Be Inc created BeOS in the mid-1990s as a super-modern operating system, but it failed to catch on. Over 20 years later, the open-source Haiku OS project is picking up where it left off, and there’s a new beta release available.
The Haiku project has been developing an open-source continuation of BeOS for years, based partially on some BeOS code, but much of it has been built from scratch. Haiku R1 Beta 4 is now available, as the first major release in a year and a half. It might be the most significant upgrade yet, as it makes Haiku much more viable as a typical desktop operating system.
Haiku is a modern take on BeOS, and has a lot in common with the long-dead operating system. There’s a “Deskbar” at the top-right corner for managing tasks and applications, a consistent design across all applications, and even support for BeOS applications (on the 32-bit x86 build). It also has remarkably low system requirements — it will boot with an Intel Pentium II CPU and 384 MB RAM, but the developers recommend an Intel Core i3/AMD Phenom II with 2…
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