5 ms·

NTFS now supported in ReactOS LiveCD

158 points by jeditobe 12y ago

RexRollman 12y ago
I love the idea of ReactOS but it is moving so slowly that I don't see how they can ever be a relevant alternative to Windows. Is my impression wrong?
- lucb1e 12y ago
  Honestly I was thinking the same. I've heard of this project years ago, but today it's only still reading NTFS volumes? For a project attempting to re-implement Windows? I'm also curious about the two Program Files folders I see, identically named in the same folder.
  - kyberias 12y ago
    The second one should be Program Files (x86). Perhaps the (x86) part is wrapped to a third line and not visible due to another window on top. Or perhaps the ReactOS Explorer shell's UI just cuts off the (x86) part (incorrectly). Probably not an issue in the NTFS implementation.
  - aidenn0 12y ago
    My understanding is that NTFS support is fairly low on the priority chain; most windows features work just fine with FAT. I booted ReactOS into a VM a few months ago, and it ran many programs just fine out of the box, so it's come a long way since the previous time I tried it.
    - chris_wot 12y ago
      It's taken a long time for Linux to support NTFS fully as well. Not surprisingly, ReactOS has taken some time also. I think that's fair enough, unless you particularly enjoy filesystem corruption.
      - pjc50 12y ago
        Could someone explain why this is a particularly difficult technical problem?
        sj4nz 12y ago
        I think from the book "Show Stopper! The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft" by G. Pascal Zachary he mentions that NTFS was developed by an intern for the Microsoft PC system, on hardware that wasn't entirely finished, so, inexperienced file system developer + raw unbaked hardware + time pressures. This is going on an old memory, I haven't read that book since the late 90's. Also throw in the fact that its proprietary and there is no specification or official test suite that I'm aware of outside of Microsoft.
- jpalomaki 12y ago
  I believe the idea is to provide an alternative to older versions of Windows. There's legacy apps running on top of those. Open source Windows compatible OS with support for modern hardware might be interesting.
- shawnz 12y ago
  I don't think the goal is to be an alternative to Windows. There are many situations where you might want to run Windows apps but don't need everything Windows has to offer. Like others have mentioned, supporting legacy apps is one example of this. There is also research value in having a Windows-compatible OS which is open source.
  - drzaiusapelord 12y ago
    Which is why we have WINE. There's no reason for ReactOS to exist, especially considering the speed at which it develops.
    - Hemospectrum 12y ago
      WINE and ReactOS have been known to share code, in both directions. It's not a zero-sum game.
    - eksith 12y ago
      There are some legacy industrial software we had to keep (for cost reasons) that run on ReactOS with little to no configuration changes that completely break in WINE or run glacially slow on compatibility mode on Windows 7.
    - leni536 12y ago
      So how does wine handles Windows drivers?
- gbl08ma 12y ago
  That was my impression in 2011 already. Back then I wrote a blog post (in my then-much-worse English) with, admittedly, a bit of Microsoft hatred[1]. However, most of the points I mention are still valid, I think. Of course there have been new releases since 2011, but nothing exactly groundbreaking, at least in the eye of a casual follower like me. Relatively recently, they have run a IndieGoGo campaign and have made this[2], but to be honest (and I admit I haven't looked very deep), as a first impression, it seems it is more the result of web development, design and social media work, than work on the hard part, i.e. the operating system itself. It'd be nice if someone could clarify whether that's really the case. As others have mentioned, perhaps the idea is to offer support for legacy software on newer hardware, when that software doesn't need everything Windows has to offer... but I'm not sure how big is the audience for that, if one takes into account that some of the need is fulfilled by running Windows XP in a VM, using Microsoft's own tools for legacy compatibility ("compatibility mode" has solved all the compatibility problems I've had so far, but then again, I'm not a heavy user of such functionality), or running XP on real hardware (isolated and where applicable; it's not like Windows XP won't run on modern hardware, except possibly due to UEFI, or the like, and in that case I doubt ReactOS is of much help either). [1] http://gbl08ma.com/reactos-will-they-ever-get-somewhere/ http://gbl08ma.com/reactos-will-they-ever-get-somewhere/ [2] http://community.reactos.org/ http://community.reactos.org/
  - RachelF 12y ago
    It is nice to see that ReactOS are still developing, but I think that their time to make a big impression was 7 years ago. The world has moved on from being a Microsoft-centric place. Perhaps if the Chinese or Russians decided to use it as an alternative OS, it would have worked?
    - eksith 12y ago
      Considering the swath of (mostly pirated) XP installs still floating around China[1], I wonder if many of them would be willing to try this instead. Most of their apps should run just fine too. [1] http://www.pcworld.com/article/2103680/chinas-windows-xp-users-to-still-get-security-support.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/2103680/chinas-windows-xp-use...
- rmsaksida 12y ago
  While it might be true that ReactOS moves slowly, I love the fact that it's still moving. In the age of Windows 10, OS X and impending mobile domination, there are still people who care about reimplementing Windows NT. I don't know if there are many users out there, but even if there is a single one, working on ReactOS must be gratifying for its developers.
  - userulluipeste 12y ago
    Windows 10 is still a "Windows NT", given the fact that it has an NT kernel.
- iso-8859-1 12y ago
  I would be so happy if I could just get a bug-free open-source NT4. While ReactOS will probably never be a competitor to the most current Windows, surely it will catch up to NT4, given enough time.
- m1596 12y ago
  I feel the exact same. It feels as though ReactOS, if it is ever released, will serve a similar function FreeDOS[1]. When I first stumbled upon the project, I had really high hopes for it but the development team hasn't made up any ground. They're unable to implement features faster than Microsoft is producing new iterations of their system (and with it, new or updated features). If it ever sees the light of day, I would give it a try but until I see more progress I think I will stick with something I can use now. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeDOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeDOS
- jeditobe 12y ago
  IMPORTANT INFORMATION. NTFS support will NOT be included into the upcoming 0.3.17 release. As this support is a bit raw.
higherpurpose 12y ago
Is this infringing on any of Microsoft's patents? And if not, why is Microsoft allowed to collect royalties from Android OEMs who support the FAT file system?
- glibgil 12y ago
  You are allowed to do anything. Microsoft tried to collect royalties and OEMs let them. You could try too. Good luck!
- wfjackson 12y ago
  It's quite possibly infringing, but it's unlikely to become a target for a lawsuit unless it starts making a lot of money or starts hurting a good percentage of sales of MS products.
lsiebert 12y ago
The real benefit of ReactOS is things like security and support for legacy proprietary medical applications for hardware interfaces into medical devices that on only run on old Windows machines, that can't be updated anymore.
- wfjackson 12y ago
  I wouldn't want to risk legacy proprietary medical applications for hardware interfaces into medical devices to be running on an API re-implementation layer that could easily be missing functionality, quirks and bug-for-bug compatibility.
  - dabockster 12y ago
    This. As for most security cases, the best security is at the network level. Endpoint protection can protect after detection, while a good firewall will burn anything that moves in the wrong way.
  - Moto7451 12y ago
    The funny thing is that this scenario exists already in the OS/2 software world: http://www.ecomstation.com/ http://www.ecomstation.com/
  - derefr 12y ago
    Why? "Legacy" implies "not a moving target." If you know the software you need to run, you can QA your API compatibility layer until it works with exactly that software. CrossOver Office (the commercial version of Wine) is basically authored by picking particular versions of particular software that they want to get working, and then treating them as unit tests to write code against. When the program works, the library works. No more or less is needed.
    - pyre 12y ago
      I think that the point is that using this method with MS Office is one thing. Using it with medical software is a whole other ballpark. Using the medical software as a black box and 'getting it to run' on ReactOS might not be up to the level of rigor we would expect for a device that someone's life may depend on...
fsiefken 12y ago
Nice, speed, memory and performance wise is ReactOS more efficient then XP or nlited XP on virtualbox or qemu? For example, if efficient you could run it on a cheap android tablet onder bochs, qemu or dosbox and use it as a workstation if lxde/xfce linux would not be good enough.
- giancarlostoro 12y ago
  Runs smooth, but I had problems getting VirtualBox to connect to the internet, so I couldn't do any serious testing. Installation took less than a minute (not kidding).
vezzy-fnord 12y ago
I think a lot of people ignore the fact that the ReactOS and Wine projects have a symbiotic relationship. Work on ReactOS will lead to improvements on Wine, and vice versa. So it's still a useful project for the common user, even if the final product of a fully functional Windows NT clone is still far from being realized. But actually - there's another, even more interesting use for ReactOS that I'm surprised has yet to be attempted. A lot of people seem to praise the NT kernel on an architectural level for its microkernel-like features and object system, but it's buried between the cruft that forms the rest of the Windows stack. A free software reimplementation like ReactOS could actually allow for people to exploit the untapped potential of the NT kernel by fusing it with other userlands. Think in the vein of GNU/kFreeBSD. Perhaps a FreeDOS one? Either way, the novelty value is certainly high.
- drzaiusapelord 12y ago
  From what I've seen the past few years, ReactOS just picks up what WINE does. I don't think they're contributing much. Its pretty much a pet vanity project and has been for a decade.
- bobajeff 12y ago
  I've been given the impression that NT's superior kernel architecture is why they are doing this. But they also want other people to care so they also try to get Windows apps working on it too.
mwexler 12y ago
While I agree with other commentors that ReactOS in general is slowly becoming irrelevant, I do believe making NTFS a read and write file system via open source would be a useful addition. I did a hunt a little while ago for ways to read and write NTFS on Linux and Mac, and didn't find many options (commercial or open). The most common response (beyond "reformat!") was to just mount the filesystem in a windows box (or windows running in a VM) and share it over a network connect, which abstracts away the file system, though adds overhead. (BTW: For mac, I found Tuxera and Paragon, and the "built in" non-supported approach to writing NTFS. For linux, NTFS-3G (with proper fuse support) was the go to, but I found corruption under load in my minimal tests, which probably reflect my setup and lack of experience more than problems with the software) Have you guys found preferred ways to R/W mount an NTFS volume or partition or USB drive without having to do a network mount for Linux or MacOS? Could this work in ReactOS become the seed? Or is considered a solved problem?
- JelteF 12y ago
  Try ntfs3g, it works like a charm. http://www.tuxera.com/community/ntfs-3g-download/ http://www.tuxera.com/community/ntfs-3g-download/
- pwnna 12y ago
  Yeah I haven't had this problem since at least 2010. NTFS3g should be preinstalled on Ubuntu. Not sure about other distros/Mac, though.
nobleach 12y ago
I've been seeing this project since around 1999 or something. It was listed on a page of emulators and open source OSes that I visited frequently. Glad to see that it's still alive.
orionblastar 12y ago
I follow ReactOS and other alternative operating systems like Haiku and AROS to see if they made enough progress to use them to replace Windows. I'd like to see them at a level where the average person can use a DVD or USB stick and install it on their main PC and get apps for it to do what they want. They haven't gotten that far yet. I donated to the ReactOS Indiegogo and Kickstarter campaigns, but they never raised enough money for the Community edition. One feature I did want to see was NTFS support so a LiveCD of ReactOS can run an Antivirus scanner to clean an Infected PC that uses NTFS.

158 points by jeditobe 12y ago

I love the idea of ReactOS but it is moving so slowly that I don't see how they can ever be a relevant alternative to Windows. Is my impression wrong?

lucb1e 12y ago
Honestly I was thinking the same. I've heard of this project years ago, but today it's only still reading NTFS volumes? For a project attempting to re-implement Windows? I'm also curious about the two Program Files folders I see, identically named in the same folder.
- kyberias 12y ago
  The second one should be Program Files (x86). Perhaps the (x86) part is wrapped to a third line and not visible due to another window on top. Or perhaps the ReactOS Explorer shell's UI just cuts off the (x86) part (incorrectly). Probably not an issue in the NTFS implementation.
- aidenn0 12y ago
  My understanding is that NTFS support is fairly low on the priority chain; most windows features work just fine with FAT. I booted ReactOS into a VM a few months ago, and it ran many programs just fine out of the box, so it's come a long way since the previous time I tried it.
  - chris_wot 12y ago
    It's taken a long time for Linux to support NTFS fully as well. Not surprisingly, ReactOS has taken some time also. I think that's fair enough, unless you particularly enjoy filesystem corruption.
    - pjc50 12y ago
      Could someone explain why this is a particularly difficult technical problem?
      - sj4nz 12y ago
        I think from the book "Show Stopper! The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft" by G. Pascal Zachary he mentions that NTFS was developed by an intern for the Microsoft PC system, on hardware that wasn't entirely finished, so, inexperienced file system developer + raw unbaked hardware + time pressures. This is going on an old memory, I haven't read that book since the late 90's. Also throw in the fact that its proprietary and there is no specification or official test suite that I'm aware of outside of Microsoft.
jpalomaki 12y ago
I believe the idea is to provide an alternative to older versions of Windows. There's legacy apps running on top of those. Open source Windows compatible OS with support for modern hardware might be interesting.
shawnz 12y ago
I don't think the goal is to be an alternative to Windows. There are many situations where you might want to run Windows apps but don't need everything Windows has to offer. Like others have mentioned, supporting legacy apps is one example of this. There is also research value in having a Windows-compatible OS which is open source.
- drzaiusapelord 12y ago
  Which is why we have WINE. There's no reason for ReactOS to exist, especially considering the speed at which it develops.
  - Hemospectrum 12y ago
    WINE and ReactOS have been known to share code, in both directions. It's not a zero-sum game.
  - eksith 12y ago
    There are some legacy industrial software we had to keep (for cost reasons) that run on ReactOS with little to no configuration changes that completely break in WINE or run glacially slow on compatibility mode on Windows 7.
  - leni536 12y ago
    So how does wine handles Windows drivers?
gbl08ma 12y ago
That was my impression in 2011 already. Back then I wrote a blog post (in my then-much-worse English) with, admittedly, a bit of Microsoft hatred[1]. However, most of the points I mention are still valid, I think. Of course there have been new releases since 2011, but nothing exactly groundbreaking, at least in the eye of a casual follower like me. Relatively recently, they have run a IndieGoGo campaign and have made this[2], but to be honest (and I admit I haven't looked very deep), as a first impression, it seems it is more the result of web development, design and social media work, than work on the hard part, i.e. the operating system itself. It'd be nice if someone could clarify whether that's really the case. As others have mentioned, perhaps the idea is to offer support for legacy software on newer hardware, when that software doesn't need everything Windows has to offer... but I'm not sure how big is the audience for that, if one takes into account that some of the need is fulfilled by running Windows XP in a VM, using Microsoft's own tools for legacy compatibility ("compatibility mode" has solved all the compatibility problems I've had so far, but then again, I'm not a heavy user of such functionality), or running XP on real hardware (isolated and where applicable; it's not like Windows XP won't run on modern hardware, except possibly due to UEFI, or the like, and in that case I doubt ReactOS is of much help either). [1] http://gbl08ma.com/reactos-will-they-ever-get-somewhere/ http://gbl08ma.com/reactos-will-they-ever-get-somewhere/ [2] http://community.reactos.org/ http://community.reactos.org/
- RachelF 12y ago
  It is nice to see that ReactOS are still developing, but I think that their time to make a big impression was 7 years ago. The world has moved on from being a Microsoft-centric place. Perhaps if the Chinese or Russians decided to use it as an alternative OS, it would have worked?
  - eksith 12y ago
    Considering the swath of (mostly pirated) XP installs still floating around China[1], I wonder if many of them would be willing to try this instead. Most of their apps should run just fine too. [1] http://www.pcworld.com/article/2103680/chinas-windows-xp-users-to-still-get-security-support.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/2103680/chinas-windows-xp-use...
rmsaksida 12y ago
While it might be true that ReactOS moves slowly, I love the fact that it's still moving. In the age of Windows 10, OS X and impending mobile domination, there are still people who care about reimplementing Windows NT. I don't know if there are many users out there, but even if there is a single one, working on ReactOS must be gratifying for its developers.
- userulluipeste 12y ago
  Windows 10 is still a "Windows NT", given the fact that it has an NT kernel.
iso-8859-1 12y ago
I would be so happy if I could just get a bug-free open-source NT4. While ReactOS will probably never be a competitor to the most current Windows, surely it will catch up to NT4, given enough time.
m1596 12y ago
I feel the exact same. It feels as though ReactOS, if it is ever released, will serve a similar function FreeDOS[1]. When I first stumbled upon the project, I had really high hopes for it but the development team hasn't made up any ground. They're unable to implement features faster than Microsoft is producing new iterations of their system (and with it, new or updated features). If it ever sees the light of day, I would give it a try but until I see more progress I think I will stick with something I can use now. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeDOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeDOS
jeditobe 12y ago
IMPORTANT INFORMATION. NTFS support will NOT be included into the upcoming 0.3.17 release. As this support is a bit raw.

higherpurpose 12y ago

Is this infringing on any of Microsoft's patents? And if not, why is Microsoft allowed to collect royalties from Android OEMs who support the FAT file system?

glibgil 12y ago
You are allowed to do anything. Microsoft tried to collect royalties and OEMs let them. You could try too. Good luck!
wfjackson 12y ago
It's quite possibly infringing, but it's unlikely to become a target for a lawsuit unless it starts making a lot of money or starts hurting a good percentage of sales of MS products.

lsiebert 12y ago

The real benefit of ReactOS is things like security and support for legacy proprietary medical applications for hardware interfaces into medical devices that on only run on old Windows machines, that can't be updated anymore.

wfjackson 12y ago
I wouldn't want to risk legacy proprietary medical applications for hardware interfaces into medical devices to be running on an API re-implementation layer that could easily be missing functionality, quirks and bug-for-bug compatibility.
- dabockster 12y ago
  This. As for most security cases, the best security is at the network level. Endpoint protection can protect after detection, while a good firewall will burn anything that moves in the wrong way.
- Moto7451 12y ago
  The funny thing is that this scenario exists already in the OS/2 software world: http://www.ecomstation.com/ http://www.ecomstation.com/
- derefr 12y ago
  Why? "Legacy" implies "not a moving target." If you know the software you need to run, you can QA your API compatibility layer until it works with exactly that software. CrossOver Office (the commercial version of Wine) is basically authored by picking particular versions of particular software that they want to get working, and then treating them as unit tests to write code against. When the program works, the library works. No more or less is needed.
  - pyre 12y ago
    I think that the point is that using this method with MS Office is one thing. Using it with medical software is a whole other ballpark. Using the medical software as a black box and 'getting it to run' on ReactOS might not be up to the level of rigor we would expect for a device that someone's life may depend on...

fsiefken 12y ago

Nice, speed, memory and performance wise is ReactOS more efficient then XP or nlited XP on virtualbox or qemu? For example, if efficient you could run it on a cheap android tablet onder bochs, qemu or dosbox and use it as a workstation if lxde/xfce linux would not be good enough.

giancarlostoro 12y ago
Runs smooth, but I had problems getting VirtualBox to connect to the internet, so I couldn't do any serious testing. Installation took less than a minute (not kidding).

vezzy-fnord 12y ago

I think a lot of people ignore the fact that the ReactOS and Wine projects have a symbiotic relationship. Work on ReactOS will lead to improvements on Wine, and vice versa. So it's still a useful project for the common user, even if the final product of a fully functional Windows NT clone is still far from being realized. But actually - there's another, even more interesting use for ReactOS that I'm surprised has yet to be attempted. A lot of people seem to praise the NT kernel on an architectural level for its microkernel-like features and object system, but it's buried between the cruft that forms the rest of the Windows stack. A free software reimplementation like ReactOS could actually allow for people to exploit the untapped potential of the NT kernel by fusing it with other userlands. Think in the vein of GNU/kFreeBSD. Perhaps a FreeDOS one? Either way, the novelty value is certainly high.

drzaiusapelord 12y ago
From what I've seen the past few years, ReactOS just picks up what WINE does. I don't think they're contributing much. Its pretty much a pet vanity project and has been for a decade.
bobajeff 12y ago
I've been given the impression that NT's superior kernel architecture is why they are doing this. But they also want other people to care so they also try to get Windows apps working on it too.

mwexler 12y ago

While I agree with other commentors that ReactOS in general is slowly becoming irrelevant, I do believe making NTFS a read and write file system via open source would be a useful addition. I did a hunt a little while ago for ways to read and write NTFS on Linux and Mac, and didn't find many options (commercial or open). The most common response (beyond "reformat!") was to just mount the filesystem in a windows box (or windows running in a VM) and share it over a network connect, which abstracts away the file system, though adds overhead. (BTW: For mac, I found Tuxera and Paragon, and the "built in" non-supported approach to writing NTFS. For linux, NTFS-3G (with proper fuse support) was the go to, but I found corruption under load in my minimal tests, which probably reflect my setup and lack of experience more than problems with the software) Have you guys found preferred ways to R/W mount an NTFS volume or partition or USB drive without having to do a network mount for Linux or MacOS? Could this work in ReactOS become the seed? Or is considered a solved problem?

JelteF 12y ago
Try ntfs3g, it works like a charm. http://www.tuxera.com/community/ntfs-3g-download/ http://www.tuxera.com/community/ntfs-3g-download/
pwnna 12y ago
Yeah I haven't had this problem since at least 2010. NTFS3g should be preinstalled on Ubuntu. Not sure about other distros/Mac, though.

nobleach 12y ago

I've been seeing this project since around 1999 or something. It was listed on a page of emulators and open source OSes that I visited frequently. Glad to see that it's still alive.

orionblastar 12y ago

I follow ReactOS and other alternative operating systems like Haiku and AROS to see if they made enough progress to use them to replace Windows. I'd like to see them at a level where the average person can use a DVD or USB stick and install it on their main PC and get apps for it to do what they want. They haven't gotten that far yet. I donated to the ReactOS Indiegogo and Kickstarter campaigns, but they never raised enough money for the Community edition. One feature I did want to see was NTFS support so a LiveCD of ReactOS can run an Antivirus scanner to clean an Infected PC that uses NTFS.