ReactOS 0.3.15 Released 252
Beardydog writes "From the ReactOS.org bulletin, 'The ReactOS project is proud to announce the release of version 0.3.15. A culmination of over a year of development, 0.3.15 incorporates several architectural enhancements to create a more compatible and conformant implementation of the NT architecture. Perhaps the most user visible enhancement is initial support for USB devices, both storage and input.'"
Why aren't there more contributors to this project (Score:4, Interesting)
ReactOS is a project to build a free, open-source clone of Windows, compatible with both drivers and userspace software. Why on earth hasn't this received more support from the OSS community? It's the only realistic chance of dethroning MS from the desktop in favor of an open alternative. Linux is fine for servers, portable devices, and embedded systems, but trying to stick it on the desktop is a foolish dream that has failed for over 10 years.
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Why do you think that would be the only realistic chance? Apple seams to do fairly well with OS X, and that's not at all like Windows.
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If there was a compatibility layer to run OSX applications on Linux, that might actually be a viable option. OSX has most of the big things people want: MS Office, Adobe Photoshop and friends, AutoCAD, etc. Conceivably, such a compatibility layer could be easier to write, debug, and maintain than WINE, since there is a lot less legacy baggage (and the underlying architecture is much closer to what Linux expects). But I am not aware of any such project so far, and I don't have anywhere near the level of syst
Re:Why aren't there more contributors to this proj (Score:4, Informative)
If there was a compatibility layer to run OSX applications on Linux, that might actually be a viable option. OSX has most of the big things people want: MS Office, Adobe Photoshop and friends, AutoCAD, etc. Conceivably, such a compatibility layer could be easier to write, debug, and maintain than WINE, since there is a lot less legacy baggage (and the underlying architecture is much closer to what Linux expects). But I am not aware of any such project so far
Well, there's the Darling project [dolezel.info]. I get the impression it's very much a work in progress, however.
GNUstep (Score:2)
If there was a compatibility layer to run OSX applications on Linux, that might actually be a viable option. [...] But I am not aware of any such project so far
GNUstep aims for source code compatibility with Cocoa. In theory, the publisher (other than Apple) of a Mac OS X application could use Cocoa when porting it to GNU/Linux.
CORRECTION (Score:2)
could use Cocoa
should have been "could use the subset of Cocoa supported by GNUstep"
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That was less than 5% just a few years ago...
And doesn't run on the cheapest tiers of hardware...
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Linux is fine for servers, portable devices, and embedded systems, but trying to stick it on the desktop is a foolish dream that has failed for over 10 years.
Linux has worked wonderfully on my desktop for over 10 years.
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He means a relevant number of desktops, not three chucklefucks in their basement.
Re:Why aren't there more contributors to this proj (Score:4, Funny)
If he keeps coming up with terms like "chucklefucks" I heartily encourage him to stay under whatever rock he's stuck under. That was worth reading this entire flamewar thread right there.
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Because using Windows requires you to buy Photoshop and Microsoft Office? Since when?
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MacOS isn't too different from Linux. It's built from NeXTSTEP, FreeBSD and OpenBSD. NeXTSTEP was built on BSD to start with as well.
(yes I am aware that Linux and BSD are completely different, but they are both "unix related")
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It's obsolete, due to virtualization.
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The catch-up argument no longer holds. The current project is aimed at XP, and once it's done, they'd have a mature win32 OS that can address all x86 boxes. If they do a follow-on project that is aimed at Windows 7 and uses win64, that's all they'll have to do. There won't need to be a Windows 8 based OS - Windows 7 will be good enough. So future libraries that Microsoft introduces will be irrelevant.
The legal hurdles can be real, though, but since this project points out that it does not use any MS
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It's the only realistic chance of dethroning MS from the desktop in favor of an open alternative.
It has no chance of dethroning Windows. Zero. Zip. Nada.
Look, no one will ever be as good at being Microsoft as Microsoft is. ReactOS may be eventually be 99 44/100 % Windows compatible. It may look like Windows, feel like Windows, and act like Windows almost all the time--but it won't be Windows. And sooner or later, anyone running it will run into some instance where Windows does this but ReactOS does that. Now, when this happens (when, not if) developers will say, "That's interesting, we should fi
Re:Why aren't there more contributors to this proj (Score:4, Interesting)
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That's pretty much the kind of thing I was thinking of when I said, "I'm sure it will find its uses." It's very different from replacing Windows as the primary corporate and home user desktop OS, which is what I had the impression OP had in mind.
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Even newer versions of Windows have to run legacy Windows software. How do you think a competitor would manage to move into that same market without being able to do the same?
Windows RT (Score:3)
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Nothing is 99 44/100% windows compatible...
Apps that ran on xp sometimes fails on 7 etc... There are many apps out there that require specific versions.
So given that no version is fully compatible with all windows software, you just need a version that is compatible enough with the specific applications you want to run, which might actually require you to have multiple versions (eg in a vm). If reactos is good enough for your particular use case, then the fact it's free and open gives it an advantage.
Window
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The only use I can see even if it were mature would be handling ancient legacy apps that won't run on a new version of windows. If the program demands XP, then the options will be either XP (with a ton of security holes MS no longer patches) or ReactOS. And if MS stops selling XP licenses, there may be a very business-specific applications end up on it. But it's a very small niche.
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It has no chance of dethroning Windows. Zero. Zip. Nada.
Look, no one will ever be as good at being Microsoft as Microsoft is. ReactOS may be eventually be 99 44/100 % Windows compatible. It may look like Windows, feel like Windows, and act like Windows almost all the time--but it won't be Windows. And sooner or later, anyone running it will run into some instance where Windows does this but ReactOS does that. Now, when this happens (when, not if) developers will say, "That's interesting, we should fix that." But regular users will think, "Serves me right for trying to use this cheap knockoff. Guess I'll just get the real thing." And if anyone asks them about their experience with ReactOS, that's pretty what they'll say.
That's exactly why Linux failed to replace UNIX. A knockoff can never succeed.
A knockoff that's competing with a family of OSes that aren't 100% compatible with each other at the source level, that run on machines that are typically more expensive than the primary class of machines on which the knockoffs run and that don't even have the same instruction sets as each other (so that binary compatibility is out of the question), and on which a lot of the software is either open-source or written in-house so that it can be compiled and run on the knockoff, could succeed.
A knockoff that'
Split this project in 3 (Score:3)
But there are limits on what ReactOS can do - and pretty serious ones. For one, it can't use NTFS w/o violating Microsoft patents, so fat chance seeing a modern filesystem on it.
I have previously suggested that the project be split into 2 or 3 parts - one win64, another win32 and a third win16. Have the win64 project aim at Windows 7, and target 4GB of RAM. Have the win32 aim at XP, and target 256MB of RAM and above, and for the win16, try something like a 16-bit thunked version of it. The goal of th
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The only use for NTFS would be compatibility with existing filesystems... In terms of modern filesystems, there is no reason why reactos couldn't support things like zfs or btrfs which are far more modern than ntfs.
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No reason it couldn't support ext-something. It won't be NTFS, but the software doesn't have to know that. It just sees files.
Removable media (Score:3)
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Because,
1. By the time it's got a decent compatibility with Windows XP, we'll be on Windows 12.
2. It's only legally safe because it's only a novelty. Should it become mature enough to use in a production environment, Microsoft would surely wish to assert about a bajillion patents. Most of them rubbish ones, but enough to cripple the project with legal costs and scare away developers.
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Well. This is funny. If you put the effort which goes into ReactOS into developing a driver layer for the linux kernel which allows to expose windows driver functions after loading windows drivers to sw which may be interested and polishing wine a little bit, you have much better chances of developing a working Desktop replacment.
Moreover: Linux may be failing on the desktop (somthing to be disputed), but linux is awfully sucessful everywhere else. The turning point probably was that sony startet to put lin
Good luck replying to e-mail on a phone (Score:2)
The turning point probably was that sony startet to put linux in all their products
Huh? Sony took Linux out of the PS3 as of system software 3.21 and sued George Hotz for putting it back in.
I must be really bored to fire up the email reader on my laptop. Usually all my communications go via my phone
Good luck typing a three-paragraph reply on a 4" sheet of glass. And good luck seeing your e-mail and something else on the screen at once. Or do you carry a Bluetooth keyboard for making replies?
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Totally true, I've always wondered about this myself. It should also be noted they use WINE quite a bit, so in supporting ReactOS, you would also be supporting WINE because they give back to the WINE community. Which reminds me, while I have been submitting App reports to the WINE Project, I still have a closet full of Games I need to get busy testing and making reports on. =)
If about thirty of you Linux devs would join in part-time, I bet they (ReactOS) could get just a little closer to their Goal; if you
Re:Why aren't there more contributors to this proj (Score:4, Insightful)
In what way is it broken by design?
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And that's different from a Linux framebuffer driver how?
Re:Why aren't there more contributors to this proj (Score:5, Funny)
Linux is free software, which means that you can inspect the source code and prevent it from crashing the kernel.
Re:Why aren't there more contributors to this proj (Score:5, Insightful)
The graphic routines reside in kernel space?
An absolute necessity for performance reasons. They tried doing it in userspace in NT4 and it just couldn't keep up.
the drivers can kill the kernel?
Windows 7 moved a lot of drivers to userspace. Yes, some code will still be run in the kernel. Some code is run in the kernel on Linux. The solution is for that code to be written well, not to give up and pretend that kernel mode doesn't exist.
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The graphic routines reside in kernel space?
An absolute necessity for performance reasons.
Oh, that's why Value got more FPS on games natively on linux vs windows, right?
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Graphics drivers on Linux run in the kernel.
I bet you wish one could delete posts on /. ;)
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Re:Why aren't there more contributors to this proj (Score:5, Informative)
Linux has a macro kernel... all the drivers are part of the kernel and run in kernel in kernel space...
Linux is currently a mix of macro (monolithic) and micro kernel concepts. Not all drivers run in kernel space. I'm sure you were remembering the old Linus vs. Tannenbaum disagreement when you wrote that one.
Regardless, the focus of this discussing is graphic routines which, except for a few proprietary cases (most notably, nVidia), run in userspace. Which is one of the problems people have with the proprietary nvidia driver (another is it not being free, but w/e).
So, anyway, not ALL drivers are part of the kernel, more and more are moving out of it as time goes by. But yes, many drivers still are. Our Minix legacy.
Re:Why aren't there more contributors to this proj (Score:5, Informative)
Hummm, what?!?! You know it is the same computer, right? If it is killing performance, then the scheduler is fucked. Another proof windows is broken.
Nope. The problem is with the cost of a context swap. When usual kernel code executes, the code still executes in the context of the current process. There is no MMU context swap, just some registers get saved to stack, and the protection level is changed. When you run it in a separate process, you not only to invoke the scheduler (which isn't invoked when you merely do a syscall), you have to swap out the entire MMU context. This is very expensive, and only gets relatively more expensive compared to running code with more advanced processors.
Re:Why aren't there more contributors to this proj (Score:4, Interesting)
The code that managed context swapping is part of the scheduler, at least on Linux. Yes, it can be costly, which is why it needs to be implemented correctly, and why you keep getting alternative schedulers (not as often as you once did, it was crazy back in early 2.0). There is classic problem with Intel-HT and Postgresql that caused context swapping for database I/O to be extracostly, as you probably recall. And it can be done correctly, as was proven in this case, and then again for Oracle.
It is absolutely possible to have high performance userspace graphics, as was proven with some of the more up-to-date drivers. I think it was ATI that first did it, by the way. The trick is to keep as much as possible in userspace, but that requires a change in mentality for developers.
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It is absolutely possible to have high performance userspace graphics, as was proven with some of the more up-to-date drivers. I think it was ATI that first did it, by the way.
Absolutely not. Read this and understand it (first link I found that was useful): http://www.cs.rochester.edu/u/cli/research/switch.pdf [rochester.edu]
From the summary: "In general, the indirect cost of context switch ranges from several microseconds to more than one thousand microseconds for our workload."
If you can skip that "several microseconds to more than one thousand microseconds" blip, you will get MUCH better performance. That is why graphics drivers are in the kernel and why you can NOT say that you can ever get
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Re:Why aren't there more contributors to this proj (Score:5, Insightful)
The registry gets a lot of hate, but I don't see how it is worse than the alternative, which is tons of different .ini files (or equivalent) for each application and setting. At least on Windows, it's generally understood that settings should be exposed in some way in the GUI and that for all but the most advanced features, saying "go edit the registry" isn't really a good solution. On Linux, forcing users to manually edit config files is routine.
Re:Why aren't there more contributors to this proj (Score:5, Insightful)
The registry gets a lot of hate
Yeah. And then those same people who keep hating windows registry go and implement the same thing for Gnome, in a even more crappy way than windows did.
Gnome is, AFAIC, the current bane of Linux.
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Config file files are easy to edit and simple to automate. They are also generally well documented.
The registry none of those. In practice stuff gets thrown all over the place based on the programs creators with often no good way to automate program setup.
Re:Why aren't there more contributors to this proj (Score:5, Insightful)
I concur. Insofar as the registry removes the need for a metric crapton of config files, I am in favor of it, but it stops there. The manner in which they implemented it and documented it has turned it from something potentially useful into something even worse than 200 config files.
If they had done it right, they could have standardized good practices, and even allowed for the creation of useful configuration management utilities. Since they didn't do it right, it's just a pile of confusing and useless crap that you can't avoid.
Re:Why aren't there more contributors to this proj (Score:5, Insightful)
You are not forced to edit config files any more often than windows forces you to make manual registry changes...
The primary reason that technical people will choose to edit config files instead of using the gui is because it's much easier to explain in either a textual (website, forums) or vocal method. Telling someone to transcribe what you're talking about is infinitely easier than trying to explain over the phone how to navigate a gui, and in a textual medium you can even include examples which the user can cut/paste.
Also text based config files usually have comments where you can explain why you made a change, or where the authors of the program can explain what settings do and give examples. The registry has nothing like this.
Text based configs are also very easy to back up and store in a revision control system, that way you can roll back changes, see what/when changes were made etc.
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How do I setup an NFS mount point under Linux without editing /etc/fstab by hand?
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I am a life long mac user (since 1985, MacPlus), and love writing usable guis; however, I still prefer the power of text files for configuring my computer. A bad gui is terrible, and a good gui has a ridiculous amount of state to handle. Config files give you all the power you want, with the addition of allowing you to use unix tools to glue together various processes. I believe the main reason people don't write guis
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You misunderstand *completely*.
The person I replied to said "You are not forced to edit config files any more often than windows forces you to make manual registry changes" which is demonstrably wrong as my example shows.
What I prefer has NOTHING to do with it.
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A "permanent" mount point?
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How is that the machine not booting?
It still boots just fine.
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Not at all, I use a great many computers that have no X at all.
You can even login and fix the issue unlike a machine with a borked registry.
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You can even login and fix the issue unlike a machine with a borked registry.
How many individual users who are not IT professionals are willing to learn to log in and fix a broken GConf or do anything else on a desktop PC running GNU/Linux* without X?
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I think the point here is that the design isn't broken because you *can* do so. The system will still be functional enough to allow someone with the right knowledge to fix it (remotely if need be) and in situations where this matters, people with the right knowledge are a phone call away and would not need to move to fix it.
If a linux box has a borked gconf, some dude across the world can make it magically boot a few minutes later. Not to mention that the user can only bork *his own gconf*.
If a windows bo
Re:Why aren't there more contributors to this proj (Score:5, Informative)
And its entire life, started as a single-user system, means the whole damn thing is broken as far as multi-user goes.
That was only true of Win9x, and the last version of that was discontinued about 10 years ago. Windows NT (which includes 2K, XP, Vista, 7, and 8) was built from the ground up as a modern, multi-user OS with full support for security built in. In fact, the NT security model is slightly more sophisticated than the Unix model (though not as good as SE Linux). Both do share the same flaw: from a security POV, the program is the user and can do whatever the user wants. This is something Android got right, granting permissions on a per-app rather than per-user basis.
A lot of people ignored the NT security provisions up through XP by running as admin all the time, but UAC mostly killed that. People hated it, but it gave the developers a much needed kick in the butt to stop breaking stuff by requiring root.
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The kernel was designed with security and multiuser in mind, but the ui and apis on top of that were not and thus neither were a large number of applications. You have a lot of areas where things were obviously kludged in at the wrong level and are thus easily circumvented, eg see group policies such as command prompt restrictions.
The security model may well be more sophisticated, but more complexity is NOT a good thing. There is a reason why the vast majority of linux users do not use selinux, and that is
Run as system as a service (Score:2)
End result? Either programs don't bother, and run as system
As I understand it, programs needing privileges are supposed to run as system (or a similarly privileged user) as a service, and then applications are supposed to make requests of that service.
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Re:Why aren't there more contributors to this proj (Score:4)
Careful with those arguments! They're antiques!
Re:Why aren't there more contributors to this proj (Score:5, Insightful)
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17" quad core AMD, with 8GB RAM. Refurbished, $400 in Canada. It doesn't get used much, but nice to have the odd time I need it.
Buying a laptop in Canada it is almost always $100 more than buying the same laptop in the US.
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That's when you get a VMware license :)
Running Windows in VMware is still running Windows (Score:2)
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At least you can do the rest of your job hopefully better and easier by being otherwise freed from Windows.
Re:Why aren't there more contributors to this proj (Score:4, Insightful)
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And AutoCAD and Photoshop are the easy ones. They have a wide audience and it's generally understood, at least in a broad sense, what they're supposed to do and why it's important. Good luck rewriting a million different industry-specific niche applications for Linux. Better luck finding the coders willing to volunteer on obscure projects that neither they nor anyone outside the industry in question cares about.
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Who said anything about using only hobbyist labor? Those companies that use those tools would probably save themselves money in the long run if they commissioned an open replacement.
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Ok boss, I need a few million bucks to have some guys write a replacement for this $5000 a year software. Or did you want me to just buy windows 8 and the software?
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Disney ported Photoshop 5 (I think it was 5, too lazy to look) to be used by their animation department for $20,000 if I recall correctly. Most industry niche software is nowhere near as complex as Photoshop 5.
Most of that niche software is stuff like estimating, inventory, retail serial programmers, specialized account
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Linux is fine for servers, portable devices, and embedded systems, but trying to stick it on the desktop is a foolish dream that has failed for over 10 years
While I can't speak for anybody else, more MORE than 10 years I've been running Linux, not only for servers, but also on desktops
Many desktops
Yes, my company does have Windows machines, but they are there because we can't find proper alternatives to some software that some of our people need, and that's the one thing the Linux community needs to improve on --- to persuade software developers to port their software onto Linux
Especially now that the market share of desktop computer is shrinking, software comp
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What do your employees do? I suppose if you have something like a call center where most operations can be done through the browser (including a web-based CRM system) and where you don't want your employees going off on tangents, it might work. Assuming they can resist the urge to claw their eyeballs out after staring at the horrendous font rendering all day. But for anything more than that, it's just a total nonstarter.
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First: Stop running GNOME.
Second: There are not many things that most places couldn't do on Linux. Please, tell me some. We're not using AutoCAD here, and graphics team, while still wanting PS and AI, doesn't really care if it is on Mac, Windows, or IRIX (our lead graphics designer used to use PS and Maya on SGI hardware), and they have different hardware needs then most users anyway.
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Why should anyone care about making an open source Windows now, anyway?
Because Windows owns the business world, most of the power-user world, and most of the PC gamer world. If you want OSS to make any inroads on the business desktop or with gamers, it has to run their software on their terms. And that means Windows binary compatibility.
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Business users are gradually moving to web based applications, which at least when properly designed are platform agnostic...
On the other hand, ReactOS could be very useful for supporting legacy applications, which many companies find themselves locked into and end up having to keep ancient hardware for.
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Why should anyone care about making an open source Windows now, anyway?
Because Windows owns the business world, most of the power-user world, and most of the PC gamer world. If you want OSS to make any inroads on the business desktop or with gamers, it has to run their software on their terms. And that means Windows binary compatibility.
Which is why we have WINE -- we want binary compatibility, not the ability to load up an entire OS that looks like Windows 95 and behaves like Windows XP.
IMO, WINE got it right; it provides a compile target for developers who don't want to re-develop for Linux, and a runtime wrapper for developers who don't even want a Linux build. Plus, WINE itself is platform agnostic, so it'll run on any POSIX compliant OS (read: almost every OS that isn't Windows, and even Windows for that matter), providing binary com
Binary-compatible with drivers (Score:3)
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You use the word "rapid" to describe Windows' deteriorating use. Tell me, on a scale of "Watching grass grow," to "Why did the snail cross the road?" just how rapid are we talking here?
I'm not about to argue that Win8 is anything but a train wreck, but claiming that Windows' position in business is rapidly changing is a bit.. well.. dead wrong... Sure Win8 isn't being adopted in droves as MS might like, but of all of the WinXP-Win7 users who *aren't* upgrading [sic] to Win8, I don't imagine terribly many
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Which businesses have moved their staff from 19" monitors to 4" mobile phones?
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We moved most of our staff from 19" monitors to 10" iPads. Not saying it was a great move, but we did it anyways. (Of course most of our staff is outside sales reps, and carrying an iPad is a lot easier than carrying a laptop or desktop.)
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And your office staff? How are they finding working on a much smaller screen?
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You never read the Song of Fire And Ice then by G.R.R Martin. That's the whole point of the series IMO.
All maximized all the time (Score:2)
What those people don't seem to realize is that, just because no one has made a "Linux for the layman" doesn't mean no one ever will. Android is Linux, and it's about as user-friendly as you can get.
Android has what I believe to be one fatal flaw: all maximized all the time. Because of a poor decision that Google made in the Honeycomb era, namely allowing applications to assume that the screen area never changes after installation, the user can't split the tablet's display down the middle and run a phone app on each side.
I used to be really excited about this.... not now (Score:2)
Back in the 1990's I was really excited about this project. I really hated how Microsoft had a strangle hold on the entire industry and there was no sign that it was going to change anytime soon. This project was promising in that it really offered a possible solution. But they're about 13 years too late. Far too little progress has been made. Microsoft has already been knocked off of its pedestal and now there are viable alternatives that consumers are embracing. Specifically, MacOS, IOS, and Android
Re:Ugh (Score:5, Insightful)
You're missing the point of ReactOS. It's like Wine, except actually an OS. If one day Windows bites the dust you can have this project for any legacy code, if you really needed to run something, and it could be patched and maintained forever. To be fair, yes this is a hobby OS, but to say that with disdain diminishes the value of a hobby.
Re:Ugh (Score:4, Interesting)
To be fair, yes this is a hobby OS, but to say that with disdain diminishes the value of a hobby.
Nice point. Amateur means "one who loves" (literally), it should never be disparaging to be called an amateur. Hobbyists are "amateurs" by definition. All the great Renaissance thinkers were amateurs across a wide range of fields, but often to great depth. Hence we owe much of modern thinking to amateurs.
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The efforts of amateurs and their willingness to share what they have loved has added so much to the world.
Linus Torvalds is usually considered the prime example of this, especially if you read his first Usenet post about the primitive Linux kernel he was developing on his 386.
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Or you can just run Windows in VM?
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How will you activate newer versions of windows if the activation servers have been turned off?
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By using the crack that all the pirates do.
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2 years behind? Only "initial support" for USB devices? That's more tahn 15 years behind the times.
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Windows 95 OSR2 had USB device support, it also was pretty terrible by most standards for doing anything more than running a couple of applications at a time or playing a game. I guess you could say Win2K had
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Windows 98 had USB support. Also, what relevance does NT4 have to do anything? Most of its development was done before the USB 1.0 spec was even finished. So it's pretty silly to bring it up at all.
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You know what? This argument applies to a lot of thing people do for fun. So I don't think it makes any sense at all to call anything a stupid waste of talent. It's entirely unproductive to do so. People usually don't live their lives such as to optimize some utility function of the "maximize the use of your talent" kind.