When was the last time I tried HaikuOS ? Maybe two or three years ago ?

I remembered using a USB stick as the destination of the installation. It can be easily installed on the same stick you’re booting HaikuOS from, without having to edit bootloader files or go into complicated boot issues, isn’t that amazing ?

So if you have for example a 64 GB USB stick, you can prepare it as the installation medium and then still use most of the space for HaikuOS. See here a howto :

https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/installing-haiku-to-same-usb-liveboot-drive-guide/15609

So, what’s different from last time I tried it ? Last time the Gnome Web (Epiphany) browser was making its way to become a feasible web browser for HaikuOS. It appears to be gone but LibreWolf is there, and Iceweasel and Iceweasel ESR. These work fine for browsing but drag and drop for customizing icons in the toolbar was not working for me, maybe a graphics card thing ? But there’s always NetPositive, the default HaikuOS web browser.

I think that HaikuOS is fun to play with, especially if you like its design. The bootup is pretty fast and it looks amazing. The desktop itself has a little learning curve but not too difficult.

Drawbacks ? It is still not multi-user as far as I know. You will be running as root all the time. And there’s lots of apps, sometimes outdated. It will not be ready to replace your office work computer but if you like to tinker and play around it could be a fresh alternative for what most open source users use.