Note the backslash after "Clara". In Terminal you have to "escape" special characters like '"*\$?!. The space between "Clara" and "Botters" is also one of those. Therefore the backslash is really in front of the space character, and not after "Clara".
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Haiku's Boot Loader can help you when you experience hardware related problems or want to choose which Haiku installation to start, if you have more than one (maybe on an installation CD or USB stick).
+It's also handy after you installed a software component that acts up and prevents you from booting the system to remove it again. The Disable user add-ons option that's mentioned below, will start Haiku without loading user installed components, e.g. a driver.
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To enter the Boot Loader options, you have to press the SPACE BAR right at the beginning of the boot process. It's easy to miss so you best keep hitting the key until it shows up.
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Once it's there, you're offered three menus:
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+| Select boot volume | | Choose which Haiku installation to start. |
+Select safe mode options
+ | | There are several options to try in case of hardware related trouble. When moving the selection bar to an option, a short explanation appears at the bottom of the screen.
+ - Safe mode
+- Disable user add-ons
+- Disable IDE DMA
+- Use fail-safe video mode
+- Don't call the BIOS
+- Disable APM
+- Disable ACPI
+- Enable on screen debug output
+ |
+| Select fail safe video mode | | If you had to activate the option Use fail-safe video mode, you can set resolution and colour depth. |
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After activating one or more options, you return to the main menu and continue booting, which presents you with this boot screen:
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If everything works OK, one symbol after another quickly lights up.
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There are some nice little games and demo applications for your entertainment. Most of the demos are targeted to developers who are interested in learning from the code, which is of course open source as is everything Haiku.
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+ | BSnow |
+ Let it snow. |
+ | Chart |
+ Moving through stars and galaxies. |
+ | Clock |
+ An analog clock. |
+ | Cortex |
+ See the media_server in action. |
+ | FontDemo |
+ A slideshow through all your fonts. |
+ | GLDirectMode |
+ A demonstration of OpenGL. |
+ | GLTeapot |
+ The rotating OpenGL rendered teapot. |
+ | Gradients |
+ A demonstration of the gradient API . |
+ | Mandelbrot |
+ Computing fractals. |
+ | Pairs |
+ A game to find pairs of matching icons. |
+ | Playground |
+ Test the drawing API . |
+ | Pulse |
+ See your CPU's workload. |
+ | Sudoku |
+ This century's "Solitair". |
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Haiku provides a few useful tools that can be installed on the Desktop or the Deskbar via its Replicant.
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Haiku's filesystem layout is quite transparent, trying to always use non-cryptic names for files and folders, that don't leave the user guessing. Files and folders that are important for the system to function properly, are protected from accidental tempering by showing one of these alerts:
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The second alert pops up if you try to rename or delete something in the system hierarchy. Here, the "Do it" button will only become clickable when you're holding down the SHIFT key.
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Generally, there are three seperate branches springing from the root folder of the boot volume:
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+| /boot/beos/ | | belongs to the system. Don't touch! |
+| /boot/common/ | | holds files that are shared between users. |
+| /boot/home/ | | is your personal folder where you keep your data and settings. |
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The fact that it's called "beos" shows Haiku's BeOS heritage. It wasn't renamed yet to ensure backward compatibility with BeOS software.
+Whatever it's named, you should not alter what's inside. Every update of Haiku can add, remove or overwrite anything within it. If you want to add functionality, maybe with other Tracker Add-Ons or Translators or maybe another hardware driver, you install these things under your own /boot/home/ hierarchy or, if it's supposed to be for every user, under /boot/common/. As long as Haiku isn't multi-user, this distinction has no apparent effect, as there's only one user with one home folder. But since there will be support for more users than one eventually, it makes sense to learn the right way from the start.
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So, let's say you want to install a new Translator for the latest image format, you don't simply copy it into the respective system folder. Remember: Don't touch!
+Instead, you put it into the mirrored hierarchy under /boot/common/ or /boot/home/config/.
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In our example the location for Translators in the system folder would be
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/boot/beos/add-ons/Translators/
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So, the user "mirror" folder is either
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/boot/home/config/add-ons/Translators/
+or
+/boot/common/add-ons/Translators/
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This has another advantage: If the component you have installed messes things up (which is possible as you install hardware drivers like this, too) you are able to choose "Disable User Add-Ons" from the Boot Loader menu and are thus always able to boot without the offending component.
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Most of the time, however, you won't have to deal with these things at all, since every software that comes from a trusted source should include an installation routine that handles these things.
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Haiku is not a multi-user system yet. Once it is though, every user has her own home folder that is not accessible to anyone else. Every application or added component like Tracker Add-Ons, Translators etc. as well as any data that's supposed to be shared between different users, go here.
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This folder belongs to you. Here you can create and delete files and folders as you wish. However, you shouldn't mess too much with the ~/config/ directory and its subfolders. You could delete e.g. the ~/config/settings/ folder without damaging the operating system itself, but who wants to lose all his configurations and application settings? In any case, the system warns you with the at the top mentioned alert.
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Besides the ~/config/add-ons/ folder, which mirrors the system's add-ons folder for additional components as described above, there are a few other folders of interest. (By the way, the tilde ("~") is a shortcut for your home folder, so you don't always have to write "/boot/home/" in Terminal.)
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+| ~/mail | |
+By default, this is where your mails are kept. |
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+| ~/queries | |
+Queries are stored, by default temporarily for 7 days, in this folder. |
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+| ~/config/be/ | |
+Again from our BeOS legacy, the be folder contains what's shown in the Deskbar menu. You can add and remove items either with the Deskbar configuration panel or by putting files, folders or links into this folder directly. |
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+| ~/config/bin/ | |
+Complements the system's /boot/beos/bin/ folder and holds all your command line programs. |
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+| ~/config/boot/ | |
+This folder holds the UserBootscript which is executed after the system has booted up and the UserShutdownscript which will be executed before the system does all the necessary things to safely shut down. |
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+| ~/config/fonts/ | |
+Simply copy a TrueType or Postscript font into this folder and its usable right away. |
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+| ~/config/settings/ | |
+This folder contains the settings to all applications and a few configurations for the system. Some applications manage their settings in their own subfolders, others simply put their configuration file in there. |
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+| ~/config/settings/beos_mime/ | |
+In this MIME database Haiku keeps track of all the different filetypes and their settings. |
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+| ~/config/settings/kernel/drivers/ | |
+There, one settings files that may be of interest. kernel offers some low level configurations like disabling SMP, activating serial debugging or enabling advanced power management. You activate a configuration line by removing the commentary symbol "#". Be careful here! |
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+| ~/config/settings/Tracker/ | |
+Here are some interesting subfolders: |
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+| DefaultFolderTemplate/ | | Show and arrange all attributes and the window size to your liking. Every new folder you create will use it as a template. |
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+| DefaultQueryTemplates/ | | You can define the layout of query result windows for certain filetypes. See topic Query: The result window. |
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+| Go/ | | Put links to your favorite locations in here to make them available e.g. in open and save panels. See topic Haiku's GUI: Favorites and recent folders. |
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+| Tracker New Template/ | | Add a template for any filetype that's then available from Tracker's File | New... menu. See topic Tracker: Working with files. |
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By default, Haiku's option key, to invoke commands from menus for example, is not the usual CTRL key, but ALT instead. This has historical reasons, because the BeOS was inspired somewhat by MacOS. After you get used to it, it actually feels better as e.g. ALT+C and ALT+V is reached more conveniently on the keyboard and these commands seemlessly integrate into the bash shell of the Terminal.
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In any case, you can switch to the maybe more familiar CTRL key in the Menu preferences. The user guide will always describes the default configuration with the option key being ALT.
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Here's a table of many of the most commonly used shortcuts that are always awailable, even if there isn't a corresponding menu:
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+| ALT+Fx | | Switch to Workspace X (Fx is the function key corresponding to that workspace). |
+| CTRL+TAB | | Hold it to brings up the Twitcher. |
+| CTRL+ALT+DEL | | Open the Team Monitor. |
+| ALT+ESC | | Enter the menu bar (leave with ESC). |
+| ALT+C | | Copy selection to clipboard. |
+| ALT+X | | Cut selection to clipboard. |
+| ALT+V | | Paste the clipboard's contents. |
+| ALT+W | | Close the current window. |
+| ALT+Q | | Close the whole application. |
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Additionally to the general shortcuts, here are more for navigating with Tracker:
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+| ALT+CURSOR-UP | | Open parent folder. |
+| ALT+CURSOR-DOWN or RETURN | | Open selected folder. |
+| WIN-KEY | | Holding it while opening a folder will automatically close the parent folder. This also works when navigating with the mouse. |
+| right MENU-KEY | | Open the Deskbar menu (leave with ESC) |
+| ALT+Z | | Undo the last action. The undo history is only limited by the available memory. Note, that this only works for actions on the file itself, changed attributes and permission settings can't be undone. Also, once a file is removed from Trash it's gone for good. |
+| ALT+SHIFT+Z | | Redo the action you just reverted with ALT+Z |
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You can add or remove items to/from a selection by holding down a modifier key while clicking on a entry (or file in case of Tracker).
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+| SHIFT | | This will select everything between the first selected item and the one you click on. |
+| ALT | | Adds or removes the item you're clicking on from the selection. |
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In a Tracker window, if you just start typing, Tracker scrolls to and selects the file that best fits your incremental search. If there's no file starting with your typed letters, files that contain the search string anywhere in their name or other displayed attributes are selected. This search is not case-sensitive.
+The letters you type appear at the bottom-left, where normally the number of items are listed. After a second it reverts back and you could start a new incremental search.
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While a key philosophy of Haiku is to cut down on options and have sensible defaults instead, there are some things that have to be configured or can be set to individual preference.
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+ | Appearance |
+ Configure certain aspects of the graphical interface. |
+ | Backgrounds |
+ Set a color or image as background of the Desktop or any other folder. |
+ | DataTranslations |
+ Settings for all supported file formats. |
+ | E-mail |
+ Configure your email accounts. |
+ | FileTypes |
+ Add, remove and configure filetypes. |
+ | Fonts |
+ Set your system fonts. |
+ | Keyboard |
+ Configure repeat delay and rate. |
+ | Keymap |
+ Set the mapping of your keyboard. |
+ | Media |
+ Audio and video settings like volume and in/output devices. |
+ | Menu |
+ Configure the behaviour of menus and the command key (CTRL/ALT. |
+ | Mouse |
+ Configure your mouse. |
+ | Network |
+ Configure your network. |
+ | Printers |
+ Add, remove and configure printers. |
+ | Screen |
+ Configure resolution, depth and refresh rate. |
+ | ScreenSaver |
+ Add, remove and configure a screen saver. |
+ | Sounds |
+ Assign a sound to different system events. |
+ | Time |
+ Set time, date and timezone. |
+ | VirtualMemory |
+ Set the amount of swap space. |
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Applications can install add-ons so they can be invoked easily on a selection of files from Tracker. Only the add-ons that can handle a specific filetype are presented under Add-Ons from the context menu or the File menu of a Tracker window. Some add-ons don't necessarily need a file to work on and are thus always present.
Tracker Add-Ons, or links to applications that can act as add-ons, can be installed in three different locations (see topic Filesystem layout):
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