After a year and a half of development, Haiku OS has published the fifth beta-issue of the operating system Haiku R1. Initially created as a reaction to the closure of the BEOS OS, the project was first known as Openbeos before being renamed in 2004 due to trademark claims. To evaluate the new release, several bootable live images have been prepared for download, including x86 and x86-64 versions totaling 1.4 GB.
Haiku OS is designed for personal computers with its own core based on modular architecture, optimized for high responsiveness and multi-flow applications. Developers have access to an object-oriented API, and the system aims for binary compatibility with applications designed for BEOS 5. The minimum hardware required includes a Pentium II or AMD Athlon CPU and 384 MB of RAM (recommended Intel Core i3 or AMD Phenom II with 2 GB of RAM).
The file system in Haiku OS uses OpenBFS, supporting advanced attributes of files, journaling, 64-bit signs, and meta-tags for each file. The system includes features like B+ Tree trees for directory structure organization and components like the Tracker file manager and Deskbar panel inherited from BEOS.
The main innovations in the latest release include simplified interface color settings, improvements for dark design themes, and more options for manual editing of display parameters. Visual examples for appearance settings are provided for both light and dark themes.
