Hi everyone!

I'm excited to share Haiku Docker v1.0.2 — a way to run Docker containers on Haiku OS using the standard Docker CLI, powered by a lightweight Alpine Linux VM running under QEMU with NVMM hardware acceleration.

No need to switch to Linux just to run your development containers. Everything is controlled directly from Haiku Terminal.

Links:

• GitHub Repository
• v1.0.2 Release
• HaikuPorts PR #14929

⚠️ Tested in nested virtualization so far. Bare-metal testers are especially welcome!

🚀 What works

🐳 Native-feeling Docker CLI

Run familiar commands directly from Haiku Terminal:

• docker run
• docker ps
• docker build
• docker exec -it

Commands are forwarded to the guest Docker Engine through a single multiplexed SSH connection.

⚡ Hardware-accelerated micro-VM

QEMU uses -accel nvmm to boot an Alpine Linux guest with Linux kernel 6.18 and Docker Engine 29.

SSH is ready in approximately 18 seconds.

📁 Workspace sharing

Your Haiku workspace at /boot/home/dev is available inside the VM through SSHFS. A chrooted SFTP setup prevents the guest from browsing the rest of your home directory.

🔥 Hot reload without polling

A small native BPathMonitor bridge forwards filesystem changes into the VM as inotify events.

Measured latency: ~550 ms, tested with fs.watch inside node:20-alpine.

🌐 Automatic port forwarding

Run something like:

docker run -p 3000:3000 ...

And access it directly at localhost:3000 on Haiku.

SSH tunnels are automatically created and removed based on docker events. No manual forwarding configuration.

🖥️ Deskbar integration

A Deskbar replicant provides a VM status indicator and Start/Stop controls through its context menu.

You can also manage everything from Terminal:

• docker-vm start
• docker-vm stop
• docker-vm status

🧪 Stability testing

A 30-minute stress test combining PostgreSQL workloads with repeated npm install and next build operations completed 46 cycles with:

• Zero crashes
• Zero OOM events
• Zero kernel debugger landings (KDL)
• No host memory growth

⚠️ Current limitations

There are a few NVMM driver issues that currently require workarounds:

• No AVX/AVX2 in the guest: Linux 6.18 needs noxsave to avoid a crash. Images requiring AVX, such as mongo:5+, won't work.
• Single vCPU: Currently limited to -smp 1.
• Graceful shutdown required: Always use docker-vm stop or Deskbar. Killing QEMU with SIGKILL can leave guest memory allocated until reboot.
• TCP port forwarding only.

Performance tip: Keep node_modules in a Docker named volume (-v nm:/app/node_modules).

In my testing, a Next.js project installed dependencies in ~99 seconds using a named volume, compared to ~550 seconds on the SSHFS share.

Run Git operations on the Haiku side.

🛠️ NVMM bugs discovered

During development, I identified and reported three NVMM issues with reproduction steps and logs:

• #20426 — Linux guest crashes in fpstate_reset without noxsave.
• #20427 — QEMU aborts in nvmm_gpa_unmap with -smp 2 / default PC machine.
• #20428 — Guest memory isn't released after QEMU is killed with SIGKILL.

Once these are addressed, the single-vCPU and noxsave workarounds can potentially be removed.

💻 Requirements

• Haiku R1/beta6 (NVMM driver included)
• CPU with Intel VT-x (sysinfo | grep -i vmx)
• Nested virtualization enabled if running Haiku inside another VM

🙌 Looking for testers!

The project is open source, and I'd really appreciate feedback from the Haiku community.

Bare-metal test results would be particularly valuable, especially CPU model, hardware configuration, whether the VM boots successfully, and any issues you encounter.

Bug reports, suggestions, and contributions are very welcome!

And a big thanks to everyone who worked on bringing NVMM to Haiku — this project wouldn't be possible without that work.

GitHub: https://github.com/timmagicbeans/haiku-docker

Haiku is pretty awesome, but I do need to ask what effects are being made to modernize some aspects of the system like Samba support (have never been able to get it working), multi-user, and maybe modernizing the way folders and file management are handled.

I’m not a programmer so I am useless in this regard, I just wonder if there are any efforts to do this kind of thing in Haiku.

I've been reading about alternate OS's -- neither mac, windows, or linux. There's a few interesting ones, including haiku. I'd like to try it as my main OS. But a few questions . . What things is it good at? Video, web-surfing, image editing, etc . . . What hardware does it work best on? I have a dell laptop currently running linux Mint. I have a samsung chromebook, two imacs, and a macbook pro and macbook air. To me, it's just exciting to get out of the bind of the three main OS's.

I'm wondering if people dual-boot Haiku and how that tends to go. I want to put it on my primary computer, as a second or third OS (behind linux and linux at the moment).

Also wondering how i can contribute once Im doing that. Like how i can report issues or help test maybe. Im sadly unfamiliar with systems development and C++, but maybe I can contribute elsewhere.

I'm a fan of BeOS and HaikuOS since day one. My idea: With a dedicated agent you can certainly explore the OS much better, develop programs for it and much more. That's why I developed one.

And to test it, I let the agent develop a modern weather app for Haiku :D

If you want to test the whole thing yourself, the Agent (MCP Based) can be found in

mcp_agent_all_OS.zip
https://github.com/srware-net/LocalLightChat/releases/tag/v1.0

Btw: It works best with the associated LocalLightChat, which is a leightweight OpenWebUI alternative.

And the weather app with source can be downloaded here: https://www.locallightai.com/llc/downloads/demos/weather_haiku.zip

So I have the option for a password prompt to appear after I leave the computer unattended for 3 minutes, problem is I unlock it and the prompt stays with no way to close it! Any tips?

i want to use haiku as my main os but it doesnt support emmc and wifi card so i had the idea to install void linux and make it like layer to run qemu with haiku just like [this video](https://youtu.be/mwLIgdRj5bI)

i have 2 problems now :

1- haiku or qemu starts so small and dont take full screen automaticly

2- graphics is so ass cant move window without tearing

host : zednote2

scr:

\#!/bin/sh

exec qemu-system-x86_64 \\

\-machine q35 \\

\-enable-kvm \\

\-cpu host \\

\-m 1G \\

\-smp 2 \\

\-device qemu-xhci \\

\-device usb-tablet \\

\-device usb-kbd \\

\-vga std \\

\-display gtk,full-screen=on,zoom-to-fit=on \\

\-drive file=/home/void/haiku.qcow2,format=qcow2

This is Haiku nightly 64bit. I am using a custom Tracker/Deskbar called snaketracker and Xfce theme called b6. Snaketracker does not replace your existing Tracker / Deskbar, instead it uses a special hook during bootup. Xfce themes has over 90+ themes to chose from.

Download available here: https://github.com/ablyssx74/haiku/releases

Can Haiku OS be installed easily on a Chromebook? How good is its hardware/driver support, especially audio?

Some Linux distros have trouble with Chromebook audio drivers, so I’m curious if Haiku handles speakers and microphones better.

Any Chromebook models known to work well with Haiku?

I have a piece of software that I have been working on for a few months that I think is getting close to a 1.0 release, but I still need an icon for it. I have an idea that I have worked on for an icon, but I want help to get it perfect and in the correct format for Haiku. If anyone would like to help for a few bucks, send me a DM. TIA.

Hi,

Recently started trying to get Haiku to work after watch a few YT channels I subscribe to sing its praises. Pretty excited to see a 32 bit flavour that I could potential revive my little Asus netbook with.

I tried to walk through the installer, but unfortunately it won't recognize the internal storage (32 gb eMMC). Apologies if covered elsewhere, but is that unsupported? If so, any chance support is in development? Any help is appreciated!

Hey Folks,

Was trolling around on the internet and looked up the BeOS trademark. It was due for renewal this year and it looks like ACCESS allowed it to lapse.

Anyone else find that interesting? Any interest from the community to buy the name and bring it back?

https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/search/trademark/abstract%3FserialNumber%3D78558039

Hi everyone,

I’m curious about how lightweight HaikuOS is in practice.

After a fresh installation, roughly how much disk space does Haiku OS take up?

And how much RAM and CPU does it typically use when sitting idle on the desktop?

I’m considering trying Haiku on an older/lower-spec machine, so I’d also be interested in hearing about your experience with it on older hardware.

Thanks!

It's a Dell Inspiron 5150, with an Intel p 4 and only 512mb of ram. Everything seems to work fine with Haiku. I divided the drive into three partitions and also installed FreeDOS and AROS along with Haiku r1/beta6.

i just wanted to share this rice i made :>
im using the MacDecorator decor, built from the official source tree as other isolated decor repos are outdated.
came back to haiku after a while of linux, and im pretty impressed by what its become. i think the most important feat to me is that it has a smooth firefox that even does youtube -- so well im unsure if graphical acceleration was introduced. good job, developers

I’ve been spending some time trying to get Haiku running on my original 2009 MacBook Air1,1:

I first prepared a USB with the x86_64 nightly build (hrev60114). The Mac sees the USB and I can get into Haiku’s boot loader, including the “Boot fallback Haiku” option. From there, though, things get interesting.
Normal boot results in a black screen. I then tried going into the boot options and enabling Use fail-safe graphics, but after continuing the boot the machine just hangs. I also tried fail-safe graphics + Disable ACPI, with essentially the same result - the boot process starts, but eventually freezes without giving me anything particularly useful on screen.

Thinking this might simply be a 64-bit compatibility problem on such early Intel Apple hardware, I also prepared a USB with the 32-bit hrev60114 nightly build. Unfortunately that introduced a different problem: the boot environment appears, but Haiku itself doesn’t seem to show up as a bootable system in the same way.

Has anyone here ever successfully booted Haiku on a MacBookAir1,1, or on similarly early Intel Macs with Apple’s slightly unusual EFI implementation? I have also installed rEFInd but the result is still the same with both 64-bit and 32-bit versions of the system (64-bit fails with black screen and 32-bit is not even listed as a boot option).

I’d especially be interested in knowing:
- whether there’s a particular Haiku revision that works better on these machines,
- whether I should be using the 32-bit or 64-bit build,
whether there are any boot-loader/kernel options worth trying besides fail-safe graphics and disabling ACPI
- whether this generation of MacBook Air has any known GPU/EFI/ACPI issue that prevents Haiku from booting completely

I’m happy to keep experimenting - at this point getting Haiku to actually reach the desktop on this tiny old Air has become a challenge in itself. :)

I have a Dell Latitude 5590 that supports both Legacy and UEFI booting options. I installed Haiku to a partition, and it is not showing up as a launch option when I boot into the BIOS.

I noticed in my conquest of using BeOS on my old Laptop, I have realised that old software for BeOS, especially, the x86 version, has mostly gone missing and is basically impossible to retrieve unless you end up having an archive of it locally, or do some long time internet archaeology.

Here you can discuss your BeOS/Derivatives, Downloads experimental/hidden software, and read my Blogs of my tech story :D

(It can also load in NetPositive and most other Browsers)

Hope y'all enjoy it! : D

link: https://thebeosarchive.de/

Dear developers, it wouild be good idea to implement VLAN support on ethernet interface. So old laptops can become great weapon in admin's hands. Are there such ideas in dev community ?

I am a year or two out of the loop. I went through the process of installing Haiku OS on a Surface and had an enjoyable experience. However it wasn’t very useful, as a creative I didn’t find there was any real graphics acceleration support. Also not really any heavy graphics programs, and definitely no 3d or video acceleration.

So what is the current use? Is there looming support for acceleration and maybe an eventual port of Blender or Gimp?

Or am I so far out of the loop that I have no idea what I am talking about?

I first heard about it from the Action Retro YouTube channel.

He talks about Haiku OS quite a lot and it actually made me interested in trying it.

I really like the idea of Haiku and I hope one day it can become something like Linux, with more hardware support, apps and a bigger community.

How did you guys discover Haiku OS?

Desktop on Fire published an interview with Lee JunHaeng (rainygirl), the developer behind haiku-sony-vaio-p-patch. The netbook has a non-standard Intel Atom SCH chipset that forced early guides to disable ACPI and boot into Safe Mode, and the second logical core stayed inactive under earlier Haiku releases, capping performance at 50%. His patch fixes both issues and restores the machine to its original Windows Vista-era performance.

He also talks about his broader Haiku portfolio (rworldradio, rtelevision, rmarkdown, arm64 ports of Chromium and WebPositive), the near-total absence of alt-OS hobbyist culture in South Korea, and his interest in the Tabby PowerPC port.

Full interview: https://www.desktoponfire.com/interview/1020/haiku-os-sony-vaio-p/

If anyone here has VAIO P hardware lying around, the patch repo is linked in the piece, worth testing against your own setup.