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ReactOS Newsletter 103 – Late 2023 News

111 points by simjue 3y ago

snovymgodym 3y ago
Awesome to see the updates with ROS booting on a variety of physical hardware.
- JCharante 3y ago
  Oh no, is ReactOS referred to as ROS? ROS is already taken by Robot Operating System. I fear for the future of search results.
  - snovymgodym 3y ago
    Search results have been screwed up ever since https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/React_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/React_(software)
  - pgeorgi 3y ago
    Robot Operating System started out in 2007, ReactOS in 1998 (under the name).
  - Kuinox 3y ago
    And there is Realtime Operating System too.
    - krylon 3y ago
      I've only ever seen Realtime Operating System abbreviated as RTOS, so that should not be a problem. I mean, it hasn't been so far, and ReactOS has been around for a while.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
phendrenad2 3y ago
ReactOS is an interesting project, but I think they've become mired in complexity. > UEFI support in ReactOS is experimental and under heavy development. It is not yet ready for general use and is not currently present in our main repository. We currently cannot give an estimate as to when it will be done, so please stay tuned! Implementing UEFI boot is not like switching a car from gasoline to electric. It's like using an adapter to switch between China electrical plugs and UK electrical plugs. It's not really a huge undertaking. Normally! I suspect that ReactOS has become so complex that simple things take a long time. Probably a lot of waves of developers have worked on this project. Probably it has seen better days. It's probably a good space for someone to start from scratch and make a competing NT implementation.
- aninteger 3y ago
  > It's probably a good space for someone to start from scratch and make a competing NT implementation. It's certainly not competing but SerenityOS probably has more mind share and development than ReactOS. However I do not know how well Serenity runs on real hardware or if that's even the focus. Overall Serenity has a similar aesthetic without the backwards win32 compatibility. Maybe someone will port wine to SerenityOS...
  - jeroenhd 3y ago
    I believe WINE already builds for Serenity, but that's just the start of it. If ReactOS ever manages to make its goals a reality, not only can you run basic Windows applications on it, your Windows XP drivers will also work. In a perfect world, ReactOS will provide "Windows XP, but open source and with the security holes patched". That's completely different from SerenityOS's "let's make a modern operating system using modern tooling with a modern API that happens to look like a late 90s OS". If all you care about is running programs in Wine with a Win9x aesthetic, you'll have a much easier time theming LXDE or KDE instead.
    - asddubs 3y ago
      this is a tangent, but it also kind of seems like a lot of the development behind Serenity is being sucked away by the Ladybird browser now. Especially with it now having funding I fear that Serenity will wither further and further as the focus shifts.
vasdae 3y ago
Nice, we are seeing some improvements when running... err... Excel 97?
- odin23 3y ago
  Yep, but newer versions of Microsoft Office up to 2010 are also known to be working. ;)
Kwpolska 3y ago
ReactOS is sometimes very disappointing. Take the issue with toolbar icons, for example. Toolbar icons in at least Office 97, Office 2000 and Visual Basic 6 were affected, as was some game [0]. Microsoft Office is a complex Win32 application, making it a good guinea pig for testing compatibility. And yet, this was fixed a few months ago, and the Office bug was reported in 2016 [1]. The bug with no text wrapping for tray balloons is also an embarrassing thing to have lingering for years (I assume it was like this since the balloons were first implemented in ReactOS). Does the world really need a buggy Windows Server 2003 reimplementation? I think the efforts of the development team could be better spent elsewhere. [0]: https://github.com/reactos/reactos/pull/5227 https://github.com/reactos/reactos/pull/5227 [1]: https://jira.reactos.org/browse/CORE-12377 https://jira.reactos.org/browse/CORE-12377
- davikr 3y ago
  > I think the efforts of the development team could be better spent elsewhere. Talking about this, has it ever been established if ReactOS is actually 100% authoral code? I thought I remembered someone from Microsoft discussing somewhere (maybe Hacker News?) how everyone there thought it was based on RE that wasn't clean-room or leaked code. Found it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20341933 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20341933
  - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
    > has it ever been established if ReactOS is actually 100% authoral code? How would you establish that? > I thought I remembered someone from Microsoft discussing somewhere (maybe Hacker News?) how everyone there thought it was based on RE that wasn't clean-room or leaked code. And SCO was sure Linux used Unix code. In both cases, I'm assuming FUD until given stronger evidence.
  - hitekker 3y ago
    IIRC, that Microsoft employee was acting alone, trying to pick a fight with ReactOS. He backpedalled when the community asked if he was representing his company. My guess is that his management chain heard about the drama he was creating, and he stopped commenting.
Worldblender 3y ago
It's good to see a report like this. I hope that ReactOS can reach production ready status, even if it's just the basics, before the end of support for Windows 10 in October 2025 (or later if this gets postponed). Once Windows 10 goes out of support, I fear that there may be a spike in e-waste due to many older computers not officially supported by Windows 11 primarily due to its CPU requirements, even though the official ISO images don't stop Windows 11 from being installed onto these older systems at all. But then they can miss out on critical stuff like security updates that may or may not be worse than switching to a Linux distro, for example.
- Kwpolska 3y ago
  Given their fairly lacklustre progress in the past 20ish years [0], I doubt they’ll manage to make it much better within the next two. Windows 10 going out of support is not going to cause the computers to stop working and become e-waste. Commonly used software (such as web browsers) will continue to support Windows 10 for a few more years; Windows itself may be less secure, but for basic usage and with a restrictive firewall, it should be fine. If you’re concerned about lack of support for Windows 10 and want to switch to a supported OS, you’ll be better off using Linux. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReactOS#Release_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReactOS#Release_history
  - Worldblender 3y ago
    I should've mentioned it earlier, but I already switched to Linux distros like Ubuntu since about 2011, so I'm personally not affected by these end of support dates as much. My concern is more about other people, the kind of stuff I can't really influence myself. Of course I know that computers don't stop working after just because Windows 10 went out of support. It's more of, for example, a severe vulnerability is discovered that has been fixed in later Windows versions but not 10 that may cause some people to panic. Maybe I'm being paranoid here, but I did raise some valid points, some of which coincidentally play into profit motives such as by encouraging the purchase of new hardware.

111 points by simjue 3y ago

snovymgodym 3y ago

Awesome to see the updates with ROS booting on a variety of physical hardware.

JCharante 3y ago
Oh no, is ReactOS referred to as ROS? ROS is already taken by Robot Operating System. I fear for the future of search results.
- snovymgodym 3y ago
  Search results have been screwed up ever since https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/React_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/React_(software)
- pgeorgi 3y ago
  Robot Operating System started out in 2007, ReactOS in 1998 (under the name).
- Kuinox 3y ago
  And there is Realtime Operating System too.
  - krylon 3y ago
    I've only ever seen Realtime Operating System abbreviated as RTOS, so that should not be a problem. I mean, it hasn't been so far, and ReactOS has been around for a while.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

phendrenad2 3y ago

ReactOS is an interesting project, but I think they've become mired in complexity. > UEFI support in ReactOS is experimental and under heavy development. It is not yet ready for general use and is not currently present in our main repository. We currently cannot give an estimate as to when it will be done, so please stay tuned! Implementing UEFI boot is not like switching a car from gasoline to electric. It's like using an adapter to switch between China electrical plugs and UK electrical plugs. It's not really a huge undertaking. Normally! I suspect that ReactOS has become so complex that simple things take a long time. Probably a lot of waves of developers have worked on this project. Probably it has seen better days. It's probably a good space for someone to start from scratch and make a competing NT implementation.

aninteger 3y ago
> It's probably a good space for someone to start from scratch and make a competing NT implementation. It's certainly not competing but SerenityOS probably has more mind share and development than ReactOS. However I do not know how well Serenity runs on real hardware or if that's even the focus. Overall Serenity has a similar aesthetic without the backwards win32 compatibility. Maybe someone will port wine to SerenityOS...
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  I believe WINE already builds for Serenity, but that's just the start of it. If ReactOS ever manages to make its goals a reality, not only can you run basic Windows applications on it, your Windows XP drivers will also work. In a perfect world, ReactOS will provide "Windows XP, but open source and with the security holes patched". That's completely different from SerenityOS's "let's make a modern operating system using modern tooling with a modern API that happens to look like a late 90s OS". If all you care about is running programs in Wine with a Win9x aesthetic, you'll have a much easier time theming LXDE or KDE instead.
  - asddubs 3y ago
    this is a tangent, but it also kind of seems like a lot of the development behind Serenity is being sucked away by the Ladybird browser now. Especially with it now having funding I fear that Serenity will wither further and further as the focus shifts.

vasdae 3y ago

Nice, we are seeing some improvements when running... err... Excel 97?

odin23 3y ago
Yep, but newer versions of Microsoft Office up to 2010 are also known to be working. ;)

Kwpolska 3y ago

ReactOS is sometimes very disappointing. Take the issue with toolbar icons, for example. Toolbar icons in at least Office 97, Office 2000 and Visual Basic 6 were affected, as was some game [0]. Microsoft Office is a complex Win32 application, making it a good guinea pig for testing compatibility. And yet, this was fixed a few months ago, and the Office bug was reported in 2016 [1]. The bug with no text wrapping for tray balloons is also an embarrassing thing to have lingering for years (I assume it was like this since the balloons were first implemented in ReactOS). Does the world really need a buggy Windows Server 2003 reimplementation? I think the efforts of the development team could be better spent elsewhere. [0]: https://github.com/reactos/reactos/pull/5227 https://github.com/reactos/reactos/pull/5227 [1]: https://jira.reactos.org/browse/CORE-12377 https://jira.reactos.org/browse/CORE-12377

davikr 3y ago
> I think the efforts of the development team could be better spent elsewhere. Talking about this, has it ever been established if ReactOS is actually 100% authoral code? I thought I remembered someone from Microsoft discussing somewhere (maybe Hacker News?) how everyone there thought it was based on RE that wasn't clean-room or leaked code. Found it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20341933 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20341933
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  > has it ever been established if ReactOS is actually 100% authoral code? How would you establish that? > I thought I remembered someone from Microsoft discussing somewhere (maybe Hacker News?) how everyone there thought it was based on RE that wasn't clean-room or leaked code. And SCO was sure Linux used Unix code. In both cases, I'm assuming FUD until given stronger evidence.
- hitekker 3y ago
  IIRC, that Microsoft employee was acting alone, trying to pick a fight with ReactOS. He backpedalled when the community asked if he was representing his company. My guess is that his management chain heard about the drama he was creating, and he stopped commenting.

Worldblender 3y ago

It's good to see a report like this. I hope that ReactOS can reach production ready status, even if it's just the basics, before the end of support for Windows 10 in October 2025 (or later if this gets postponed). Once Windows 10 goes out of support, I fear that there may be a spike in e-waste due to many older computers not officially supported by Windows 11 primarily due to its CPU requirements, even though the official ISO images don't stop Windows 11 from being installed onto these older systems at all. But then they can miss out on critical stuff like security updates that may or may not be worse than switching to a Linux distro, for example.

Kwpolska 3y ago
Given their fairly lacklustre progress in the past 20ish years [0], I doubt they’ll manage to make it much better within the next two. Windows 10 going out of support is not going to cause the computers to stop working and become e-waste. Commonly used software (such as web browsers) will continue to support Windows 10 for a few more years; Windows itself may be less secure, but for basic usage and with a restrictive firewall, it should be fine. If you’re concerned about lack of support for Windows 10 and want to switch to a supported OS, you’ll be better off using Linux. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReactOS#Release_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReactOS#Release_history
- Worldblender 3y ago
  I should've mentioned it earlier, but I already switched to Linux distros like Ubuntu since about 2011, so I'm personally not affected by these end of support dates as much. My concern is more about other people, the kind of stuff I can't really influence myself. Of course I know that computers don't stop working after just because Windows 10 went out of support. It's more of, for example, a severe vulnerability is discovered that has been fixed in later Windows versions but not 10 that may cause some people to panic. Maybe I'm being paranoid here, but I did raise some valid points, some of which coincidentally play into profit motives such as by encouraging the purchase of new hardware.