Monitor: 800x600
• Storage: 2GB

RECOMMENDED (64-bit)

• Processor: Intel Core i3; AMD Phenom II
• Memory: 2GB
• Monitor: 1366x768
• Storage: 16GB

SSE2 support is required to use the WebPositive web browser. On machines where this is not available, it is recommended to install the NetSurf browser instead.

Highlights

Installation process

• Fixed an issue with Installer not installing bootman and DriveSetup not setting up the created partition correctly, leading to an unbootable system
• The EFI loader is now packaged and can be updated in Haiku.

Package management

• Added a new warning when downgrading packages through pkgman.
• Added package dates in HaikuDepot to allow users to determine when a package was added or updated.
• Added support for repository signature validation through minisign
• Added an option to allow users to select the repository mirror

User interface

• An eject button has been added to Media Player for optical disks.

app_server (graphics server)

Web browser

• WebPositive now correctly reports the architecture of the system (previously it reported the system was x86 regardless of the actual architecture).

APIs

Storage and file systems

BeOS compatibility

POSIX compatibility

System performance

Internationalization

• Fixed an issue in HaikuDepot with the "Rate Package" window automatically defaulting to Russian.

Hardware compatibility

Sound

Mass storage

Network

• Fixed an issue with some network cards not automatically connecting on boot

USB

Graphics

Known issues and workarounds

There are no known major bugs.