6 ms·

ReactOS 0.4.13

112 points by shdon 7y ago

hosteur 7y ago
Who here is actually using reactos? I try it once in a while but am never able to run my old legacy apps on it. Eg. games, accounting or other old windows apps.
- navjack27 7y ago
  Well it's not really meant to be used. It's nowhere near ready for everyday use.
  - strategarius 7y ago
    Maybe it never meant to be used? Its development started soon after Windows 95 release, as we all see in 20+ years of progress not even close to beta
    - rvnx 7y ago
      It's logical, Microsoft has more ressources and runs faster than them to deliver because they have more people and money. You cannot catch a flying jet with a single engine plane but I admire the effort, it's well done.
  - anthk 7y ago
    It can work relatively well under VirtualBox.
    - julenuri 7y ago
      And it does in my Dell Optiplex 3010 (without BSOD). Maybe in the near future the motherboard, multiprocessor, batteries and Audio drivers, the different .dll modules that should be working, will work. Maybe.
      - anthk 7y ago
        Sadly it panics under Bochs, but maybe I have to use another CPU definition. Testing VooDoo support would be great.
  - jamesu 7y ago
    The current release hasn’t BSOD’d on me yet, so they’re at least headed in the right direction. I’m still a bit mystified how they still have the same graphical glitches the ancient version of Firefox they support. It would also be nice if they had VMware drivers out of the box, but given how quickly the project progresses I may be asking for too much in that regard.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  The point of ReactOS is not really to run legacy apps - Wine on Linux is enough for that. It's to run legacy proprietary drivers, for hardware that will never be properly supported on Linux absent a tedious reverse-engineering effort. (Similar to running LineageOS on a phone instead of a far more compelling PostmarketOS.)
  - bestnameever 7y ago
    From the What is ReactOS page: > ReactOS is an operating system. > Our own main features are: > ReactOS is able to run Windows software > ReactOS is able to run Windows drivers > ReactOS looks-like Windows > ReactOS is free and open source https://reactos.org/what-is-reactos/ https://reactos.org/what-is-reactos/
swatkat 7y ago
https://www.kernelmode.info/forum/viewtopic6f46.html?f=11&t=5302 https://www.kernelmode.info/forum/viewtopic6f46.html?f=11&t=... https://swapcontext.blogspot.com/2019/12/is-reactos-great-again-2019.html?m=1 https://swapcontext.blogspot.com/2019/12/is-reactos-great-ag...
- binarymaster 7y ago
  ReactOS is in the interest of many people including cybersecurity professionals and reverse engineers.
- jchw 7y ago
  > Q: Why this isn't reported directly to ReactOS devs? A: Because I don't value this project as worth for any kind of official reports. Twenty years of unworkable alpha. Pff. This is my report. Part 1. You either fix your ridiculous bugs or GTFO. This is how I work. How pleasant. > Second one is about "we never used anything from MS blah blah blah" is an obvious lie for saving face and it is working only with partially brain dead audience This claim is made all the time but it does baffle me that despite all the work they put into showing how badly ReactOS sucks, they couldn’t put a modicum of effort into the code theft allegation. I guess I must be braindead for not assuming it’s stolen code. All in all I think ReactOS is interesting enough that it is a bit unwarranted how pessimistic people get. Most of us have long realized it will probably never be a viable desktop OS and that is not really a big deal because it’s still fun to mess with and read about.
  - gridlockd 7y ago
    > Most of us have long realized it will probably never be a viable desktop OS and that is not really a big deal because it’s still fun to mess with and read about. I feel the same about Desktop Linux, except I don't find it fun to mess with anymore.
    - jchw 7y ago
      Linux is a viable desktop OS. ReactOS is not. It's definitely going to come down to opinions, but the difference in my opinion is I am typing to you from Linux (and use only Linux, no VMs, as my desktop OS, even at work) and I don't think anyone here is typing on a daily driver running ReactOS. I don't enjoy everything about desktop Linux, but in an age where Windows 10 and macOS feel borderline hostile I don't really see much of an option. I do at least think there's a lot of interesting work going on with Linux, like NixOS and GuixSD, that are totally worth exploring.
GekkePrutser 7y ago
I never heard of this one.. But really cool. When I read it first I thought it was some Linux distro customised to run Wine, but it looks like they went the full way from scratch to cleanroom re-engineer Windows. Wow! Nice effort.
- SirLotsaLocks 7y ago
  yeah it's basically to windows what Linux was to Unix back in the day. hopefully some day it will be viable, but maybe it won't. there's only one way to find out
  - rnd0 7y ago
    I think that by the time they become stable enough to use as a daily driver, no one will be using 2003-compatible software or hardware. If they're even using the hardware now, that is. I mean we're talking ten years and older. I don't question why they're "bothering", but I do wonder why they haven't adjusted their compatibility goals to something more useful such as Vista or Windows 7.
- SirLotsaLocks 7y ago
  it's basically to windows what Linux was to Unix, except it's still in the early 90s stage compared to Linux.
DeathArrow 7y ago
20 years ago I followed the development of many alternative operating systems. BeOS, SkyOS, Syllable, Haiku, ReactOS, hoping someone will release something better than Mac OS or Windows. Many operating systems have died, the ones who didn't (Haiku, ReactOS) aren't doing particularly well. Doing a modern desktop operating system from scratch is very hard and very resource intensive. But trying to reverse engineer one and implement it without having specs and defined APIs is way harder. Microsoft needed tens of thousands of software engineers, UI specialists, software architects to implement Windows. Apple didn't have the resources to write OS X from scratch, they got many bits from FreeBSD, NetBSD and Linux. So trying to replicate Windows functionality and have 100% compatibility with Windows won't happen unless Windows goes open source. Which I won't be surprised to see in the future if Microsoft owns the rights to all Windows code.
- sebazzz 7y ago
  > Which I won't be surprised to see in the future if Microsoft owns the rights to all Windows code. Which they don't - depending on what you count as being "Windows": - The zip functionality in Windows Explorer is licensed from a 3rd party (DynaZip[0]) - Before it was removed in Windows Vista, Pinball was also from an external developer [1][2] I'm sure there are countless other examples. [0]: http://www.innermedia.com/ http://www.innermedia.com/ [1]: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20121218-00/?p=5803 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20121218-00/?p=58... [2]: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20181221-00/?p=100535 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20181221-00/?p=10...
- rvz 7y ago
  > Doing a modern desktop operating system from scratch is very hard and very resource intensive. Well a multi-billion dollar company with a-lot of resources can afford to do this from scratch. Unsurprisingly, those hobbyist OSes don't stand a chance and progress will be disappointing compared to Windows and macOS. Most importantly, you forgot one more alternative operating system that does fit in the desktop ecosystem and that is Fuchsia. As we can already see the hundreds of Linux distros that are still floating around for desktop market share, they don't and won't come even close to macOS or Windows here. Google is actually very good at 'using Linux' to step into the mobile market with Android and the desktop market with ChromeOS which is the head start that these distros should have done for a standard OS that general users can use, but failed to do so. Now it looks somewhat likely that Fuchsia maybe replacing both Android and ChromeOS by being one integrated and unified mobile and desktop OS for laptops and phones which they can control. If there is going to be a new OS entering the desktop and mobile markets, it is almost certainly going to be Fuchsia.
simonblack 7y ago
Big difference in USB drivers with the new release. I can actually get it to install now on a real machine now. Give me some more time to check it out further.

112 points by shdon 7y ago

Who here is actually using reactos? I try it once in a while but am never able to run my old legacy apps on it. Eg. games, accounting or other old windows apps.

navjack27 7y ago
Well it's not really meant to be used. It's nowhere near ready for everyday use.
- strategarius 7y ago
  Maybe it never meant to be used? Its development started soon after Windows 95 release, as we all see in 20+ years of progress not even close to beta
  - rvnx 7y ago
    It's logical, Microsoft has more ressources and runs faster than them to deliver because they have more people and money. You cannot catch a flying jet with a single engine plane but I admire the effort, it's well done.
- anthk 7y ago
  It can work relatively well under VirtualBox.
  - julenuri 7y ago
    And it does in my Dell Optiplex 3010 (without BSOD). Maybe in the near future the motherboard, multiprocessor, batteries and Audio drivers, the different .dll modules that should be working, will work. Maybe.
    - anthk 7y ago
      Sadly it panics under Bochs, but maybe I have to use another CPU definition. Testing VooDoo support would be great.
- jamesu 7y ago
  The current release hasn’t BSOD’d on me yet, so they’re at least headed in the right direction. I’m still a bit mystified how they still have the same graphical glitches the ancient version of Firefox they support. It would also be nice if they had VMware drivers out of the box, but given how quickly the project progresses I may be asking for too much in that regard.
zozbot234 7y ago
The point of ReactOS is not really to run legacy apps - Wine on Linux is enough for that. It's to run legacy proprietary drivers, for hardware that will never be properly supported on Linux absent a tedious reverse-engineering effort. (Similar to running LineageOS on a phone instead of a far more compelling PostmarketOS.)
- bestnameever 7y ago
  From the What is ReactOS page: > ReactOS is an operating system. > Our own main features are: > ReactOS is able to run Windows software > ReactOS is able to run Windows drivers > ReactOS looks-like Windows > ReactOS is free and open source https://reactos.org/what-is-reactos/ https://reactos.org/what-is-reactos/

swatkat 7y ago

https://www.kernelmode.info/forum/viewtopic6f46.html?f=11&t=5302 https://www.kernelmode.info/forum/viewtopic6f46.html?f=11&t=... https://swapcontext.blogspot.com/2019/12/is-reactos-great-again-2019.html?m=1 https://swapcontext.blogspot.com/2019/12/is-reactos-great-ag...

binarymaster 7y ago
ReactOS is in the interest of many people including cybersecurity professionals and reverse engineers.
jchw 7y ago
> Q: Why this isn't reported directly to ReactOS devs? A: Because I don't value this project as worth for any kind of official reports. Twenty years of unworkable alpha. Pff. This is my report. Part 1. You either fix your ridiculous bugs or GTFO. This is how I work. How pleasant. > Second one is about "we never used anything from MS blah blah blah" is an obvious lie for saving face and it is working only with partially brain dead audience This claim is made all the time but it does baffle me that despite all the work they put into showing how badly ReactOS sucks, they couldn’t put a modicum of effort into the code theft allegation. I guess I must be braindead for not assuming it’s stolen code. All in all I think ReactOS is interesting enough that it is a bit unwarranted how pessimistic people get. Most of us have long realized it will probably never be a viable desktop OS and that is not really a big deal because it’s still fun to mess with and read about.
- gridlockd 7y ago
  > Most of us have long realized it will probably never be a viable desktop OS and that is not really a big deal because it’s still fun to mess with and read about. I feel the same about Desktop Linux, except I don't find it fun to mess with anymore.
  - jchw 7y ago
    Linux is a viable desktop OS. ReactOS is not. It's definitely going to come down to opinions, but the difference in my opinion is I am typing to you from Linux (and use only Linux, no VMs, as my desktop OS, even at work) and I don't think anyone here is typing on a daily driver running ReactOS. I don't enjoy everything about desktop Linux, but in an age where Windows 10 and macOS feel borderline hostile I don't really see much of an option. I do at least think there's a lot of interesting work going on with Linux, like NixOS and GuixSD, that are totally worth exploring.

GekkePrutser 7y ago

I never heard of this one.. But really cool. When I read it first I thought it was some Linux distro customised to run Wine, but it looks like they went the full way from scratch to cleanroom re-engineer Windows. Wow! Nice effort.

SirLotsaLocks 7y ago
yeah it's basically to windows what Linux was to Unix back in the day. hopefully some day it will be viable, but maybe it won't. there's only one way to find out
- rnd0 7y ago
  I think that by the time they become stable enough to use as a daily driver, no one will be using 2003-compatible software or hardware. If they're even using the hardware now, that is. I mean we're talking ten years and older. I don't question why they're "bothering", but I do wonder why they haven't adjusted their compatibility goals to something more useful such as Vista or Windows 7.
SirLotsaLocks 7y ago
it's basically to windows what Linux was to Unix, except it's still in the early 90s stage compared to Linux.

DeathArrow 7y ago

20 years ago I followed the development of many alternative operating systems. BeOS, SkyOS, Syllable, Haiku, ReactOS, hoping someone will release something better than Mac OS or Windows. Many operating systems have died, the ones who didn't (Haiku, ReactOS) aren't doing particularly well. Doing a modern desktop operating system from scratch is very hard and very resource intensive. But trying to reverse engineer one and implement it without having specs and defined APIs is way harder. Microsoft needed tens of thousands of software engineers, UI specialists, software architects to implement Windows. Apple didn't have the resources to write OS X from scratch, they got many bits from FreeBSD, NetBSD and Linux. So trying to replicate Windows functionality and have 100% compatibility with Windows won't happen unless Windows goes open source. Which I won't be surprised to see in the future if Microsoft owns the rights to all Windows code.

sebazzz 7y ago
> Which I won't be surprised to see in the future if Microsoft owns the rights to all Windows code. Which they don't - depending on what you count as being "Windows": - The zip functionality in Windows Explorer is licensed from a 3rd party (DynaZip[0]) - Before it was removed in Windows Vista, Pinball was also from an external developer [1][2] I'm sure there are countless other examples. [0]: http://www.innermedia.com/ http://www.innermedia.com/ [1]: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20121218-00/?p=5803 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20121218-00/?p=58... [2]: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20181221-00/?p=100535 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20181221-00/?p=10...
rvz 7y ago
> Doing a modern desktop operating system from scratch is very hard and very resource intensive. Well a multi-billion dollar company with a-lot of resources can afford to do this from scratch. Unsurprisingly, those hobbyist OSes don't stand a chance and progress will be disappointing compared to Windows and macOS. Most importantly, you forgot one more alternative operating system that does fit in the desktop ecosystem and that is Fuchsia. As we can already see the hundreds of Linux distros that are still floating around for desktop market share, they don't and won't come even close to macOS or Windows here. Google is actually very good at 'using Linux' to step into the mobile market with Android and the desktop market with ChromeOS which is the head start that these distros should have done for a standard OS that general users can use, but failed to do so. Now it looks somewhat likely that Fuchsia maybe replacing both Android and ChromeOS by being one integrated and unified mobile and desktop OS for laptops and phones which they can control. If there is going to be a new OS entering the desktop and mobile markets, it is almost certainly going to be Fuchsia.

simonblack 7y ago

Big difference in USB drivers with the new release. I can actually get it to install now on a real machine now. Give me some more time to check it out further.