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Does anybody use ReactOS regularly? What's your experience with it? Very curious to see how far it's come for practical usage.

by yaseer 6y ago

nobody9999 6y ago
I set up a VM every year or so to see how things are going. It's still alpha, so it's pretty rough, and a lot of things don't work so well. That said, it's a wonderful project and I will continue to follow it and hope it continues to progress.
- pyentropy 6y ago
  For readers unfamiliar with the project: it's been in alpha for 24 years, although it now targets Server 2003/XP instead of Win95 which it originally did in 1996.
  - kossTKR 6y ago
    it's been in alpha for 24 years Reading stuff like this is good perspective on projects that make me want to pull my hair out after slow progress for a few weeks. Patience is good. Persistence is good. Something that is rare in today landscape.
jamesu 6y ago
Every time I’ve tried it, it falls apart within minutes of using it. You’d think after 20 years of development it might be somewhat stable but I guess not.
- pizza234 6y ago
  IMO, the is a monumental underestimation of the man-hours put into make Windows as compatible as it is, even ignoring the fact that Microsoft's engineers are/were highly skilled. I like the ReactOS idea, but I think it will take decades to be compatible enough - and I'm even talking about enough. If the objective was to run obsolete software, I personally had to distribute resources, I'd just do assign them to Wine. It's surely much more productive to make software compatible on a per-case basis, rather than writing a whole operating system with the objective of being compatible.
  - IncRnd 6y ago
    > I like the ReactOS idea, but I think it will take decades to be compatible enough - and I'm even talking about enough. It has been under development for decades. That is more than twice the time it took to develop Windows 95. I've tried ReactOS a few times over the years, and it has never worked for me. I know of two specific examples of ReactOS code that as of a couple years ago were identical with Windows code. There are likely other instances pointing to a non-clean-room implementation.
    - rnd0 6y ago
      >I know of two specific examples of ReactOS code that as of a couple years ago were identical with Windows code. Cool; if they're specific then you ought to be able to cite them for the rest of us.
      - russelg 6y ago
        https://github.com/reactos/reactos/blob/59b78b4756da02e275e35bd40a27962d5a759b69/ntoskrnl/ke/i386/exp.c#L803-L804 https://github.com/reactos/reactos/blob/59b78b4756da02e275e3... Is just one example.
        rnd0 6y ago
        Odd, here's the commit history for that file: https://github.com/reactos/reactos/commits/master/ntoskrnl/ke/i386/exp.c https://github.com/reactos/reactos/commits/master/ntoskrnl/k... What I'm wondering is if you just chanced upon a submission that wasn't actually accepted into the tree at any point? Perhaps because it literally says: >/* This part was copied from Windows source / > / We should obfuscate this somehow? */ And looks sketchy as hell? I'm not part of their project (just a fan) and my knowledge of git/github is shaky at best -but that's the way it looks from where I'm standing. Also, I'm not seeing the original windows source code itself; only a comment.
        rnd1 6y ago
- yaseer 6y ago
  It's both a very hard problem, and a very interesting problem. My impression is that most of the work on the project is motivated by interest in learning about OSs, rather than demand from real use-cases. If the problem had strong enough demand from real use-cases, I presume it would be stable by now.
rnd0 6y ago
I try most new versions in Virtualbox and see how far I can get with setting it up as a practical work enviroment. I get further with it each time, but there's still a lot of huge stumbling blocks (no SMP, for instance) that keeps me from using it for very long.
marttt 6y ago
My goal is to get Avid Pro Tools 7 working on bare metal ROS. Partially successful attempts thus far: install is going smoothly, but the software doesn't launch. I get the nostalgic Blue Screen of Death and usually end up re-installing the entire OS. I assume it is a driver issue since PT of that era (2007-ish) requires a dedicated audio interface (the Mbox). But I need PT a few times a year, so I'll keep trying. I can also state that compared to version 0.4.7 (the first one I tried, iirc), the current non-nightly build 0.4.13 ran way more smoothly for me, at least on the GUI side. Issues with mouse stalling are gone, etc. The "EPIC WIN!" threads on the ROS forum [1, 2] are fun to follow. Based on that, the OS seems to be quite usable for a range of cases. I also liked the "What's the point?" threads [3, 4]. My respect to the developers for taking the time and patience to explain. All in all, I keep hoping and installing new versions. I like how clean the system feels -- or, maybe this is the case with many systems when you don't bother to add Internet connectivity. Without wifi, every OS feels quiet and calm. Greetings to ROS devs! 1: https://reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10972&start=1245 https://reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10972&start=12... 2: https://reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20185 https://reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20185 3: https://reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19782&start=60 https://reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19782&start=60 4: https://reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20031&start=30 https://reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20031&start=30
- jeditobe 6y ago
  Unfortunately, I was not able to find any bug-report related to the Avid Pro Tools 7 in the bug-tracker https://jira.reactos.org/ https://jira.reactos.org/ Filling a bug-report is the important first step to have your software working in ReactOS
  - marttt 6y ago
    True, I haven't filled a report yet; will look into this next time, probably when ROS 0.4.14 is released. Pro Tools, at least in its early versions, tends to show its moods even on a well-tuned Windows system. So I was almost sure that it won't run in ROS out of the box. I was actually surprised to see it installing so smoothly. My guess is that the driver for the audio interface (Mbox 2) needs some attention.

Does anybody use ReactOS regularly? What's your experience with it? Very curious to see how far it's come for practical usage.

by yaseer 6y ago

Does anybody use ReactOS regularly? What's your experience with it? Very curious to see how far it's come for practical usage.

nobody9999 6y ago

I set up a VM every year or so to see how things are going. It's still alpha, so it's pretty rough, and a lot of things don't work so well. That said, it's a wonderful project and I will continue to follow it and hope it continues to progress.

pyentropy 6y ago
For readers unfamiliar with the project: it's been in alpha for 24 years, although it now targets Server 2003/XP instead of Win95 which it originally did in 1996.
- kossTKR 6y ago
  it's been in alpha for 24 years Reading stuff like this is good perspective on projects that make me want to pull my hair out after slow progress for a few weeks. Patience is good. Persistence is good. Something that is rare in today landscape.

jamesu 6y ago

Every time I’ve tried it, it falls apart within minutes of using it. You’d think after 20 years of development it might be somewhat stable but I guess not.

pizza234 6y ago
IMO, the is a monumental underestimation of the man-hours put into make Windows as compatible as it is, even ignoring the fact that Microsoft's engineers are/were highly skilled. I like the ReactOS idea, but I think it will take decades to be compatible enough - and I'm even talking about enough. If the objective was to run obsolete software, I personally had to distribute resources, I'd just do assign them to Wine. It's surely much more productive to make software compatible on a per-case basis, rather than writing a whole operating system with the objective of being compatible.
- IncRnd 6y ago
  > I like the ReactOS idea, but I think it will take decades to be compatible enough - and I'm even talking about enough. It has been under development for decades. That is more than twice the time it took to develop Windows 95. I've tried ReactOS a few times over the years, and it has never worked for me. I know of two specific examples of ReactOS code that as of a couple years ago were identical with Windows code. There are likely other instances pointing to a non-clean-room implementation.
  - rnd0 6y ago
    >I know of two specific examples of ReactOS code that as of a couple years ago were identical with Windows code. Cool; if they're specific then you ought to be able to cite them for the rest of us.
    - russelg 6y ago
      https://github.com/reactos/reactos/blob/59b78b4756da02e275e35bd40a27962d5a759b69/ntoskrnl/ke/i386/exp.c#L803-L804 https://github.com/reactos/reactos/blob/59b78b4756da02e275e3... Is just one example.
      - rnd0 6y ago
        Odd, here's the commit history for that file: https://github.com/reactos/reactos/commits/master/ntoskrnl/ke/i386/exp.c https://github.com/reactos/reactos/commits/master/ntoskrnl/k... What I'm wondering is if you just chanced upon a submission that wasn't actually accepted into the tree at any point? Perhaps because it literally says: >/* This part was copied from Windows source / > / We should obfuscate this somehow? */ And looks sketchy as hell? I'm not part of their project (just a fan) and my knowledge of git/github is shaky at best -but that's the way it looks from where I'm standing. Also, I'm not seeing the original windows source code itself; only a comment.
        rnd1 6y ago
yaseer 6y ago
It's both a very hard problem, and a very interesting problem. My impression is that most of the work on the project is motivated by interest in learning about OSs, rather than demand from real use-cases. If the problem had strong enough demand from real use-cases, I presume it would be stable by now.

rnd0 6y ago

I try most new versions in Virtualbox and see how far I can get with setting it up as a practical work enviroment. I get further with it each time, but there's still a lot of huge stumbling blocks (no SMP, for instance) that keeps me from using it for very long.

marttt 6y ago

My goal is to get Avid Pro Tools 7 working on bare metal ROS. Partially successful attempts thus far: install is going smoothly, but the software doesn't launch. I get the nostalgic Blue Screen of Death and usually end up re-installing the entire OS. I assume it is a driver issue since PT of that era (2007-ish) requires a dedicated audio interface (the Mbox). But I need PT a few times a year, so I'll keep trying. I can also state that compared to version 0.4.7 (the first one I tried, iirc), the current non-nightly build 0.4.13 ran way more smoothly for me, at least on the GUI side. Issues with mouse stalling are gone, etc. The "EPIC WIN!" threads on the ROS forum [1, 2] are fun to follow. Based on that, the OS seems to be quite usable for a range of cases. I also liked the "What's the point?" threads [3, 4]. My respect to the developers for taking the time and patience to explain. All in all, I keep hoping and installing new versions. I like how clean the system feels -- or, maybe this is the case with many systems when you don't bother to add Internet connectivity. Without wifi, every OS feels quiet and calm. Greetings to ROS devs! 1: https://reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10972&start=1245 https://reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10972&start=12... 2: https://reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20185 https://reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20185 3: https://reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19782&start=60 https://reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19782&start=60 4: https://reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20031&start=30 https://reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20031&start=30

jeditobe 6y ago
Unfortunately, I was not able to find any bug-report related to the Avid Pro Tools 7 in the bug-tracker https://jira.reactos.org/ https://jira.reactos.org/ Filling a bug-report is the important first step to have your software working in ReactOS
- marttt 6y ago
  True, I haven't filled a report yet; will look into this next time, probably when ROS 0.4.14 is released. Pro Tools, at least in its early versions, tends to show its moods even on a well-tuned Windows system. So I was almost sure that it won't run in ROS out of the box. I was actually surprised to see it installing so smoothly. My guess is that the driver for the audio interface (Mbox 2) needs some attention.