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
• 32-bit EFI support is now available. It's possible to boot a 64bit OS from a 32bit EFI as well.

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.

User interface

• B_UNDERSCORE_FACE has been implemented to allow applications to display underscores in textviews.
• Introduced new functionality into Tracker that allows image thumbnails to be shown.
• Fixed an issue with ShowImage's "Save As" function failing silently.
• Added underlines to links on mouseover in AboutSystem
• Fixed a preflet crash whilst trying to select a WiFi network.
• Fixed an issue with Tracker not showing custom folder icons.
• Fixed an issue with the Flurry Test screensaver crashing upon exit.
• Improved support for High DPI displays

app_server (graphics server)

Applications

• An eject button has been added to Media Player for optical disks.
• Terminal now allows you to configure ANSI colours in settings.
• Terminal supports 24-bit colors and enhanced mouse events.
• Fixed an issue in WonderBrush where selections were appearing opaque, not transparent.
• The software renderer will now correctly handle unsupported colour spaces - previously the application simply crashed.
• Fixed an issue with apps started via Shortcuts not receiving any environment variables.
• Fixed an issue with SpiroGraph not drawing a transparent background.
• Fixed an issue where users could not click the teapot in GLTeapot with Mesa17.
• Big performance improvements to Debugger

Web browsers

• WebPositive now correctly reports the architecture of the system (previously it reported the system was x86 regardless of the actual architecture).
• In WebPositive Users can now drag the globe icon in the address bar onto the Desktop, creating a shortcut on the Desktop to that URL
• Fixed an issue with a KDL occurring whilst using Falkon.
• In WebKit, an issue with YouTube timelines not displaying properly was fixed.

APIs

Storage and file systems

• Fixed volume names of newly created FAT16/32 filesystems via mkfs (and fat fs_tools)
• Fixed an issue with NTFS handling file deletions incorrectly.
• Fixed an issue with Tracker suspending all internal processes when copying files from a BFS to NTFS filesystem.
• Fixed an issue with incorrect file creation dates being displayed in NTFS.
• Fixed an issue with KDLs occurring when performing multiple writes in ntfs_inode_close.
• Fixed an issue with a KDL occurring when a busy BFS image was unmounted.
• Fixed an issue where the system did not recognise partitions formatted with the mkfs.ext4 command.
• Fixed an issue where the system became unresponsive when there was concurrent reading/writing happening to a FAT32 partition.
• Support for sparse files on ext2, ext3 and ext4 filesystems.
• More use of the entry cache for btrfs, ext2/3/4 and exfat.
• Userlandfs is now compatible with FUSE 2.9 (the latest version in the 2.x series)

BeOS compatibility

POSIX compatibility

• Increased maximum argument length to match FreeBSD (roughly doubled)
• Rewrite of mlock() and munlock() to more closely match POSIX
• Support for C11 threads
• Addition of locale_t and the related methods

Build System

• Haiku now includes a Jamfile engine in the Haiku source tree.
• Rdef file support has also been added to the Jamfile engine.
• Fixed an issue with mimeset under libroot_build being slow and inefficient.
• Fixed an issue with HaikuPorter unmounting packagefs causing a KDL.
• Static libraries provided by Haiku are now built with hidden symbol visibility by default, some internal APIs will not be available anymore to 3rd-party apps.

System performance

• Fixed an issue with cached memory continually increasing.
• Gave undefined weak symbols a value of 0 in System Runtime Loader, fixing issues with programs not running with errors about unresolved symbols.

Internationalization

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

Hardware compatibility

PCI

• Improved support for 64-bit PCI BARs in various drivers
• CPU TSC frequency is read from CPUID if available, instead of trying to measure it with a loop

Sound

• Fixed an issue with 5 Series/3400 Series Chipsets being detected but no audio was being emitted.

Mass storage

Network

• Updated drivers to use the latest versions available from FreeBSD
• Addition of an OpenBSD compatibility driver to get more drivers from OpenBSD
• Support for 802.11ac Wifi thanks to OpenBSD drivers
• Support for "jumbo frames" (ethernet frames larger than 1500 bytes)
• New driver for USB-RNDIS, allowing to use USB tethering from Android phones.

USB/Peripherals

• An issue with the Corsair K70 LUX RGB, AZIO MK Retro and Razer Deathstalker keyboards not functioning has been fixed.
• Support for keyboard bitmap reports (n-key rollover)
• Fixed an issue with XHCI endpoints not being initialised, which meant that the system could not start whilst USB devices were plugged in.
• Fixed an issue with USB mice abruptly not working when being used.
• Fixed an issue with the vHUION Giano 1409 Digitizer not recognizing clicks.
• Support for USB mass storage drives larger than 2 TB
• Support for low baudrates in the pc_serial serial port driver (for use witl old serial mouses, for example).
• Support for flushing serial port buffers

Graphics

• Fixed issues with Intel i7-3770 (HD Graphics 4400), HD Graphics 2000 , 2500 and 4600 booting into black screens.
• Many other improvements to the intel_extreme graphics driver for modern systems: Broadwell, Haswell and later.
• Experimental support for VESA BIOS patching to enable custom video modes (disabled by default)
• New large font for the kernel debugger on high-DPI displays
• Automatic fallback to VESA or framebuffer drivers if other drivers fail to initialise and report it to app_server

Deprecations

• mkfat binary removed. Use mkfs -t fat
• The driver for floppy drives was removed (it was not working anyways)

Known issues and workarounds

There are no known major bugs.