HyClone

 

HyClone is a runtime environment for Haiku applications.

HyClone currently targets and supports Linux, but should be, with some modifications, portable to any ELF-based SysV OSes (including Haiku itself).

Currently, HyClone only supports x86_64.

Build instructions

Building Haiku objects

HyClone uses precompiled objects from a Haiku build. Therefore, the first step is to fetch a copy of Haiku sources and build it.

On an Ubuntu machine:

sudo apt install -y git nasm bc autoconf automake texinfo flex bison gawk build-essential unzip wget zip less zlib1g-dev libzstd-dev xorriso libtool python3

cd hyclone
./copy_objects.sh

copy_objects.sh fetches a copy of the Haiku official source code, builds the neccessary targets, and copies the required precompiled object files to the HyClone source tree.

By default, copy_objects.sh stores the cloned source code (haiku for the OS, buildtools for the Haiku cross-compilers) at HyClone's parent directory, for example:

CodingProjects
|
|--- hyclone
    |
    |--- copy_objects.sh
|--- haiku
|--- buildtools

If you want to change the Haiku source and Build tools source locations, or if you are a Haiku developer wishing to use your existing Haiku work environment, you can set these environment variables to change where copy_objects.sh looks for objects:

• HAIKU_ARCH: The Haiku build architecture. Only the default value, x86_64 is currently supported.
• HAIKU_BUILD_ENVIRONMENT_ROOT: The root folder of the Haiku build environment. By default, it is the parent directory of the HyClone source.
• HAIKU_BUILD_SOURCE_DIRECTORY: The folder where Haiku's source code should be stored. Defaults to $HAIKU_BUILD_ENVIRONMENT_ROOT/haiku.
• HAIKU_BUILD_TOOLS_DIRECTORY: The folder where the source code for Haiku's build tools should be stored. Defaults to $HAIKU_BUILD_ENVIRONMENT_ROOT/buildtools.
• HAIKU_BUILD_OUTPUT_ROOT: The folder where Haiku's build output should be stored. Defaults to $HAIKU_BUILD_SOURCE_DIRECTORY/generated.$HAIKU_ARCH.

Building HyClone

Building HyClone requires a modern C++ compiler that supports C++20 library features. For GCC, the minimum version required is GCC 11.

If you're building on older Linux distros, you might have to update your compiler. For Ubuntu 20.04, follow these steps:

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:ubuntu-toolchain-r/test
sudo apt install -y gcc-11 g++-11
# Overrides the default compiler version
sudo update-alternatives \
    --install /usr/bin/gcc gcc /usr/bin/gcc-11 100 \
    --slave /usr/bin/g++ g++ /usr/bin/g++-11

HyClone also requires a modern version of CMake (CMake 3.24). On older Linux distros, you'll have to install the latest CMake from Kitware by following this guide.

Once a compatible compiler and CMake is set up, you can build HyClone using these commands:

cd hyclone
sudo apt install -y cmake libgmp-dev libmpfr-dev zlib1g-dev libzstd-dev
mkdir build; cd build
cmake ..
# For test builds, do this to install everything to the build directory:
# cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=.
sudo make install
cd ..

The HyClone source directory must be placed in the same directory as Haiku, so that it could detect and copy the required object files.

Running HyClone

In order to get Haiku apps running (bash, gcc,...), we need a Haiku installation with basic system directories, libraries, and configuration files.

To build this environment, HyClone comes with a build_hprefix.sh script. The script assumes that a copy of Haiku source code is available at $HAIKU_BUILD_SOURCE_DIRECTORY

# Set this to the path where you want to store your Haiku root.
export HPREFIX=~/.hprefix
# If you have altered the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX option in the configure step, do this.
# If you set -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=., HyClone should be installed in the build directory.
# export HYCLONE_INSTALL_PREFIX=build
# Assuming you're at the root of the HyClone source tree
./build_hprefix.sh

build_hprefix.sh installs just enough packages to start a bash shell. To install other packages, use the -A option, or the -S option if the packages belong to the system repository.

# Strings are comma-separated.
./build_hprefix.sh \
    -A="gcc,binutils,gmp,mpc,mpfr,zlib" \
    -S="haiku_devel"

Now, assuming that you're at $CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX, run:

cd bin

# This will be appended to $PATH by haiku_loader
export HPATH=/boot/system/bin:/boot/system/non-packaged/bin
./haiku_loader bash --login

Installing applications

HyClone supports Haiku's default package manager, pkgman.

First, you'll have to configure Haiku default sources:

pkgman add-repo https://eu.hpkg.haiku-os.org/haiku/master/x86_64/current
pkgman add-repo https://eu.hpkg.haiku-os.org/haikuports/master/x86_64/current

Then, to install additional packages to a HyClone prefix, simply do what you would do on Haiku:

pkgman install -y <package name>

You can also update your HyClone environment using pkgman:

pkgman full-sync

Running GUI apps

HyClone can run Haiku's app_server. If for any reason app_server is not launched by default, you can launch it by running the following command from a HyClone shell:

/boot/system/servers/app_server &

Then, you can open a remote desktop session by following this guide as if you were working on a real Haiku machine.

Demo

A screenshot of HyClone on WSL1:

HyClone remote desktop:

Notes

• Many apps might not work on HyClone as this project is still in its early stages. You might run into errors or missing syscalls ("stubs"). If you encounter any of these, please let me know by opening an issue.
• The host's root is mounted on HyClone as /SystemRoot. When translating calls from Haiku to the host system, HyClone maps the Haiku root to $HPREFIX, and when translating the results, HyClone appends /SystemRoot to the host's root.

Community

This repo is a part of Project Reality.

Need help using this project? Join me on Discord, and let's find a solution together.