4 ms·

So, what's it still bad at?

actionfromafar 4y ago
I think ReactOS has an unfulfilled promise it can't deliver on yet, but is so tantalizingly close. You know how people complain about how Windows adds weird shit and is no longer just an OS, staying out of your way and which you can run applications on? You know how there are so many false starts of a Linux distribution which will be simple to use, no-nonse, and just be user friendly? (Looking at you, ElementaryOS.) Well, ReactOS could be all that. Just an OS. Free license. Most old-school programs just work, and for newly developed Win32 programs, very few tweaks are usually needed to them running on ReactOS. What's missing, in priority order? - STABILITY - "Marketing" to show you can develop modern apps for ReactOS - Hardware support - Make sure .NET works (not everything, but the basics) Stability is key. It's unstable even on VirtualBox. Hardware support is nice to have, but you could deploy ReactOS on modern hardware by booting Linux as essentially a hypervisor and run nothing but ReactOS in thin VM at boot. All projects need marketing, even Open Source ones. Everything needs a story to tell what it's about. Having .NET work, even in a limited capacity, would open up ReactOS as a target to many more developers, useful for pros (embedded) and enthusiasts alike. Parting thoughts: ReactOS is very alluring to me because it doesn't churn and chase the latest, which is tiring in Windows and Mac, but also in Linux land. What if XP or 7 was just updated to support new graphics, 64-bit, new processors (ARM)? I wouldn't mind switching to an open source OS which was all that. I don't mind the Windows "clunkyness" as much as I dislike the ads, the telemetry and the churn. ReactOS reminds me of when my computer was My Computer and not some corporate cloud tentacle.
- prmoustache 4y ago
  > You know how there are so many false starts of a Linux distribution which will be simple to use, no-nonse, and just be user friendly? (Looking at you, ElementaryOS.) A 3 decades old looking OS with a terrible desktop experience is quite the opposite of what we call user friendly today.
  - actionfromafar 4y ago
    Perhaps, but "looking slick" and actually being easy to use don't always share much in a Venn diagram. These old GUIs are eminently discoverable.
    - prmoustache 4y ago
      What I mean is the new users of the 2020's don't necessarily understand better the old paradigms. My daughters are more comfortable on Gnome 3 because it is closer than their parents phone UIs.
      - actionfromafar 4y ago
        This is true and my intuition may betray me here. But on the other hand, Windows 95 was perfectly useable to people who had never sat down at a computer before. It was obvious where the buttons where, and some programs even had the little question-mark icon, which you could click on, then click on any UI surface, and you got a text explanation of what that button or whatever did. This got me thinking about of another thing: PCs (broadly speaking) are becoming less popular (not in absolute terms perhaps) compared to glass slab devices. But on the other hand, when people do real productivity stuff on touch devices, they often do PC-ish workflows, using an external keyboard and such. I don't know what to make of this. I think a real IDE made for touch from the ground up could be incredibly powerful. Like a Lisp (under the hood), where there are no parens, just touch-enabled rectangles you zoom into, one for each function.
        prmoustache 4y ago
        > But on the other hand, Windows 95 was perfectly useable to people who had never sat down at a computer before. As did Gnome 1.4 on my grandmother's first computer (an old 486 we saved from the bin). People who never sat down on a computer have always been the easiest in term of adoption because they aren't limited by old habits, muscle memory and resistance to change.
  - tangaming2023 4y ago
- yellowapple 4y ago
  One of the stated goals is to be compatible with Windows drivers, so assuming that ever progresses to sufficient stability and reliability, that feature would sidestep a lot of the work needed for hardware support.
tangaming2023 4y ago
WIN32K BUGS. I'm sure it's one of the most problematic components in ReactOS that ruined user experience.

I think ReactOS has an unfulfilled promise it can't deliver on yet, but is so tantalizingly close. You know how people complain about how Windows adds weird shit and is no longer just an OS, staying out of your way and which you can run applications on? You know how there are so many false starts of a Linux distribution which will be simple to use, no-nonse, and just be user friendly? (Looking at you, ElementaryOS.) Well, ReactOS could be all that. Just an OS. Free license. Most old-school programs just work, and for newly developed Win32 programs, very few tweaks are usually needed to them running on ReactOS. What's missing, in priority order? - STABILITY - "Marketing" to show you can develop modern apps for ReactOS - Hardware support - Make sure .NET works (not everything, but the basics) Stability is key. It's unstable even on VirtualBox. Hardware support is nice to have, but you could deploy ReactOS on modern hardware by booting Linux as essentially a hypervisor and run nothing but ReactOS in thin VM at boot. All projects need marketing, even Open Source ones. Everything needs a story to tell what it's about. Having .NET work, even in a limited capacity, would open up ReactOS as a target to many more developers, useful for pros (embedded) and enthusiasts alike. Parting thoughts: ReactOS is very alluring to me because it doesn't churn and chase the latest, which is tiring in Windows and Mac, but also in Linux land. What if XP or 7 was just updated to support new graphics, 64-bit, new processors (ARM)? I wouldn't mind switching to an open source OS which was all that. I don't mind the Windows "clunkyness" as much as I dislike the ads, the telemetry and the churn. ReactOS reminds me of when my computer was My Computer and not some corporate cloud tentacle.

prmoustache 4y ago
> You know how there are so many false starts of a Linux distribution which will be simple to use, no-nonse, and just be user friendly? (Looking at you, ElementaryOS.) A 3 decades old looking OS with a terrible desktop experience is quite the opposite of what we call user friendly today.
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  Perhaps, but "looking slick" and actually being easy to use don't always share much in a Venn diagram. These old GUIs are eminently discoverable.
  - prmoustache 4y ago
    What I mean is the new users of the 2020's don't necessarily understand better the old paradigms. My daughters are more comfortable on Gnome 3 because it is closer than their parents phone UIs.
    - actionfromafar 4y ago
      This is true and my intuition may betray me here. But on the other hand, Windows 95 was perfectly useable to people who had never sat down at a computer before. It was obvious where the buttons where, and some programs even had the little question-mark icon, which you could click on, then click on any UI surface, and you got a text explanation of what that button or whatever did. This got me thinking about of another thing: PCs (broadly speaking) are becoming less popular (not in absolute terms perhaps) compared to glass slab devices. But on the other hand, when people do real productivity stuff on touch devices, they often do PC-ish workflows, using an external keyboard and such. I don't know what to make of this. I think a real IDE made for touch from the ground up could be incredibly powerful. Like a Lisp (under the hood), where there are no parens, just touch-enabled rectangles you zoom into, one for each function.
      - prmoustache 4y ago
        > But on the other hand, Windows 95 was perfectly useable to people who had never sat down at a computer before. As did Gnome 1.4 on my grandmother's first computer (an old 486 we saved from the bin). People who never sat down on a computer have always been the easiest in term of adoption because they aren't limited by old habits, muscle memory and resistance to change.
- tangaming2023 4y ago
yellowapple 4y ago
One of the stated goals is to be compatible with Windows drivers, so assuming that ever progresses to sufficient stability and reliability, that feature would sidestep a lot of the work needed for hardware support.

tangaming2023 4y ago

WIN32K BUGS. I'm sure it's one of the most problematic components in ReactOS that ruined user experience.