BeOS-inspired Haiku gets one step closer to the first stable release with version R1 Beta 5

Released yesterday, Haiku R1 Beta 5 is the result of an effort that took over a year and a half. During this time, the team behind it has managed to address almost 350 bugs and enhancement tickets, but also improved the hardware support and stability of the system. Even more, Haiku now comes with much more software ports available than in the previous version.

Available for x86 32-bit and 64-bit platforms, Haiku (formerly known as OpenBeOS) is a freely available, open-source operating system that continues where BeOS left off. Its minimum system requirements are very low, as the 32-bit version can run on Intel Pentium II and AMD Athlon processors alongside 384 MB of memory, 800 x 600 resolution, and 3 GB of storage space. However, the recommended configuration for running the 64-bit flavor includes 16 GB of storage, 2 GB of system memory, a display with 1,366 x 768 pixels, and at least a processor from the Intel Core i3 or AMD Phenom II families. 

The list of new software ports includes .NET, GDB, and FLTK, as well as multiple KDE and GTK apps. Other notable changes in Haiku R1 Beta 5 include a rewritten FAT driver, read-only support for UFS2, improved versions of the strace and profile tools, a TUN/TAP network driver, as well as basic support for USB audio device input/output. Sadly, more advanced USB 2.0 audio devices are not supported at this time.

Those who want to take a look back into the past and check out Haiku's ancestor should read The BeOS Bible, which has been written by Scot Hacker, Chris Herborth, and Henry Bartman. Sadly, it was published in 1999 and can only be found on Amazon used, in paperback version, for $28.63.