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ReactOS Reviewed in Depth

Posted by timothy on Thu Jul 13, 2006 10:00 AM
from the reactionary-seems-a-fair-description dept.
Operating Systems Software Windows IT
An anonymous reader writes "NeoSmart Technologies has an incredibly detailed (6 long pages!) and mostly positive review of ReactOS, The Open Source Windows. The review covers the goals of ReactOS and how well it meets them, system stability, application compatibility, kernel design and development, and the networking stack. It discusses the use of WINE in ReactOS' kernel and the effect on both its compatibility and development times." For the visual learners, here are some screenshots."
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[+] ReactOS 0.3.1 Released 189 comments
fireballrus writes with news of the release of ReactOS 0.3.1 — press release, changelog, download packages. ReactOS is "an open source effort to develop a quality operating system that is compatible with applications and drivers written for the Microsoft Windows NT family of operating systems (NT4, 2000, XP, 2003)." The press release notes: "Please don't forget this is an alpha-stage operating system, which means it is not suitable to replace your main OS. Also, this release is aimed to be run mostly in virtualizers / emulators (like QEmu, VMWare, Parallels, etc): because of the big amount of changes, our development team was not able to test/fix all problems which arise when running ReactOS on real hardware."
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  • What is there to ReactTo? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I am ReactIng right now to the fact the servers are down...

  • Too late? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gasmonso (929871) on Thursday July 13 2006, @10:06AM (#15712661) Homepage

    While I find the idea of an open source Windows facinating... is it too late? With Vista coming out soon, many new applications written will only run on Vista because of the new architecture, driver model, etc. ReactOS seems like it will be stuck in the past catering to XP applications/games while Vista goes forward. Since most people already have XP who would use this? Or will ReactOS emulate Vista? No, this is not a troll post, but a legit question.

    http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]

    • Re:Too late? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Whiney Mac Fanboy (963289) * <whineymacfanboy@gmail.com> on Thursday July 13 2006, @10:11AM (#15712695) Homepage Journal
      While I find the idea of an open source Windows facinating... is it too late?

      At the very least, it will be useful for corporations using current win32 stuff who don't want to migrate to vista when XP eols.

      (similar to samba really only fulling supporting domains close to NTs eol)

        • Re:Too late? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Whiney Mac Fanboy (963289) * <whineymacfanboy@gmail.com> on Thursday July 13 2006, @10:35AM (#15712840) Homepage Journal
          a coperation will switch to a system thats not 1005 compatabile or very tested and also not supported?

          Somehow I doubt that.

          *snort* - I bet you said the same thing about linux (or samba, or bsd, or whatever) back in the day hey? :-)

          Don't forget - XP will get extended support from MS for seven years after Vista's release. In the unlikely event Vista is released tomorrow (or hell, even Janurary), its still going to be plenty of time for ReactOS to get tested, support options, improve compatability, etc.

        • Yeah, sure, and DOS is dead by now. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by DrYak (748999) on Thursday July 13 2006, @01:28PM (#15713872) Homepage
          There's no such things as FreeDOS [freedos.org] nowadays, which was developped to late to be anything useful, specially it's not used by many people (including hardware manufacturer and corporate IT staff) to build bootdisks [fdos.org] used to flash and upgrade firmwares and BIOSes(1). Neither is it used by computer manufacturer [dell.com] who signed an agreement with a popular OS company that forbids them to sell a computer without an OS.

          Whith such an exemple of another old system, we can be sure that nobody will find whatever use for ReactOS, given the fact that Windows Vista will retain no compatibility with a legacy of win32 APPs [wikipedia.org] and has nothing to do with the NT family which is emulated by ReactOS and Wine [reactos.org]. And ReactOS and Wine have stated that they will never [winehq.com], I mean really never [winehq.com] try to implement more modern API like Win64 and thus won't be able to run all the huge amount of 64bit apps [wikipedia.org] that are seen everywhere (and of which most aren't open-source anyway and aren't ported to linux either (2) ).

          ReactOS is likely to die and go the Linux/BSD way. Netcraft is confirming it in Soviet Russia. In Korea, only old people find usefulness to free and open alternatives that retain compatibility to commercial versions.

          Har, har, har.

          1 - bootdisks and -CD are specially popular in big places where you need to quickly upgrade BIOSes and Firmware non-interactively just by pluging a disc. The same can't be achieved from windows yet (there are windows-based flasher, but they can't be deployed thru usual network channels as software update)
          2 - Windows 64bits is once again a proof of the supperiority of open-source. The first softwares that was the most easily ported to Win64 API were the open-source one, were the developpement is much easier because of source code availability : 7Zip, Blender&Yafray, Mame, FireFox, PuTTY, POV, VirtualDub, and many other. Where as only a couple of commercial games (because they make nice tech demos in booths) were ported, and almost no commercial multimedia package (although multimedia was supposed to benefit the most from the increased memory address space and was hoped to be among the first ported to Win64).

    • Re:Too late? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AKAImBatman (238306) * <(akaimbatman) (at) (gmail.com)> on Thursday July 13 2006, @10:18AM (#15712734) Homepage Journal
      Look on the bright side, at least ReactOS went somewhere. It may be kind of late in starting, but it was fairly well managed from the beginning. Contrast that with the FreeDows project, the secretive brainchild of a whiz-kid who bit off more than he could chew. The end result? Absolutely nothing.

      At least with ReactOS, it's likely to live on in some form as it's already useful to many people. (Fringe cases or not.) Even if it stays behind the Windows curve, it will be one more product nipping at Microsoft's heels.

      • Re:Too late? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by nine-times (778537) <nine.times@gmail.com> on Thursday July 13 2006, @12:08PM (#15713422) Homepage

        Even if it stays behind the Windows curve, it will be one more product nipping at Microsoft's heels.

        It's not as thought that curve is very steep. When's the last time a new version of Windows added a feature you've actually used? For me, I think it was Windows 2000, and that feature was "not built on DOS".

        • If joe wants to play his mp3s, he'll need to take it up with the people asking for cold hard cash for the privledge of listening to his music. This is what happens when Joe User allows the people who disrespect intellectual property entirely (aka The Scene) dictate technological choices.

          Enabling mp3 support could hurt them in a number of very real senses. If they choose to purchase a licscence for every user (and subsequent user as possible under the GPL) they'd be out serious dough. If they choose to distr

    • Re:Too late? Are You Serious?!?!?! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Nom du Keyboard (633989) on Thursday July 13 2006, @10:22AM (#15712747)
      With Vista coming out soon, many new applications written will only run on Vista because of the new architecture, driver model, etc.

      That seems like a really careless statement on your part. Are you saying that virtually all new applications are being written for an OS that you can't even buy for 6 more months? Boy that's sure going to put a dent in the next 2 quarters earning statements for every major software company.

      Oh, and btw, are they writing for 32-bit Vista, or 64-bit Vista?

    • Re:Too late? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by 'Tractor' Barry (788340) on Thursday July 13 2006, @10:23AM (#15712751) Homepage
      If I can run Logic Audio, the Audiowerk 8 driver and Sound Forge on top of it then I'm definitely interested.

      My primary use for my Windows box is for running Windows audio/MIDI related tools and I'd love to have an open source platform to run them on. Especially if I could strip the OS to the bare minimum that's required to run the hardware & software I want to use (i.e. complete control of which services are running, what's started at boot time etc)

      As support for the Windows version of Logic Audio was discontinued I'm even keener to have an open source OS that can run these apps. I'm running Windows 2000 and will not be upgrading to XP/Vista etc. under any circumstances (too many friends/colleagues with too many problems). My current combintaion of Windows 2000 and Logic etc. allows me to get on with making music and I'm happy to stay this way but will have to face the fact that eventually support for Windows 2000 will cease.

      And no I'm not going to switch to a MAC. Emagic pulled the rug from under me once (just after I'd paid for an upgrade) so I Learnnt my lesson the hard way. The only way I will ever buy commercial software again is it it comes with the source so can be supported by third parties/myself when thhe manufacturer decides to take their ball home.

      Of course I'd love to be able to do what I can currently do on my Windows box using equivalent Linux tools bu sadly there is nothing yet to compare to Logic Logic. (and yes I have tried Rosegarden, Audacity, Ardour etc. etc.)

      So I for one hope ReactOS goes from strength to strength.

      • History (Score:5, Informative)

        by dpaton.net (199423) on Thursday July 13 2006, @10:50AM (#15712940) Homepage Journal
        And no I'm not going to switch to a MAC. Emagic pulled the rug from under me once (just after I'd paid for an upgrade) so I Learnnt my lesson the hard way.

        Actually, Apple bought Emagic and killed the PC version. Emagic didn't really have a choice once they'd been bought. The odds of Logic working on a Mac for a long long time are better than they ever were on a PC. Not to say you should get a Mac, just trying to clarify the history.

        As for me, I'm still pining for the long gone Studio Vision Pro. Gibson...now there's a company to hate.
          • True, but the XP version of MSCONFIG can be copied to W2K and will then work just fine. Usually MSCONFIG is found in c:\windows directory in XP, just copy to removeable media, go to W2K box, insert media and copy to C:\windows directory- don't even have to reboot amazinly enough- it just works!
            (can also be moved across network, whatever)
            • It also doesn't do anything you can't do yourself trivially with regedit. IIRC the various places programs are run from are all called "run" (the keys) and they're stored under something like HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (or _CURRENT_USER, etc etc) Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run ... might have been \Windows NT\... or something, I forget. Also Spybot S&D has a tool to disable startup services, though of course it doesn't allow you to create new ones. You can make non-service programs into services w
        • When I use Logic I regularly use 20 audio tracks (all with eq), several effects (on individual tracks plus some used as bus effects), several virtual instruments plus anything up to 20 MIDI tracks.

          And this is all done on a machine with an Athlon XP2100 processor, 1Gb RAM, a 45 Gb system disk and a 250 Gb data disk. If memory serves me well the largest project I created had something like 30 audio tracks before I start to get glitches. Bouncing tracks is also not an option as I occassionally need to take
    • It's never too late, NES emulators are still being used to this day for example. Even after the release of Vista, many will still need to run legacy Win32 apps, and when ReactOS matures, I think some users will prefer an actively-developed OS over one at the end of its life cycle.

      Just a thought.
    • There is actually no need to change to msvista, because most people won't do it.
      But MS will try and force them to do it. When MS end-of-lifes winxp, they will have a supported replacement.
      Even right now, MS support for XP is no good, for some people who are concerned with security and stuff. With a non proprietary solution, support is a free market, and you are not stuck with the same provider that keep giving you the shaft.
      _If_ ReactOS ever comes to be a viable solution, it would be much more sensible migr
        • "_If_ ReactOS ever comes to be a viable solution,"

          There was an emphasized "If" in my post. Of course, is ReactOS is "kludgey", there will be no use for it, but _if_ it isn't, it _will_ be a viable solution.

          The feasibility of a good clone of winxp is another issue completely. Of course, I agree that it's difficult, and that it's not a good idea, but the motivation to d it, of course, is that if they succeed in their huge task, there is in the end some use for the project.

          There are actually lots of places th

    • With Vista coming out soon, many new applications written will only run on Vista because of the new architecture, driver model, etc

      Many applications only removed Windows 98 support this year. Applications can't target Microsoft's latest and greatest immediately. They have to target the installed base for several years.

      • Which means we may see applications that use the proper user privileges at last. Gone are the days of running as an "admin" under 98. Now companies should be able to expect user level rights and write code that respects them.

    • A free Windows-compatible OS which is not encumbered with all kinds of DRM, backdoors, phone home security updates, Internet Explorer, has native support for all the device drivers that Windows supports, and means that I don't have to learn Linux / migrate all of my current software practices? How can this possibly be too late?

      Personally I'd far sooner consider ReactOS than any of the other much touted Linux alternatives. Will that buy me brownie points on /. ? Maybe not, but it's probably true for most p

    • Re:Too late? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Spy der Mann (805235) <spydermann@slashdot.gmail@com> on Thursday July 13 2006, @10:43AM (#15712882) Homepage Journal
      is it too late? With Vista coming out soon

      ReactOS started as a win95 clone, and yet it incorporates features in Windows XP. It can as well be extended to support vista features (and as we've seen, Vista still has a lot of the XP kernel code). IIRC there's a feature request in ReactOS for virtualization.

      I hope that with the recent events happening in Europe, Microsoft will be forced to document the API for Windows Vista, so ReactOS can be more competition.

      Most people DON'T need the latest advancements in the Windows OS, they just want it to do their spreadsheets and letter writing. Many of those still use Win98, they don't have the money to upgrade to XP, and with the support dropped for 98, they might as well conform the perfect userbase for ReactOS.

      And with the ghost of Genuine Advantage approaching, i think ReactOS will make its debut just in time. When it's finished, the people who are using pirated copies of XP will probably switch instantly.

      Because, why stick with a (buggy and virus-prone) pirated version of Windows, when you can have a legal one, for the same price (free)? :)

      • Re:Too late? (Score:4, Informative)

        by TheRaven64 (641858) on Thursday July 13 2006, @10:57AM (#15712988) Homepage Journal
        ReactOS started as a win95 clone, and yet it incorporates features in Windows XP

        Not really. It started as an NT4 clone. Then they started adding features only found in NT5 (Win2K) and now they're also adding things in NT5.1 (WinXP). Note that they still don't have a full drop-in replacement for NT4 though. Not to knock the ReactOS team; there aren't very many of them, and what they have achieved is incredible.

        Cloning operating systems seems to be a popular pass time in the F/OSS community. We have UNIX clones, a Windows clone, an Amiga clone, and even a BeOS clone. It's a shame no one is working anything VMS or QNX-like though...

        • It's a shame no one is working anything VMS or QNX-like though...

          FreeVMS exists at http://freevms.free.fr/indexGB.html [freevms.free.fr].

              • Solaris, Open BSD, Ultrix, Irix and so on are are UNIX but with out the brand name. [...] OK from now on I'm using lower case

                That's like saying Pepsi or RC Cola is coca-cola in lower case, or an Intel AT compatible PC running a Microsoft Windows OS is a macintosh in lower case. This can only confuse readers. Does your use of "lower-case unix" refer to operating systems that implement the popular parts of the Single UNIX Specification (equivalent to POSIX), or to operating systems descended from the source

  • Ars is less positive (Score:5, Informative)

    by ZachPruckowski (918562) <zachary.pruckowski@gmail.com> on Thursday July 13 2006, @10:06AM (#15712665)
    Ars Review [arstechnica.com]

    They basically say it runs Firefox and Solitaire, but that's it. "Lots of promise, but needs work".
    • They basically say it runs Firefox and Solitaire I reckon the vast majority of Windows users use a web browser and a solitaire game more than any other applications.

    • Re:Ars is less positive (Score:4, Informative)

      by kimvette (919543) on Thursday July 13 2006, @10:28AM (#15712788) Homepage
      It may run firefox and solitaire, but have you tried to install drivers on it? It's not a fun process. :(

      Some (many) drivers consist of:

        - install driver on a Windows box
        - Track down all dependencies, registry entries, COM component registrations, etc.
        - Move all those components to the ReactOS box

      I started working on an AiW install on ReactOS but it was too time-consuming to finish for a system I just wanted to play around with a little bit.

      What they need to work on is making sure that drivers can be installed using the native installers, then more people will come and get involved in the project, even if only to provide feedback.

  • BSOD too... (Score:5, Funny)

    by William Robinson (875390) on Thursday July 13 2006, @10:07AM (#15712669)
    It has BSOD too [neosmart.net]

    Now I call that 100% compatible;)

  • The one time! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The one time i plan to read the article the server is down who would of thought it.

  • react, to their servers... (Score:4, Informative)

    by joe 155 (937621) on Thursday July 13 2006, @10:11AM (#15712691) Journal
    If you want screenshots then you can get them from the official site... http://www.reactos.org/de/screenshots.html [reactos.org]

  • ReactIIS (Score:5, Funny)

    by _Pablo (126574) on Thursday July 13 2006, @10:11AM (#15712692)
    Doesn't look like their build of ReactIIS 1.0 is quite up to the load...

  • Official ReactOS Website (Score:5, Informative)

    by frik85 (951295) on Thursday July 13 2006, @10:19AM (#15712737) Homepage
    Official ReactOS Website:
    http://www.reactos.org/ [reactos.org]

    Screenshots:
    http://www.reactos.org/?page=screenshots [reactos.org]
    http://www.reactos.org/?page=tour [reactos.org]

    About ReactOS:
    http://www.reactos.org/?page=about [reactos.org]
    http://www.reactos.org/?page=about_whatisreactos [reactos.org]

    Downloads (LiveCD, InstallCD, VM images):
    http://www.reactos.org/?page=download [reactos.org]

    Compatibility Database:
    http://www.reactos.org/support/ [reactos.org]
  • Why didn't they use Microsoft's fonts?
    • Why didn't they use Microsoft's fonts?

      Uhm, because Microsoft's fonts have a restrictive license that prohibits them from being included in a Free OS.
  • Kind of a rhetorical question, but I'm kind of wondering if any reviewers have actually tested it on a real machine, rather than VMware, QEMU, etc. I've been watching it since 0.2.3 or so, and I've actually started toying around with 0.3.0-RC1 on a spare machine I have – Compaq DeskPro EP6000, PIII-650, 64MB – and have found that with, say, Notepad and Firefox running it's quite stable. Kept it up for around half an hour before I just got bored and shut it off. Doesn't yet support my video card or network, but it's still pretty nice.

    My own review is on the ReactOS forums if anyone wants to know exactly what it's like – no pictures, because I haven't installed any screenshot or image manipulation software yet, but anyway... http://www.reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=20166 [reactos.org]

    Anyway, just thought I might point out that it works on real machines just as well as, or in some cases even better than, on a virtual machine.

  • ReactOS Desktop in Linux/Wine (Score:3, Interesting)

    by GodWasAnAlien (206300) on Thursday July 13 2006, @11:02AM (#15713017)
    I think a big step for Wine would to be able to run the ReactOS desktop.
    Then a Wine Desktop could be running in its own virtual terminal.
    One could also create a Wine/Linux distribution, to create another free windows development/run environment.
    A Wine/Linux distribution would use Linux drivers. This currently would have an advantage over ReactOS,
    as ReactOS is limited to use blob windows drivers, or a few open source drivers.

    If you can successfully run the ReactOS desktop in Wine, please share. I have tried it a few times (running ROS exploerer.exe desktop in Wine), but it is not quite usable.

  • Win98 EOL (Score:3, Insightful)

    by owlman17 (871857) on Thursday July 13 2006, @11:26AM (#15713169)
    If ReactOS were only a little more stable, all these people http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/11/ 0218250 [slashdot.org] could easily make the switch almost painlessly. Compared to Linux its almost a drop-in replacement for 98.

  • ReactOS is GOD... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Khyber (864651) <khyberkitsune@gmail.com> on Thursday July 13 2006, @11:40AM (#15713249) Journal
    Seriously, you can run most driversets! I've found it very useful (Emulators run awesomely, most of my games, too!) and very, very, VERY fast. Because of the striped down Kernel there's less CPU being used by the OS, freeing up more for other applications (Games, oh yes, GLASS)

    Seriously, by the time vista comes out, People may very well start ditching Microsoft and start using ReactOS. I intend to once the next release of ReactOS comes out, at least for a nice long trial for major testing.

  • ReactOS - VirtualPC - Debian (Score:3, Funny)

    by bigredradio (631970) on Thursday July 13 2006, @11:47AM (#15713306) Homepage Journal
    This is great. I just got Debian installed! I used ReactOS, then installed the free version of VirtualPC from microsoft, then installed Debian Sarge. Now I can use nano instead of that crappy notepad.

  • What about native Linux app support? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Clazzy (958719) on Thursday July 13 2006, @12:25PM (#15713496) Homepage
    Would it not be highly advantageous to allow the running of Linux binaries as well? I don't have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but wouldn't it be relatively easy to implement something like this because it's open-source code?

    • Re:ReactOS and WINE (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 13 2006, @10:12AM (#15712701)

      copied comment?

      http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=166001&c id=13853454 [slashdot.org]

    • Windows + Apps -> Windows + OSS Apps -> ReactOS + OSS Apps then then off to a Linux or *BSD varient if you want.

      What?!? Why the step from one implementation of Windows to another? The point of ReactOS is to be a free (as in beer and speech) replacement of Windows, not a stepping-stone of some kind. I can understand getting acquainted with OSS apps on Windows before diving into Unix, but switching to ReactOS along the way would be redundant and a waste of time.

      • Windows + Apps -> Windows + OSS Apps -> ReactOS + OSS Apps then then off to a Linux or *BSD varient if you want.

        The first "step" isn't really a step at all, it's migrating your current PC from Windows-only, proprietary software to cross-platform Open Source Software. Then when you're tired of dealing with "the Man" (or when windows activation refuses your legal code, again) you can just switch to free React OS that will be able to run the few Windows-only things you have left.

        As a side note, Win

    • Re:ReactOS and WINE (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Excelsior (164338) on Thursday July 13 2006, @10:50AM (#15712936)
      with many applications working straight away (OpenOffice, Abiword, mIRC, Unreal Tournament, InfranView, PuTTY as some)

      When I first saw ReactOS I was very interested, at the very least as a dual-boot for apps that won't run on my Linux desktop. But what runs on it is less than interesting. Take your list:
      OpenOffice - runs on Linux.
      Abiword - runs on Linux.
      mIRC - there are dozens of IRC clients for Linux, some of which are superior to mIRC, IMHO.
      Unreal Tournament - runs on Linux.
      InfranView - There are better options on Linux, IMO. The only reason I've ever used this app is because 5 years ago there were no good free image tools on Windows. Now, I even use Gimp on Windows.
      PuTTY - only necessary on Windows to get at ssh servers running on *nix. ssh is supported by so many things on Linux, not the least of which is the original openssh client.

      So, I'm having a hard time seeing any reason to try ReactOS out. Could someone point out something that ReactOS can run that doesn't run on Linux, and doesn't have a better option on Linux?

      • Re:ReactOS and WINE (Score:4, Insightful)

        by bubkus_jones (561139) on Thursday July 13 2006, @11:14AM (#15713083)
        I'm pretty sure linux users are not ReactOS's main target. Their target are Windows users who want to stop using Microsoft, but find Linux/BSD too intimidating.

        Of course there are more/better Linux options. For one, Linux is vastly more mature, and has a much greater user/developer base. Second, ReactOS is still in ALPHA stage. It has a ways to go before a full release worthy OS, and they (the ReactOS developers) would be the first to tell you.

    • Eh... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Vorondil28 (864578) <goodjearb@NoSPAm.gmail.com> on Thursday July 13 2006, @10:53AM (#15712969) Homepage Journal
      Lots of pages does not a good review make.

      I do appreciate the lack of "punch the monkey" adds, but it's still a pretty fluffy review. To sum up:
      • Really cool idea.
      • App computability is spotty.
      • Networking blows.
      • The interface looks spiffy.
      • Project has promise.
      I'm not sure if I even need to install a copy of it to write that much. I did think the insight on the development process on page two was interesting, but overall I think "ReactOS Reviewed in Depth" is a bit of an overstatement.

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