Please Note this is Beta software and may have bugs and issues.
What is Haiku?
Haiku is an open source operating system under constant development. Specifically targeting personal computing, Haiku is a fast, efficient, simple to use, easy to learn, and yet very powerful system for computer users of all levels. Additionally, Haiku offers something over other open source platforms which is quite unique: The project consists of a single team writing everything from the kernel, drivers, userland services, tool kit, and graphics stack to the included desktop applications and preflets. While numerous open source projects are utilized in Haiku, they are integrated seamlessly. This allows Haiku to achieve a unique level of consistency that provides many conveniences, and is truly enjoyable to use by both end-users and developers alike.
What’s so good about Haiku anyway?
The key highlights that distinguish Haiku from other operating systems include:
Specific focus on personal computing
Custom kernel designed for responsiveness
Fully threaded design for great efficiency with multi-processor/core CPUs
Rich object-oriented API for faster development
Database-like file system (BFS) with support for indexed metadata
Unified, cohesive interface
Why Haiku?
The Be Operating System introduced progressive concepts and technologies that we believe represent the ideal means to simple and efficient personal computing. Haiku is the realization of those concepts and technologies in the form of an operating system that is open source and free.