5 ms·

ReactOS 0.3.14 Released

110 points by jhack 15y ago

wildster 15y ago
To get were they are is an amazing achievement, but it still looks like Window 95.
- sp332 15y ago
  Edit: that's in the FAQ https://www.reactos.org/en/about_userfaq.html#changegui https://www.reactos.org/en/about_userfaq.html#changegui It's a Free, binary-compatible clone of WinNT. You can now run (old) Windows apps with no license fees paid to MS, and without any proprietary code on your system. edit2: did I mention it's more secure by default than a normal desktop Windows install? WinNT has some pretty nice security mechanisms, if you use them right. As a trivial example, users aren't admins by default.
- wvenable 15y ago
  From the release notes: "ReactOS now has the infrastructure needed to theme the user interface and shell, allowing users to install and use something besides the classic Windows theme."
  - prg318 15y ago
    Another thing noted on the homepage to keep in mind -- "Please bear in mind that ReactOS 0.3.14 is still in alpha stage, meaning it is not feature-complete and is not recommended for everyday use." That being said, I gave it another shot in VirtualBox with the recommended guest settings (Windows NT 4) and I was pleasantly surprised of how smooth it felt. This project has come a long way.
iRobot 15y ago
The second they launch a stable version I can use to replace windows XP embedded will be a real milestone. Lots of plant touchscreens and industrial computers run a stripped down version of windows NT 3.51, win2k or XP (XP embedded is just a stripped down XP) which dont need any bells and whistles, just a solid network connection and the ability to run the win32 api. I have over 30 of these panel pc's around various factories running touch screen apps in place of explorer.exe so the desktop is not important to me and the demand is expanding all the time. Thanks for the time and effort lads, I'm downloading it now to give it a go :-)
- cookiecaper 15y ago
  Not sure why you need ReactOS if that's the only requirement. You should just put stripped-down Linux installs in their place and run WINE, on which almost all applications work perfectly well. ReactOS in fact is mostly a kernel project. The majority of their userland support comes from WINE. The difference is that they are trying to clone the kernel to provide the truest Windows-like experience (including driver compatibility). If you don't need the hardware support the reality is that you'll be much better off using a newer version of WINE on a Linux installation than you would be using a ReactOS snapshot.
  - bwarp 15y ago
    Driver compatibility is likely to be more important as a lot of embedded systems use proprietary and certified drivers which will never work on Linux. Not to mention, WINE is far from perfect. I'd argue that ReactOS, albeit with chunks of it coming from WINE is still far more likely to behave like a real Windows machine. At the end of the day, it'll probably come down to cost and an in situ replacement of the OS without any application rewrite or hardware changes is cheapest.
    - cookiecaper 15y ago
      >Not to mention, WINE is far from perfect. I'd argue that ReactOS, albeit with chunks of it coming from WINE is still far more likely to behave like a real Windows machine. I would really like to know why you think this. ReactOS's userspace support is WINE almost entirely. They may write extra win32 applications like explorer.exe for use with ReactOS, but they do not use a separate runtime translator. They may modify portions of WINE to work with their ring 0 graphics code or whatever, but almost all of the serious work is done by WINE. WINE is tested broadly on Linux platforms and the bugs usually get solved quickly. ReactOS is barely tested at all and I would not expect the kernel to be remotely stable for a long time yet. Why do you think ReactOS, which is usually not using a very recent WINE base (at least not in snapshots), would be more stable than Linux + WINE?
- userulluipeste 15y ago
devindotcom 15y ago
Nice. I won't pretend I've been following the project closely, but it really is an interesting and powerful thing they're doing.
tigerweeds 15y ago
does it work on a bootable flash drive?
- TazeTSchnitzel 15y ago
  I think somebody got it to install, but if I remember correctly, USB support is not yet in stable releases.
  - tigerweeds 15y ago
    I just tried it and doesn't boot. Would really like to have it on a flash drive, shame it doesn't work yet... :\
- sp332 15y ago
  If you get the livecd image, you can use Yumi to chainload the bootloader from the ISO file. Just run Yumi under Windows and have it add the iso to your thumb drive.
jamesu 15y ago
Having followed this project for around a decade, it amazes how slow it is being developed compared to Haiku. On the surface it looks like windows 2000, but as soon as you try and do anything useful, you bump into problems. Firefox hangs the system when loading. Fonts don't always draw correctly. LOTS of things are missing. Quite often i press a button on a dialog, and it does nothing - why was is it even enabled if it doesn't work? Still a long way to go!
- diminish 15y ago
  I have been watching this project for 7 years already; why doesn't ReactOS simply target running IE7, 8, 9? if they could do that millions of people would use it in VMs.
  - cookiecaper 15y ago
    Unfortunately WINE and WINE derivatives are not in a state where they can be trusted to render pages as IE would render pages. WINE changes very quickly. The drawing code is no exception; they've spent the last year or so integrating a DIB engine, which will be among the flagship features of 1.4. WINE is not likely to reflect a pixel-perfect representation of what your IE users will see and that's the simple fact. I've been bitten before by trusting the output of an IE in WINE. For testing IE, there is still no substitute for the official Windows platform. I don't think there will ever really be one, but it may be a decent distant-future goal for WINE: consistent pixel-perfect rendering in every IE version.
- bwarp 15y ago
  I think that's because it's an order of magnitude more complicated than Haiku. BeOS was fairly new and well designed when they started. Windows however has nearly 25 years of evolution to reproduce. ReactOS is remarkably functional considering though!
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
xxqs 15y ago
I still don't understand the motivation for this project. If you ought to run a windows application, you use windows anyway. If you like to move to an opensource platform, you have to invest in migrating your applications anyway. I don't get where ReactOS fits in this picture. also how people can spend their precious time in re-implementing an existing architecture? There's lots of interesting and creative projects to actually build something new.
- acuozzo 15y ago
  > There's lots of interesting and creative projects to actually build something new. Can you recommend one that involves building a kernel, from scratch, that at least _some_ people will use?
  - xxqs 15y ago
    excuse me for answering with a question to a question, but why would you need a new kernel? There's BSD, there's this list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_real-time_operating_systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_real-time_operating_sys... , there's GNU Hurd... why do you need another one? Besides, if you really want a new kernel, why should it be win32 binary compatible?
    - acuozzo 15y ago
      Excuse me as well for answering your question to a question with a bunch of questions. > why would you need a new kernel? 1. Why wouldn't you? Requirements change. Would you expect humans 100+ years from now to be hacking on BSD? 2. What if it's (kernel hacking, that is) the only domain you enjoy working in? Different programmers have different interests. Should you just give up to work on something `popular'? > Besides, if you really want a new kernel, why should it be win32 binary compatible? 3. How else would you expect to find users and contributors when many people already have their own $OS_OF_CHOICE? Also, consider the year of the initial ReactOS release: 1998. A FOSS WinNT clone would've made sense at that time.
      - 15y ago

110 points by jhack 15y ago

wildster 15y ago

To get were they are is an amazing achievement, but it still looks like Window 95.

sp332 15y ago
Edit: that's in the FAQ https://www.reactos.org/en/about_userfaq.html#changegui https://www.reactos.org/en/about_userfaq.html#changegui It's a Free, binary-compatible clone of WinNT. You can now run (old) Windows apps with no license fees paid to MS, and without any proprietary code on your system. edit2: did I mention it's more secure by default than a normal desktop Windows install? WinNT has some pretty nice security mechanisms, if you use them right. As a trivial example, users aren't admins by default.
wvenable 15y ago
From the release notes: "ReactOS now has the infrastructure needed to theme the user interface and shell, allowing users to install and use something besides the classic Windows theme."
- prg318 15y ago
  Another thing noted on the homepage to keep in mind -- "Please bear in mind that ReactOS 0.3.14 is still in alpha stage, meaning it is not feature-complete and is not recommended for everyday use." That being said, I gave it another shot in VirtualBox with the recommended guest settings (Windows NT 4) and I was pleasantly surprised of how smooth it felt. This project has come a long way.

iRobot 15y ago

The second they launch a stable version I can use to replace windows XP embedded will be a real milestone. Lots of plant touchscreens and industrial computers run a stripped down version of windows NT 3.51, win2k or XP (XP embedded is just a stripped down XP) which dont need any bells and whistles, just a solid network connection and the ability to run the win32 api. I have over 30 of these panel pc's around various factories running touch screen apps in place of explorer.exe so the desktop is not important to me and the demand is expanding all the time. Thanks for the time and effort lads, I'm downloading it now to give it a go :-)

cookiecaper 15y ago
Not sure why you need ReactOS if that's the only requirement. You should just put stripped-down Linux installs in their place and run WINE, on which almost all applications work perfectly well. ReactOS in fact is mostly a kernel project. The majority of their userland support comes from WINE. The difference is that they are trying to clone the kernel to provide the truest Windows-like experience (including driver compatibility). If you don't need the hardware support the reality is that you'll be much better off using a newer version of WINE on a Linux installation than you would be using a ReactOS snapshot.
- bwarp 15y ago
  Driver compatibility is likely to be more important as a lot of embedded systems use proprietary and certified drivers which will never work on Linux. Not to mention, WINE is far from perfect. I'd argue that ReactOS, albeit with chunks of it coming from WINE is still far more likely to behave like a real Windows machine. At the end of the day, it'll probably come down to cost and an in situ replacement of the OS without any application rewrite or hardware changes is cheapest.
  - cookiecaper 15y ago
    >Not to mention, WINE is far from perfect. I'd argue that ReactOS, albeit with chunks of it coming from WINE is still far more likely to behave like a real Windows machine. I would really like to know why you think this. ReactOS's userspace support is WINE almost entirely. They may write extra win32 applications like explorer.exe for use with ReactOS, but they do not use a separate runtime translator. They may modify portions of WINE to work with their ring 0 graphics code or whatever, but almost all of the serious work is done by WINE. WINE is tested broadly on Linux platforms and the bugs usually get solved quickly. ReactOS is barely tested at all and I would not expect the kernel to be remotely stable for a long time yet. Why do you think ReactOS, which is usually not using a very recent WINE base (at least not in snapshots), would be more stable than Linux + WINE?
userulluipeste 15y ago

devindotcom 15y ago

Nice. I won't pretend I've been following the project closely, but it really is an interesting and powerful thing they're doing.

tigerweeds 15y ago

does it work on a bootable flash drive?

TazeTSchnitzel 15y ago
I think somebody got it to install, but if I remember correctly, USB support is not yet in stable releases.
- tigerweeds 15y ago
  I just tried it and doesn't boot. Would really like to have it on a flash drive, shame it doesn't work yet... :\
sp332 15y ago
If you get the livecd image, you can use Yumi to chainload the bootloader from the ISO file. Just run Yumi under Windows and have it add the iso to your thumb drive.

jamesu 15y ago

Having followed this project for around a decade, it amazes how slow it is being developed compared to Haiku. On the surface it looks like windows 2000, but as soon as you try and do anything useful, you bump into problems. Firefox hangs the system when loading. Fonts don't always draw correctly. LOTS of things are missing. Quite often i press a button on a dialog, and it does nothing - why was is it even enabled if it doesn't work? Still a long way to go!

diminish 15y ago
I have been watching this project for 7 years already; why doesn't ReactOS simply target running IE7, 8, 9? if they could do that millions of people would use it in VMs.
- cookiecaper 15y ago
  Unfortunately WINE and WINE derivatives are not in a state where they can be trusted to render pages as IE would render pages. WINE changes very quickly. The drawing code is no exception; they've spent the last year or so integrating a DIB engine, which will be among the flagship features of 1.4. WINE is not likely to reflect a pixel-perfect representation of what your IE users will see and that's the simple fact. I've been bitten before by trusting the output of an IE in WINE. For testing IE, there is still no substitute for the official Windows platform. I don't think there will ever really be one, but it may be a decent distant-future goal for WINE: consistent pixel-perfect rendering in every IE version.
bwarp 15y ago
I think that's because it's an order of magnitude more complicated than Haiku. BeOS was fairly new and well designed when they started. Windows however has nearly 25 years of evolution to reproduce. ReactOS is remarkably functional considering though!

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

xxqs 15y ago

I still don't understand the motivation for this project. If you ought to run a windows application, you use windows anyway. If you like to move to an opensource platform, you have to invest in migrating your applications anyway. I don't get where ReactOS fits in this picture. also how people can spend their precious time in re-implementing an existing architecture? There's lots of interesting and creative projects to actually build something new.

acuozzo 15y ago
> There's lots of interesting and creative projects to actually build something new. Can you recommend one that involves building a kernel, from scratch, that at least _some_ people will use?
- xxqs 15y ago
  excuse me for answering with a question to a question, but why would you need a new kernel? There's BSD, there's this list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_real-time_operating_systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_real-time_operating_sys... , there's GNU Hurd... why do you need another one? Besides, if you really want a new kernel, why should it be win32 binary compatible?
  - acuozzo 15y ago
    Excuse me as well for answering your question to a question with a bunch of questions. > why would you need a new kernel? 1. Why wouldn't you? Requirements change. Would you expect humans 100+ years from now to be hacking on BSD? 2. What if it's (kernel hacking, that is) the only domain you enjoy working in? Different programmers have different interests. Should you just give up to work on something `popular'? > Besides, if you really want a new kernel, why should it be win32 binary compatible? 3. How else would you expect to find users and contributors when many people already have their own $OS_OF_CHOICE? Also, consider the year of the initial ReactOS release: 1998. A FOSS WinNT clone would've made sense at that time.
    - 15y ago