Comment by 👻 darkghost
I'll give it a shot tomorrow and see how it goes. Nice work!
Mar 07 · 2 months ago
13 Later Comments ↓
🛸 bluesman [OP] · Mar 07 at 04:13:
Some progress: Per Google, I set VirtualBox to just one CPU and it works reasonably well (including no stuck keys). I tried JDK 24. There is definitely something weird going on with modal dialogs. I'm going to try and figure it out. Otherwise everything else seems to work.
🛸 bluesman [OP] · Mar 07 at 05:32:
Hey. Everything is (mostly) fixed and committed. The Haiku JVM doesn't seem to support document modality but that's fine. It seems shortcut keys are a little wonky but everything else is working.
Tomorrow I might work on making a Haiku install.
🛸 bluesman [OP] · Mar 07 at 15:35:
I used jlink to create a small Haiku jvm for Alhena based on OpenJDK 24. You can download the Haiku release from GitHub:
Other than some shortcut keys, everything seems to work.
👻 darkghost · Mar 07 at 16:40:
I'll be sure to check this out soon! I'm away from the Haiku PC at the moment
👻 darkghost · Mar 08 at 01:57:
Downloaded the link above. This runs great!! File open appears to me as a tiny window at the upper left. I'm able to drag it to resize and see the dialog. Same as user data export. User data import appears just fine. Print as well.
Re shortcut keys: In Haiku Alt is the default modifier key (eg copy paste would be Alt+C Alt+V) Ctrl+I seems to be a system shortcut like Alt+Tab in Windows.
👻 darkghost · Mar 08 at 02:12:
Adding that it also runs the smoothest of the Haiku Gemini browsers on this old thing I use it on. The alternatives are Kristall and an older Lagrange.
🛸 bluesman [OP] · Mar 08 at 02:54:
Yeah. I have noticed dialogs will sometimes open off screen or even "minimized". If I close them (using ESC if necessary) and re-open, they appear fine. That's probably a JVM bug. I'm going to have to mull over how to handle shortcut keys.
👻 darkghost · Mar 08 at 11:02:
It might be beyond your control if it is bugs in Haiku's openjdk implementation. I think some of the packages are just recompiles of existing OSS using automated tools. I could see something like JDK especially being not worked over with a fine tooth comb by the package maintainer given the high degree of complexity in it.
Again, it's amazing how smooth Alhena operates as most recompiled software is slow and stuttery. Haiku hasn't optimized some system calls and it shows. RAM usage for me is much higher (about 440 MB) than other Gemini software (typically 60 - 80 MB) but it fits just fine in the 4GB I have given the underlying OS and display is less than 100 MB.
🛸 bluesman [OP] · Mar 08 at 14:19:
I started a new session and expanded the window using the yellow tab. I didn't have any dialog oddities the whole time although that's probably a coincidence. It's strange that it's not consistent. There are other ways to position and size dialogs so I may still investigate.
Java does use a lot more memory. There are command line params that would help with that but I didn't even think of it. I'll test those things for the next release.
I'm really enjoying Haiku. I'm trying to figure out how to run it natively without glitches. I was able to get good sound out of VirtualBox and configure VLC as an external player. I couldn't get embedded VLC to work but I'm guessing that's because the VLCJ project doesn't include native Haiku libs. I need to confirm.
All in all though, I'm pretty impressed with how well everything is working.
🛸 bluesman [OP] · Mar 08 at 16:33:
Hey, I got Haiku working via bootable USB. All I had to do was move my USB keyboard to a port on the front of the PC. Go figure. Everything is quite snappy. It will be easier to debug issues now.
👻 darkghost · Mar 08 at 23:12:
It's a nice little project. Really defines hobby OS for me. I was also a BeOS fan back in the day.
🛸 bluesman [OP] · Mar 09 at 21:46:
Interestingly, I haven't had a single dialog issue since moving from VirtualBox to a bootable USB stick.
👻 darkghost · Mar 09 at 22:40:
On the same install my dialog issues also disappeared. I updated nothing, changed nothing, but I did reboot. Odd!!
Original Post
Alhena In Haiku — @darkghost Have you tried running Alhena in Haiku? I see there's a JVM. I'm thinking about giving it a shot in VirtualBox. How else am I going to spend my Friday?