haiku/ReadMe.md

Haiku
=======================
**[Homepage](https://www.haiku-os.org/)
| [Mailing Lists](https://www.haiku-os.org/community/ml)
| [IRC Channels](https://www.haiku-os.org/community/irc)
| [Issue Tracker](https://dev.haiku-os.org/)
| [API docs](https://api.haiku-os.org)**

Haiku is an open-source operating system that specifically targets personal
computing. Inspired by the BeOS, Haiku is fast, simple to use, easy to learn
and yet very powerful.

Goals
------------
 * Sensible defaults with minimal configuration required.
 * Clean, clear, concise code.
 * Unified desktop environment.

Trying Haiku
---------------
Haiku provides pre-built [nightly images](http://download.haiku-os.org/) and
[release images](https://www.haiku-os.org/get-haiku). Haiku is compatible
with a large variety of hardware, but in case you don't want to "take the
plunge" and install Haiku on bare metal, you can install it on a virtual
machine (VM) instead. If you've never used a VM before, you can follow one of
the ["Emulating Haiku"](https://www.haiku-os.org/guides/virtualizing/) guides.

Compiling Haiku
---------------
See `ReadMe.Compiling`.

Contributing
-------------------
Haiku is a meritocratic open source project with a large variety of tasks. Even
if you can't write code, *you can still help*! Haiku needs designers,
(technical) writers, translators, testers... Get involved and help out!

### Contributing code
If you're submitting a patch to us, please make sure you're following the
[patch submitting guidelines](https://dev.haiku-os.org/wiki/CodingGuidelines/SubmittingPatches).

If you're having trouble finding something in the source tree, you can use
one of our OpenGrok servers:

 * http://xref.plausible.coop/ (provided by Landon Fuller)
 * http://code.metager.de/source/xref/haiku (provided by MetaGer)

### Contributing documentation
The main piece of documentation that still needs work are the API docs (found
in the tree at `docs/user`). Just find an undocumented class, write
documentation for it, and [submit a patch](https://dev.haiku-os.org/wiki/CodingGuidelines/SubmittingPatches).

### Contributing translations
See [wiki:i18n](https://dev.haiku-os.org/wiki/i18n).

### Contributing software ports
See [HaikuPorts](https://github.com/haikuports/haikuports/).