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ReactOS Updates
- qwerty456127 6y agoIs ReactOS capable of running all the Windows software OK already? I'm curious if I can actually use it instead of Windows whenever I need a Windows VM.
- lyptt 6y agoA lot of software from the Windows XP days runs well. Running newer software than that isn't usually as successful.
- chungy 6y agoWine tends to have far higher compatibility, and the operating system it runs on top of is mature too. ReactOS is a cool project, but it's an alpha-stage complete operating system with bugs as basic in nature as you shouldn't even expect the file system to live long without being corrupted, or the OS crashing constantly. Not to mention they primarily focus on Windows XP compatibility, Vista and newer software is generally unlikely to work.
- theandrewbailey 6y agoFrom that, it sounds like ReactOS already provides the classic Windows experience!
- chungy 6y agoNon-joking: it's probably about on par with Windows 98 when it comes to stability. There was a day people accepted that sort of thing... but not anymore.
- watersb 6y agoNTFS? Impressive.
- DaiPlusPlus 6y agoI gather ReactOS builds upon the work for WINE and other open-source Windows-compatibility libraries - nothing wrong with that, but it isn't as impressive as it sounds - not that ReactOS as-a-whole isn't impressive as it is. ----- Dirty rumour + speculation time: I understand that, to an extent, ReactOS is supported by the Russian government to ensure they have options for running their IT systems in the event of US or NATO-led sanctions which would prohibit service and support from Microsoft corporation. Ordinarily I wouldn't be concerned (geopolitics, yey) but given Putin's current direction... I hope ReactOS is getting suitably security audited...
- wiz21c 6y agoGiven current US direction, I hope ReactOS is getting suitably security audited... To be clear, I don't know what Biden is up to but any country big enough sure have secret services making sure their country stays in the game. That's just part of history. Now, as an individual, I'd be very happy to have a clean OS. But, considering the difficulty/practical impossibility to make my own audit, well, in the end, I have to trust someone...
- vbezhenar 6y agoRussia's plan is to use Linux whenever possible. I never heard about ReactOS used anywhere. Security audit won't hurt, for sure.
- jeditobe 6y agoReactOS foundation is located in Germany - https://ev.reactos.org/index_en.htm https://ev.reactos.org/index_en.htm The project did not receive any serious support from the state institutions of Russia
- wongarsu 6y agoIf that's Russia's backup plan then it's severely underfunded. I'm sure Russia could hire a couple of capable software engineers/reverse engineering experts to contribute to the project (just as the US Naval Research Laboratory employed people working on TOR). But if Russia is doing that, then clearly not enough to bring ReactOS to a production-ready level within the next decade.
- johnchristopher 6y agoReacOS is a testament to how solid were Windows 2000/XP's UI for everyday tasks. I wouldn't mind being back in a Windows env/shop with ReactOS.
- chungy 6y agoIt's a real shame that Microsoft has seen fit to try to hide the ability to use the classic theme in Windows 8/10. There are ways to enable it again, but they tend to break on every update... The classic Windows 2000 theme has just the perfect balance of looking good, being totally usable, and not being overtly flashy.
- quietbritishjim 6y agoThe classic theme doesn't use DWM sadly (at least it didn't in Windows 7, I assume it still true in 10). So it doesn't just change appearance but also how it performs: DWM offloads compositing from the CPU to the GPU.
- userbinator 6y agoThe classic theme is simple enough that it doesn't need GPU assistance (besides the usual 2D acceleration); and you get a noticeable decrease in latency from it: http://www.lofibucket.com/articles/dwm_latency.html http://www.lofibucket.com/articles/dwm_latency.html
- vel0city 6y agoGotta love when you cite a source which starts off with: > Note: These results are totally wrong.
- inetknght 6y ago> DWM offloads compositing from the CPU to the GPU. That was actually a feature. I wanted to use my GPU for other things like gaming and rendering things I actually wanted to be pretty. The OS interface doesn't need to be pretty. It needs to be usable. The pretty and usable are usually conflicting goals.
- deknos 6y agoi'll be glad for the day, when reactos provides an official virtualbox and kvm/libvirt image which can be booted :)
- jamesu 6y agoDoes any of this translate into actual real-world improved stability yet?
- pcthrowaway 6y agoWhen I followed this link via Chrome, a tool tip popped out of my address bar ("Did you mean reactjs.org?" with some warning about attackers using deceptive URLs). I wonder if there's a way to whitelist URLs with Google to prevent users from seeing this message. Especially since I believe ReactOS has been around long before ReactJS
- josteink 6y ago> I wonder if there's a way to whitelist URLs with Google to prevent users from seeing this message The best way to avoid having Google interfere with your browsing is to use a non-Google browser.
- psychoslave 6y agoStop using Chrome? :D
- pcthrowaway 6y agoI wasn't referring to me whitelisting sites, the tooltip wasn't an issue for me. But for legitimate communities building honest software (or any honest product, really), it can be harmful to have potential users/contributors being scared off by a message like this. At the very least, it can make visitors question the legitimacy of the product. Since ReactOS has been around for decades at this point, it seems as if they're suffering a penalty for not being as popular as ReactJS, which is kind of bullshit, if there's no way for ReactOS (and other legitimate companies which may be affected) to let Google know "hey, we're doing our own thing, would you please mind not scaring potential users away". Whether or not I use Chrome, at least 60% of Internet users do. And I've never seen a warning when visiting reactjs.org asking if I didn't actually mean reactos.org, so the axe doesn't swing both ways here.
- DaiPlusPlus 6y agoChrome user here - I didn't get any notifications or popups like that. Do you have a third-party Chrome extension installed? I know a lot of AV vendors love to auto-install their own cyber-security browser extensions that report stuff like that, so it could be that?
- gostsamo 6y agoThere was some Quora answer according to which ReactOS is derived from an proprietary MS research code. Doesn't it mean it would have legal issues if ever they decide to use it in anything close to real scenario? Edit: reference to the question https://www.quora.com/What-do-you-think-about-ReactOS?share=1 https://www.quora.com/What-do-you-think-about-ReactOS?share=...
- p_l 6y agoSounds like FUD - There are things like NT4.5 which is NT built from university source copy of (as the name suggests) NT as it was somewhere between 4.x and 5.0. But ReactOS is clean room, and like Wine, AFAIK actively bars from contributing people who had contact with MS source code - IIRC it also cooperates heavily with Wine on implementing things.
- vbezhenar 6y agoReactOS denies those accusations. If it's true and proved, probably users should stop using it, but until it's proved, I don't think that it's an issue. Like you've got some software, you checked its license, it's open source reimplementation of Windows, sounds good. For example Valve uses wine to run games on Linux, it's pretty legit.
- kmeisthax 6y agoWINE and ReactOS are separate projects and the allegations in the Quora post are specific to ReactOS. WINE doesn't handle NT kernel internals; it reimplements public Windows APIs and proxies kernel functionality to the host userland (usually GNU+Linux+X11 but occasionally Darwin+AppKit). The main existential threat to WINE would be the Oracle/Google case being decided (sometime before June). If that winds up creating adverse precedent to Google's case, the entire Free Software movement will be negatively impacted. Actually, it'll be like 100 SCOs, given how much of our Free foundations are functionally-compatible reimplementations. We'll lose pretty much everything except scripting language runtimes, Rust, and C compilers; and there would surely be no way to do something like WINE if SCOTUS decides to trample all over the merger doctrine and starts granting copyright on functionality.
- nurb 6y agoA bit off topic, but I'm glade to see a project like this running there own instance of matrix instead of the usual centralized/proprietary/censurable solutions.
- da_big_ghey 6y agoOn the contrary, I'm sad to see them moving towards "slack clone" solutions rather than sticking with simple chat, a la IRC. I don't think adding stickers and emoticons to a conversation makes it any better.
- sanxiyn 6y agoEmoticons absolutely make it better, just by saving chat traffic for simple acknowledgements. Emoticons are also used as a simple way to poll, which is very useful.
- da_big_ghey 6y agoBut they're annoying to type. I never end up using them because I'd have to go look up the icon for something, then copy and paste. I think phones have keyboard features or something, but I actively avoid typing messages from a phone because it's so slow. This represents another move towards "mobile-first" stuff, which I generally dislike.
- sanxiyn 6y agoYou are entitled to your preferences, but let's not dismiss actual practical advantages of emoticon support in Slack-likes compared to IRC. I agree it has costs as well as benefits, but dismissing the real benefit is a bad manner.
- fiddlerwoaroof 6y agoIn slack, at least, typing a colon begins autocomplete by name, which is mostly how I type them: e.g. `+:+1:‘ to react to the post above me with a thumbs-up.
- crb 6y agoThe way Microsoft is moving, it's feasible to think that Windows 2000/XP will be open sourced before ReactOS is finished.
- rbanffy 6y agoThere probably is a huge amount of code inside Windows that Microsoft has a license to use, but no right to open.
- Hamcha 6y agoIf they cared they'd try something like what OpenSolaris did (file-based GPL alternative so they could have copyleft on code but still ship binaries). I'm not advocating for another viral license but there are definitely ways around that problem. MS itself already did it in part once (WRK) so they clearly have looked into it at least once before.
- cormacrelf 6y agoThis is bang-on what MPL 2.0 is for
- hestefisk 6y agoYes, like old OS/2 code.
- rbanffy 6y agoThat's probably the best part of Windows.
- jmkni 6y agoWasn't the code for XP leaked a while ago? Could the ReactOS developers learn how things work from it?
- scoopertrooper 6y ago
- xvilka 6y agoI really hope the integration with QubesOS[1] will be completed in the near future. It will allow to run suspicious legacy Windows software without any hassle. [1] https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/2809 https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/2809
- secfirstmd 6y agoYeh that would be awesome
- simple_phrases 6y agoAnyone do this with WINE and Qubes? I've found WINE to be more stable than ReactOS.
- theamk 6y agoBut would ReactOS be a best approach in this case? I think that for the long term, Wine is a superior solution, as it can use all the nice modern features of Linux kernel, and can easily co-exist with modern aoftware. The only feature that ReactOS has and Wine does not is windows device drivers - and QusesOS does not need those.
- greenfellowman 6y agoGood idea— I’ve been loading windows but perhaps there’s no need. I liked the appVM and templates but Win10 must be hvm.... GitHub has a great scripted airgapped updated trimmed install: https://github.com/elliotkillick/qvm-create-windows-qube https://github.com/elliotkillick/qvm-create-windows-qube
- sradman 6y agoFrom Wikipedia [1]: > ReactOS is a free and open-source operating system for amd64/i686 personal computers intended to be binary-compatible with computer programs and device drivers made for Windows Server 2003 and later versions of Windows. ReactOS has been noted as a potential open-source drop-in replacement for Windows and for its information on undocumented Windows APIs. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReactOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReactOS
- philjackson 6y agoLofty goals.
- hnlmorg 6y agoIndeed but it does provide direct value to the open source community even when it fails in the more ambitious end goal. For example the ReactOS and WINE devs do collaborate a fair amount. I've also read that a fair number of ReactOS developers have been recruited by Microsoft over the years. So even if the project itself never reaches feature parity, it's still a strong advert to put on ones CV.
- rakoo 6y agoIf ReactOS is stable enough, it can also be an alternative for all the places where a very specific software runs on a very specific Windows edition, without having to redevelop the application (think ATMs or specialized displays)
- hnlmorg 6y agoThat’s the hope for many. I haven’t yet had any success using it in such a way but I’m hopeful too.
- sophistc 6y agoanything like this for Vue?
- einmaliger 6y agoReactOS has nothing to do with ReactJS.
- dlvktrsh 6y agoyeah vue gets updated sometimes too
- Topgamer7 6y agoBbbbbot
- londons_explore 6y agoWhat is ReactOS's endgame? It seems they will never have enough resources to become more popular than windows. And they will never manage to become the desktop OS of choice over Linux or Mac either. It seems to sit in an odd place with only a tiny userbase and no real goal, permanently playing catchup.
- ransom1538 6y agoHow dare you. It is not AS3.
- kmeisthax 6y ago...what does ReactOS have to do with ActionScript 3?
- CivBase 6y agoI think of it as a safety net. If Microsoft ever damages the reputation of Windows too much, ReactOS can act as a drop-in replacement for many things with relatively little investment compared to migrating to an OS on another kernel. Even if they're not currently a threat Windows, they have done enough of the groundwork that some extra funding and support could make them a serious competitor should the need ever arise. Plus, it's just cool.
- spijdar 6y ago> relatively little investment compared to migrating to an OS on another kernel One of the more beautiful aspects of Windows is you actually rarely interact with the kernel at all. That portion of the OS could (and in practice often is) switched out and replaced without the user-facing portions being aware. If you look at the list of NT system calls [0] you can see how frequently they've changed. The only programs that can safely talk to the kernel are core OS components, which in turn provide a user-facing stable ABI through the use of DLLs. The fact Wine is running on a separate kernel is essentially 100% transparent to all but a handful of programs that intentionally poke the kernel, either for undocumented functionality or to e.g. detect tampering. This is why IMO for running application software, Wine will always be superior. Linux is a really good kernel for almost everything, and with io_uring the last big deficit (async i/o) may be fixed. ReactOS's remaining advantages are driver support for Win2k, and the whole explorer shell and start menu environment. If someone really wanted to, I bet you could run ReactOS's shell on top of Wine, fullscreened on Linux... [0] https://j00ru.vexillium.org/syscalls/nt/32/ https://j00ru.vexillium.org/syscalls/nt/32/ EDIT: A thought I had after finishing this. Another benefit of ReactOS's architecture vs Wine is you could, in principle, directly copy at least some system-level DLLs/software from Windows (2000/XP) and get something akin to Windows 2003/XP running on a modern and up-to-date kernel, possibility with much newer hardware support. I doubt the ReactOS devs themselves would want to get that close to even just binary blobs from Microsoft, but if it gets far enough along, I could see users scrapping together systems like this, maybe for retro games or something.
- tomcam 6y agoThe About page is a model of its kind: https://reactos.org/what-is-reactos/ https://reactos.org/what-is-reactos/
- GNOMES 6y agoBryan Lunduke on Youtube and LBRY, has as a wishful hope for the future of ReactOS. He imagines if Microsoft with their whole "We <3 Open Source" ideal either open sourced older versions of Windows (he mentions 3.1 for Work groups, or 98 back), or better, backs/contributes code to ReactOS themselves. One of his arguments is that either method would take minimal effort from Microsoft, and would show their love of Open Source. The code could be made available as is, and allow the ReactOS project to continue burden of development/support. His second major argument is that Microsoft would not take a financial hit from releasing these old versions. The OS's are no longer available for purchase in stores, and MS no longer provides support. Could also convince Embrace/Extend/Extinguish gray beards that Microsoft is "changing", making them more likely to trust MS. Ultimately he theorizes Microsoft could only make finical gain from this. This comes from the positive community views (and wallets), and they could be positioned to repackage it as a "Windows Classic". This would allow them to "sell" and support old code again that would be perfect for legacy software, yet run on modern hardware.
- edgyquant 6y agoMaking Windows open source has been brought up before, and I’m just quoting what has been said and it could be wrong, but lots of people made the claim that Windows is such an old codebase with 25+ years of different people (and, sometimes, companies) involved that it’s a huge legal task to be able to open source it. So even if it was in the interest of Microsoft they’d have to remove a lot of legacy code or track down individual contractors and get permission to do so (not to mention hardware support that may have been given to them under a proprietary license.) Again this could be bs, I’m not sure, but it makes sense if this is the case.
- monocasa 6y agoMore than their prod code, I'd love them to open their win32 test suite. That's something that's very usable piecemeal, and is probably more useful long term than a single version of a code dump like we'd probably get if they open sourced.
- moistbar 6y agoIt would also make an interesting companion product if the rumors of a switch to the Linux kernel turn out to be true, though more likely they'd just "Linux 10" alongside Windows for a while.
- nexthash 6y agoOut of curiosity - what do people use ReactOS for? Does anybody daily it, or is it mainly used as a testing environment for certain Windows applications? I'd love for somebody who uses it to comment.