After two years of intense work and coinciding with the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the original project in 2001, the developers of Haiku have announced the availability of the sixth beta version of Haiku R1.
This release resolves more than 530 bugs and improvement requests, solidifying this release as the most stable and polished version to date, standing out for improvements in memory management, a significant performance increase, and an expansion of its software ecosystem.
What's new in Haiku R1?
Undoubtedly, one of the most notable changes is native compatibility with current versions of Mozilla Firefox and its derivatives (LibreWolf, Waterfox, Floorp, and Icedove/Thunderbird). Following a stabilization process and thanks to an official agreement with Mozilla for the use of the brand, these browsers can now be installed directly from the HaikuDepot repository on 64-bit systems.
The HaikuPorts project is also reporting progress, as its repository now includes a wide variety of ported software , highlighting numerous native KDE and GNOME applications, along with the addition of a compiler and runtime environment for the Go programming language (version 1.26.1).
At the graphics hardware level, support has been adapted for NVIDIA RTX 2xxx series and later video cards. Furthermore, the system integrates the NVMM (NetBSD Virtual Machine Monitor) hypervisor, allowing the QEMU emulator to run 32-bit and 64-bit virtual machines using hardware acceleration via Intel VT-x and AMD-V technologies.
Performance and memory management
Haiku has received hundreds of optimizations; compilation times for large projects, such as HaikuWebKit, have been reduced by almost half (from 4:53 to 2:33 hours). Internal MIME type sniffing is now 5 to 10 times faster, and string hash functions have been redesigned.
Also noteworthy are the improvements in locking in the virtual file system (VFS) and the optimization of inode caching, making operations such as git status in massive repositories go from taking 33 seconds to just 2,5 seconds with hot caching.
The kernel incorporated a new implementation of the mallo c function, derived from OpenBSD code, which dramatically improves performance and frees up memory for the system . Package filesystem structures (packagefs) now consume 20% less memory, and the handling of mprotect protection attributes and shared areas via mmap was optimized. As a direct result of these adjustments, Haiku has regained the ability to boot a full graphical environment on older 32-bit systems with as little as 128 MB of RAM.
Interface, utilities and file system
In the Tracker file manager, context menus now update in real time when you press the Shift key, displaying alternative actions (for example, changing "Move to Trash" to "Delete"). Furthermore, its built-in search function now allows you to filter results by specific directories.
For its part, the SoftwareUpdater update tool has automated the removal of old system package states ; when these accumulate excessively, the pkgman command-line utility will suggest running a cleanup command (pkgman cleanup) to reclaim disk space.
In the Computer Monitor (Ctrl+Alt+Delete), background processes are now logically grouped under their main graphical application, simplifying the management of multi-process web browsers. The partition manager, DriveSetup, includes a dedicated menu for mounting disk images and interacting with them directly . If the graphical server (app_server) crashes, it now features an automatic reconnection mechanism that restores all running applications without requiring the user to restart their session.
Finally, the screenshot utility (Print Screen) has incorporated the ability to select specific areas of the screen , and visual support for HiDPI resolutions and "dark mode" has been improved throughout native applications.
In terms of compatibility, the version improves its performance on hardware manufactured in the last five years, as initialization problems in audio output devices have been resolved and the power indicator (PowerStatus) now correctly handles laptops with multiple batteries.
Connectivity was strengthened through the synchronization of network drivers from FreeBSD and OpenBSD, expanding support for Ethernet and Wi-Fi network adapters connected via USB. In the storage realm, the FAT file system now recognizes 4 KB sectors and disk drives larger than 2 TB, while integration with the FUSE API improves the performance of formats such as exFAT and squashfs.
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