ReactOS Runs On The XBox

KJK::Hyperion writes "ReactOS (the open-source Windows clone) has been ported and successfully runs on the Microsoft XBox (screenshot), thanks to the interest and knowledge base of the XBox Linux project and the work of Gé van Geldorp (HAL and boot loader) and Hervé Poussineau (FATX driver)." (Read on for more.)

KJK::Hyperion continues "This port definitely establishes two facts: the XBox is nothing but a broken PC, and the kernel + HAL design that ReactOS inherited from Windows is sound - all of the changes to the core system necessary for the XBox port (namely, the blacklisting of a buggy PCI device and handling the fixed partition table on the built-in hard disk) were limited to the HAL. This is a first, important step towards better portability, as it has already underlined some shortcomings in our build system.

What the port is lacking is hardware support: especially, ReactOS has no USB support at the moment, so it basically just sits there being pretty, because mouse and keyboard won't work. The network and video cards should be mostly identical to their "real" counterparts, so the Windows drivers for them should work (except the video card, a modified GeForce - it's been established we need some HAL trickery to make the Windows driver load). We wouldn't mind some help :-)

To run ReactOS on the XBox you need our custom version of the Cromwell boot loader (not released yet) and the XBox HAL for for ReactOS."

Hmm Running a..

[2mcm]

MS windows emulator on a peice of MS hardware .... nice

Re:Hmm Running a..

[thryllkill]

-1 Idiot!

ReactOS is not an emulator. It doesn't even resemble one. Not even a little bit. Its not like Wine which is so darn close to being an emulator it might as well be. It is a totally different piece of software.

ReactOS is a F/OSS operating system, and here's the catcher, designed to look and run like Windows NT 4.0.

Re:Hmm Running a..

[shahruz]

Still, pretty cool to run a clone of a Microsoft OS on a Microsoft product.

Re:Hmm Running a..

[ottothecow]

See the problem with this news article is that I dont know what it it is really for.

I mean I know it appears to me that its about ReactOS running on the xbox...but then I realized that the existance of ReactOS is the real news. Something running on the xbox is amazing but...where is the slashdot article for reactos?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Hmm Running a..

[WJMoore]

...where is the slashdot article for reactos?

That would be here:
ReactOS 0.2.3 Released [slashdot.org]
Steven Edwards On The Future Of ReactOS And Wine [slashdot.org]

Re:Hmm Running a..

[ottothecow]

hmm...

*...where is the frontpage article for ReactOS

(assuming that the second one wasn't)

The idiot comment

[jesterzog]

-1 Idiot!

Woah, control yourself. I actually found it amusing (albeit misleading), despite your comment.

Why is it so accepted to call someone an idiot just because they make a mistake? There's such a thing as constructive criticism, and it's possible to comment on something without acting like a jerk while doing it.

If the earlier poster was deliberately provoking it or if you were a regular troll then I could understand it and ignore it, but you've gone out of your way to also correct what was said. Slashdot's great for conversation with tech-minded people and that's what keeps me here, but all that fostering this attitude does is to make potentially interesting slashdot conversation appear even more childish and immature to anyone who reads it.

Yeah I know. This is slashdot. Whatever.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Uh huh.

[StarKruzr]

So what you're saying is it emulates an API. Right?

Sounds like an emulator to me.

Re:Uh huh.

[Erwos]

That's like saying an AthlonXP emulates a Pentium4. It's reimplementing something, not emulating it.

-Erwos

Re:Uh huh.

[Piquan]

So what you're saying is it emulates an API. Right?

No more than my car emulates a mode of transportation employing paved streets, or Mentat's MPS emulates SVR4 STREAMS (or even BSD sockets).

Wine implements the API.

Re:Uh huh.

[Trejkaz]

Doesn't a CPU emulator also implement the specification of the CPU?

Re:Uh huh.

[Piquan]

Doesn't a CPU emulator also implement the specification of the CPU?

Yes, and so does the native CPU. I wouldn't say that implementing a foo is sufficient to say that it's emulating a foo.

I suppose it comes down to a definition question, but here's the basic rule-of-thumb I might tend to work from (and it's just off the top of my head):

An emulator:

1. Implements a particular interface (whether it's a well-documented interface or not). So an x86 emulator would need to implement the MOV, JMP, etc instructio

Re:Uh huh.

[AstroDrabb]

Nope, its not an emulator. Does an AthlonXP emulate a Pentium4? Nope. It's reimplementing x86. A _very_ differnt thing. That is why an Athlon is _much_ faster for some operatins then a P4 while a P4 can still pull ahead for some ops like multimedia. If it was _emulation_, they would be equal. Reimplementing is _not_ emulation. Reimplementing can introduce its own pros and cons. Pros can be better algorithms and cons can be worse algorithms. Emulation would create a 1-to-1 copy of something, inclu

Please, you're making my eyeballs bounce

[Anonymous Coward]

_can_ you _please_ limit your use of _underlines_?

Re:Uh huh.

[Doomstalk]

So what you're saying is it emulates an API. Right?
If it doesn't simulate hardware then it isn't an emulator, it's a wrapper.

Re:Hmm Running a..

[nels_tomlinson]

Wine does not try to emulate hardware. Wine is trying to _duplicate_ the Win32 API ...

So, Wine is really Wad: Wine is a duplicator?

Maybe they should just give in and let folks call it an emulator.

Re:Hmm Running a..

[thryllkill]

Well, it works like this.

I obviously know that Wine is not an emulator since the sentance you cited states that Wine is not an emulator (slightly roundabout yes, but not so terse as to be easily mistaken to mean something else).

The difference is Wine intercepts Win32 calls and translates them to something the Linux system can understand. However ReactOS doesn't have to intercept these calls to the Win32 API since it is _duplicating_ them directly.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Hmm Running a..

[AstroDrabb]

No. Wine doesn't "intercept" anything. It is not like WINE has some _HUGE_ switch statement where it just "intercepts" Win32 calls and translates those to Linux calls. WINE has _rewritten_ the WIN32 API (well, a lot of it so far). For example, I write a program with an API to control it with functions like:

sendMessage(int, int)

beep(int)
sleep(int)
phoneHome(int)

Now, you come along and rewrite those some functions for your program with the same "function signatures" (which just means the same function names, parameters and return types). Your not emulating/intercepting me, you have _totally_ rewritten what I did on your own. Granted, what I did above was very samll and the Win32 API is HUGE. That is why it has taken the WINE team (the core group is pretty small) a long time to get a large part of the WIN32 API rewritten to the Linux platform. For example there is a Win32 API called CreateWindow. That _same_ function had to be recreated under WINE in Linux. Under Win32, it creates a window with the Win32 API. Under Linux, it takse the same parameters and creates a window using the methods that the Wine team created.

You are correct in the sense that the WINE team has tried to "emulate" the look and feel of the Win32 API. That is why a Win app under WINE often looks the same. They (WINE) have tried to make the windows looks just like a window in Win32. However, at the end of the day, WINE is still not emulating or "intercepting" anyting. They are recreating API's and copying a look-n-feel.

Re:Hmm Running a..

[xeno314]

Aren't we being a slightly anal about what is and is not an emulator? Go look at The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition.

emulate
To imitate the function of (another system), as by modifications to hardware or software that allow the imitating system to accept the same data, execute the same programs, and achieve the same results as the imitated system. Isn't this what ReactOS does?

Yeah...

[bccomm]

but will it run Linux?

Oh wait...

ReactOS?

[IO ERROR]

ReactOS is intended to be a clean, open source reimplementation of Microsoft Windows NT 4.0.

I'd never heard of ReactOS before this posting, and so I checked it out. I'm impressed by what they've done so far, but not the seven years it took them to do it. It's still VERY early pre-alpha software. Maybe now that all the basic pieces are in place it will pick up speed, but I suspect it will have the same trouble WINE runs into: it's chasing a moving target, and it's way behind. WINE, at least, decided to implement newer APIs found in Windows 2000 and XP. ReactOS has not. So even when they hit a 1.0 or stable release, they're going to be so far behind that not that much Windows software will run on it.

Re:ReactOS?

[runderwo]

Yes, they will face many of the same challenges the WINE project does, which is why WINE and ReactOS liberally share patches. Why does everyone think they are just some peripheral group reinventing the wheel for no particular reason? The ReactOS project enjoys a symbiotic reliationship with WINE in which both projects benefit from each other's advances.

Re:ReactOS?

[KJKHyperion]

ReactOS is Wine - everything Wine has, ReactOS has too, except the Linux-specific parts (that, in ReactOS, will be handled by drivers). And ReactOS does implement recent APIs, we're no way stuck with Windows NT 4 compatibility, in fact our current baseline is more like Windows 2000 (especially true for the kernel). Finally, we won't just get up one day and declare 1.0: it will be 1.0 when compatibility reaches the intended milestone for 1.0 (namely, good enough to replace somewhere between Windows NT 4 Workstation and Windows 2000 Professional)

Do I understand ReactOS correctly?

[GuyFawkes]

Are you aiming for an open source equivalent to the original 98lite, which ripped just about everything out of win98 and left you with a bare OS, driver support and GUI?

You're missing the point

[Gilesx]

The point with ReactOS isn't to keep up with the latest and greatest. ReactOS with full NT4 compatibility will have a function in many offfices, that still have a huge NT4 presence, but are find that they are coming to the end of their support life cycle with Microsoft. ReactOS would squeeze a little more life out of their systems, and would also provide an easier upgrade path to a straight Linux system than simply going Windows --> Linux.

Home users are a different breed to corporate users, and tend to want the latest version of an OS. Of course, ReactOS is in no position to compete with XP, but wouldn't we be hoping that rather than chosing Windows XP, home users will eventually be installing one of the multitude of distros available?

RTF...-- hey wait, you just quoted the F'nA!!!

[xtermin8]

NT 4.0 is not a "moving target." The project has no plans to implement the features of 2k and XP. I've seen a lot of "RTFA" cases, but this post is the first I've seen where the writer has neglected to read the quote he's included in his own post.

Re:ReactOS?

[k98sven]

I'm impressed by what they've done so far, but not the seven years it took them to do it.

Well, this is a bit symptomatic of a lot of OSS projects, they start out with a grand vision and end up planning and then re-planning and throwing out code and never really get off the ground. Some die and stay dead, some get picked up by a group of enthusiasts with a more down-to-earth approach of 'Getting something working now, improvements later.' and the project takes off.
(Case study: See Linux vs. GNU Hurd)

I believe this is pretty much what happened with ReactOS (I'm not a ReactOS developer), so I wouldn't hold it against the current crowd too much.

I suspect it will have the same trouble WINE runs into: it's chasing a moving target, and it's way behind.

Ah, the old catch-up argument. It's a valid argument, but it's not as important for API:s as it is for, say, file formats.
With the MS Word file format, Microsoft can tweak and alter that all they want, because it's not publicly documented, and they're not that interested in having compatibility with anything other than MS own products. Backwards compatibility isn't important. Heck, they're happy to break it and create incentive for people to buy the new versions. That's a hard act to follow.

With API:s, things are quite different though. Firstly, the '80-20 rule of features' pretty much applies. Most programs don't use the entire API, but a rather small subset.

Secondly, API:s rarely break backwards compatibility. That would break all existing third-party apps and make it difficult for people to migrate. The exact opposite situation to the previous one. So MS bends over backwards to make stuff backwards compatible. Windows 3.0 apps still run on XP.

The APIs are also (relatively) well documented. Sure, there's a lot of undocumented functionality, but most of that is also unused. The implementer has access to the same information as most application-developers.

Another point of difference is that you don't have to be super-fast in implementing new API:s.
The day a new Word version hits the street, people will be asking 'Why doesn't this work with OpenOffice?'.

Not as true for APIs. While we all like the latest and greatest, professional developers don't rewrite their programs to use the latest APIs 'just for the heck of it'. There has to be good reason. In fact, you want to avoid using the latest APIs as far as practical and economical, because otherwise, you're going to be shutting-out potential customers running the old OS version.
(There are plenty of brand-new apps released today which run on Win98, or Win95 even.)

Re:ReactOS?

[KJKHyperion]

I believe this is pretty much what happened with ReactOS (I'm not a ReactOS developer), so I wouldn't hold it against the current crowd too much.

ReactOS was born in dark, barbaric times. In 1997, your most realistic option to build PE executables with GCC on Windows was DJGPP, the port of GCC to a DOS extender, because MinGW didn't exist yet. I have had the dubious privilege of trying that - when I joined the project, DJGPP was no longer required for the main tree, but the boot loader still had to be built with it.

Also, the "don't design, code!" attitude worked in the beginning, to get anything done and avoid the mistake of the ReactOS father, FreeWin95, forever stuck in the design phase, but it backfired when real stuff began to run. It just doesn't work when cloning a system as firmly established as Windows - you can't always attack the problems by implementing function after function, many times you need a good overhead view. The short of it is that we have some embarassingly bad code in the kernel.

Re:ReactOS?

[gnarlin]

The short of it is that we have some embarassingly bad code in the kernel.

So that means you are really making some headway in duplicating windows properly ;-)

Re:ReactOS?

[k98sven]

Oh please. I didn't say "Windows is backwards compatible with every single app".

I said that Microsoft tries hard to keep backwards-compatibility.

But don't take my word for it, I don't work for them. Read Raymond Chen's various blog [asp.net] articles [asp.net] on the subject. He is one of the poor souls at MS who worked his butt off to try and keep backwards-compatibility.

Running????

[EmbeddedJanitor]

The USB isn't working yet, so it does not do much useful. At best this can be described as crawling....

Still, to get this far is a great effort.

Re:ReactOS?

[adiposity]

ReactOS can use the Wine implementations of everything but the low level APIs. Anything Wine implements in the win32 API that isn't tied directly to graphics can essentially be put into ReactOS.

-Dan

Re:ReactOS?

[AstroDrabb]

I'm impressed by what they've done so far, but not the seven years it took them to do it

Your kidding right? How many OS's have you developed yourself? None? I thought so. MS spent millions and took _many_ years to develop the NT OS, and _many_ more years to get it stable (NT 4 sucked for stability, 2k and 2003 still crash, though not as much as NT 4)

Here is a group of OSS developers working in their _spare_ time and you say your not impressed? Dude, your an idiot. This small group has done what MS did in _half_ the time. I am _very_ impressed.

I guess your expecting a small group of developers to duplicate what a bunch of developers and tons of cash did over _years_ funded by the _largest_ software company in the world?

Re:ReactOS?

[AstroDrabb]

you're the idiot

Very mature. If you lose an argument, just call names. I love it! Nothing like an immature baby trying to make a _poor_ point on /. and then calling names!

This is at best a hobby OS.

This is what was said of Linux. And now look at Linux on the server. More then 25% of the server market where MS _does not_ have the monopoly and where MS is struggling to get the server monopoly like they have on the desktop. Linux has _stopped_ MS from having a server monopoly. And at one time, Lin

Re:ReactOS?

[gordo3000]

besides a horrible lack of eloquence, there was one good point made in the grandparent, this work is probably too slow. What they need is to be up and running and better than NT 4 at least a couple years before MS cuts support, and I don't know if they can do that seeing what there pace was like up until now. The reason you need to be out before support is cut is simple, you need to make some name for yourself and an Alpha version just doesn't cut it. And after that, you need a chance to find some of tho

Re:ReactOS?

[AstroDrabb]

I agree with what your saying. However, this is _still_ just a bunch of geeks seeing if the _can_ do it. There is _no_ commercial effort here. If there was, then your points about "being behind" would be valid. As I see it, this is just a cool project that has potential to become something big. In their current state I doubt that will happen though. However, if as you said, development really picks up, then it could steam-roll into something big. But for now, it is just a cool geek project with poten

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:ReactOS?

[evilviper]

it's chasing a moving target, and it's way behind.

I must disagree there. NT4, despite lacking support for a few things, is still a modern OS, and highly usable. With the hundreds and hundreds of programs I use, the only one that I can recall not working on NT4 is MPC, and that's not a big problem.

Namely, NT4 is lacking in USB support (oddly enough, I find NT4's lack of USB support better than Windows 98's USB support), only has DirectX6, and doesn't support FAT32 without a 3rd-party add-on. Those limitations can all be fixed easily, making an NT4 clone every bit as useful as, say, XP.

In addition, they are in a very different place than WINE. If programming for ReactOS is vagely similar to recent Windows, and it has just a few thousand users, it would become a supported platform. There are probably less Windows 95 users out there than that, yet just about all modern Windows programs still run on 95. A small bit of extra effort to reach a few thousand more people is a great trade-off for most.

Personally, I'd love to see it improve, as Windows is a constant headache for me. Having an Open Source version would make it far easier to solve problems (like why those dammed ATI drivers won't work).

Re:ReactOS?

[simrook]

...There are probably less Windows 95 users out there than that, yet just about all modern Windows programs still run on 95....

This is not true, there are a ton of users still on 95. Schools, home computers, old computers passed down to kids, office computers, etc., they all operate on that and other damned operating systems. I have personally interacted with over 100 of them in the past year.

What makes ReactOS and its like necessary is that it is needed to "fill the gap". If a company knows that an op

Re:ReactOS?

[laughingcoyote]

Pardon me for rudeness...but are you stupid?

I would say that seven years worth of people duplicating a massive, multimillion dollar development project in their SPARE TIME is VERY impressive. If it works, more power to them, and even if it does not, I will certainly say it was an excellent attempt. Don't you remember when Linux was thought of as a "silly" OS?

I'm also not sure how NT4 is a "moving target", MS stopped development on that years ago. Please don't knock other people's work until you do something more worthwhile yourself. If you have, feel free to submit your own articles...

And finally, even if this particular project doesn't pan out, the project is opensource, and the implementations of the "base" API's and similar could easily be used to jumpstart an opensource reimplementation of a newer Windows version. So all in all...these people are doing something quite worthwhile, and I for one think they're due credit, not bullshit.

Re:ReactOS?

[IO ERROR]

how is NT 4.0 a "moving target?

The passage of time makes it a moving target. It's moving further and further into the software tarpits of the past, as more and more new software simply doesn't work on NT 4.0.

Re:ReactOS?

[IO ERROR]

if you aren't impressed that it has taken 7 years to get where they are, why don't you help out and do some coding?

Mainly because I'm too busy contributing to other [citadel.org] projects [wordpress.org] and trying to occasionally get out of the house once in a while and chase down that elusive thing I once heard about called women.

Besides, I want Windows to die a horrible death.

Soooo.....

[dnaboy]

They got an embedded windows box to run a windows clone...

This is all getting a little silly.

Re:Soooo.....

[Frogbert]

Isn't that what running KDE on an xbox is doing?

*Ducks and runs*

Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

My ISP won't talk to me after lodging a support call for helping gettting ADSL hooked up to a WinXP install running under VMWare under Linux on my XBox.

Runs on Bochs, Too (?on Linux on XBox?)

[billstewart]

In case it's not slow enough, it does run on Bochs, so you could probably running on Linux running on your X-Box, and that might get you USB support :-)

Cool, but...

[sH4RD]

I see this more as a proof of the power of ReactOS than the XBox. If it is a crippled PC it should be easy to port to (note: I have not tried, so I don't really know, but it should not be *that* hard), however porting an OS (specifically a similar-to-Windows one) so easily is a great sign for ReactOS. Makes me even more interested in what this could become (stable, embedded, Windows x86 EXE compatable, OSes anyone?).

Re:Cool, but...

[0racle]

Anything that runs on a P3 should run on the XBOX with little modification, remember the XBOX is a PC in a different case. Obviously this is a high level appraisal, since the article itself pointed out some driver incompatibilities, but you could run in to driver problems putting NT on the latest P4 as well. This more affirms two things people already knew, the people at ReactOS are still working, the XBOX is a PC.

But..

[blankinthefill]

will it run on the next generation of Xbox? It's going to be coming out sometime in the near future, and when it does, what will it matter if you can run this OS on the original xbox? This has plenty of potential, but will it be able to keep up?

Re:But..

[Rude Turnip]

Probably not, since Xbox 2 will be using a G5 proc...the next big craze will be getting OS X to run on Xbox 2.

Re:But..

[rice_web]

It'll be interesting to see if Mac OS X will run on Xbox 2.

Next question:

[Anonymous Coward]

When will they get ReactOS working on a PC?

I saw it myself

[bluGill]

Last January at Wine Conf I sat next to a reactOs developer, and he had reactOs running on his laptop. Sometimes he even kept it up for as much as 2 minutes! A record Windows 98 was unable to touch that day. (the joys of a broken power supply, everytime someone breathed he had to reboot)

Cheap

[tyman]

Now the cheapest personal computer running windows you can buy! Under $200 USD!

Re:Cheap

[dnaboy]

Actually, with a $100 AOL rebate* and a $100 MSN rebate**, this thing's free...

* Requires 8 year subscription to AOL at $23.95 per month

** Requires 12 year subscription to MSN at 21.95 per month

Re:Cheap

[antifoidulus]

You forgot:
***Also requires one sould, does not necessarily have to belong to purchaser.

Re:Cheap

[damiam]

A used PC at that price is no big deal. If it was new, whoever was selling it was losing money.

Reaction?

[methangel]

Yeah, I think ReactOS will make Microsoft "react" since it's a Windows clone. You are the weakest link, goodbye.

I love it how the geeks will uproar about MS taking measures to prevent their console from doing things that it shouldn't ... Of course if Apple circumvents (Real) ... it's their RIGHT!

big difference

[CoolMoDee]

There is a big difference though. MS is taking measures in the hardware portion, while Apple is taking measures in the software portion. Oh, and the iPod isn't a generic PC ala XBox.

Re:big difference

[jerw134]

Hardware vs. software makes no difference. Microsoft has to take action via hardware because the hacks for the Xbox involve hardware. The iPod only needs software to stop Real, because Real used software.

As for the Xbox being a generic PC, get real. It may use some of the same parts that a PC does, but it's far from a generic PC. If it were, it would be a whole hell of a lot easier to put PC software on it. Your sig fits you perfectly.

Re:Reaction?

[daniel_mcl]

Everyone says that "everyone supported Apple against Real," but as I recall it, nobody did. Other than the actual writeup on the Slashdot frontpage, every single comment that I saw was in support of Real and open standards.

Re:Reaction?

[jerw134]

Microsoft sells the Xbox at a loss, and expects to make up for that by selling games. If people aren't using their Xbox for games, or are pirating games instead of buying them, then Microsoft doesn't make back their money. That's why they care.

Re:Reaction?

[jerw134]

That's not the argument they're using. As a matter of fact, they aren't using any argument at all, because they're not suing anybody for modifying the Xbox.

Minesweeper

[believekevin]

Does Minesweeper support Xbox Live?

Re:Minesweeper

[Ingolfke]

We could rid the world of mines in meer minutes. Ee-gads Batman!

How about porting Windows?

[enosys]

So could you theoretically build a new HAL for XP and get it to work on an XBox? Or for that matter any weird x86 architecture? I suppose it may be hard to do this without using the source, but it's not impossible. It'd be an interesting project.

Re:How about porting Windows?

[derrith]

That might have worked back in NT days, however, I think that xp and 2000 have too many ties into the x86 architecture to allow a straight recompile to work. It was Microsoft's plan to get NT to run on _everything_ but when there was no interest in higher-grade workstation market for what was considered a consumer OS. SGI, Sun, and Alpha would have nothing to do with it, that was the realm of the Unixes.

Re:How about porting Windows?

[enosys]

Note that I'm not talking about recompiling. The XBox has an x86 CPU. Only the hardware-dependant parts would need to be changed. Hopefully that would just mean the HAL and drivers. You should then be able to run standard x86 Win32 software on it, just like on a PC.

Regarding recompiling the source, well, Microsoft certainly wouldn't do it. The source is out there but you can imagine how Microsoft would react if someone actually used it.

I think its definitely possible with Bart PE

[emkman]

Anyone who does computer repair (knows/should know) that Bart PE [nu2.nu] is a great windows based system that is built from the Windows XP Preinstall Environment and boots of CD. It runs most x86 programs, can use drivers with small modification, has a full registry hive and editor, has usb support, etc. However, to keep MS off his ass, Bart (the author) has limited the PE system to running 6 concurrent processes, so that it can't be used as a bootleg operating system. Not that I am suggesting or condoning it, but

Wouldn't be too difficult

[Sycraft-fu]

I don't even know that you'd really need the source, though maybe. The big thing about the Xbox is its unified memory architecture. Normally in a PC you have system RAM and then a totally seperate graphics RAM on the card. Not the case with the Xbox, they both can access the same unified 64MB. Not a problem for a single user, single process game console, not so good for a multiuser multitasking OS.

However I don't see any problem with writing drivers that do sharing of some kind. The integrated Intel graphi

React OS is...

[dioscaido]

... a great project for the developers, since they gain a hell of a lot of marketable experience building the OS; I'm sure it's quite fun too. But outside of that, it's a total waste of time. These people are very talented... drop this and join the Linux movement! They are re-inventing a wheel that Linux has already long since created. Take that drive and knowledge, and apply it towards building a windows emulation layer in Linux. Hell, join WINE and make their app commercially usable. Another alternative,

Re:React OS is...

[KJKHyperion]

Personally, I think most of the talent in Linux is wasted and should go into the underappreciated FreeBSD, but that could be just me. Then, Wine on Linux has limits. The Wine people know this, we know this, and we're trying to meet in the middle

Ironically, what the project lacks isn't generical operating system development skills that could be converted for another system (and does such a thing exist, anyway?), it's precisely the Windows-specific skills of a certain level, the familiarity with all the quir

Re:React OS is...

[dioscaido]

Thanks for your response!

it's precisely the Windows-specific skills of a certain level, the familiarity with all the quirks and hacks that turn every driver test on ReactOS into a deadlock-memory-corruption-bugcheck fest.

It's precisely these situations why I feel that your talents would be better spent working on top of an existing system. You guys need to strip away dealing directly the hardware layer and concentrate on getting the APIs implemented. The generic details underpinning OS development w

Re:React OS is...

[Markos]

The same could be said for Linux when it was in its infancy.

I commend the group working on ReactOS for the job they've done so far. Unlike others, they seem to be progessing nicely and arent stuck in the limbo between design and coding which so many projects seem to suffer from these days.

Theres a growing amount of users who have older hardware that struggles on 2k, XP and will struggle even more so with Longhorn. If ReactOS can provide a relatively stable Windows compatable environment, IMO they will make serious inroads.

Re:React OS is...

[Mr.Ned]

"it's a total waste of time. These people are very talented... drop this and join the Linux movement!"

The same could have been said to the early Linux developers about Minix and BSD.

Re:React OS is...

[Planesdragon]

You're kidding, right?

A usable, workable microkernal that snuggly runds Win32 by design, and you're suggesting they give up and poke and Linux some more?

And let's not forget that they have essentially "joined WINE" -- both projects apparantly share rather liberally between each other.

Re:React OS is...

[dioscaido]

Funny, many people said the same thing about Linux when it was starting out...

How many full fledged commercial open source operating systems were available when Linus started his project? More power to them for being so ambitious, but the fact is we have Linux, Darwin, *BSD, and soon Solaris, all filling the void of robust open source operating systems.

Their intended goal is to provide an alternative to Windows... well given all the other open OS's out there, spending endless hours trying to get t

Waiting for the XBOX to run Longhorn

[Ingolfke]

When XBOX runs Longhorn, then I'll think about switching.

running?

[focitrixilous P]

What the port is lacking is hardware support: especially, ReactOS has no USB support at the moment, so it basically just sits there being pretty, because mouse and keyboard won't work.

This must be some new meaning of 'running' an OS I was unaware of.

Anyone want a 'running' Mac SE 30 with ethernet card? Drop me an email.

What a horrible idea

[theantix]

Why would people spend their free time on a project to re-implement Windows? Their answer from their FAQ:

"Reliability, subsystems, filesystem drivers, services and the registry
are all good concepts which are implemented well in the NT kernel.
Not everything is perfect, but without access to the source code, we can't fix it, so we're choose to clone it."

WTF? I can understand WINE, if you have a legacy binary application that is windows-only. But poorly re-implementing windows? They will probably *never* get full compatibility with windows, so it will always be an inferior solution -- some "fix". I'm tempted to think these ReactOS people are clinically insane.

If a ReactOS dev is listening here, explain this to me: why don't you just create drop-in replacement .dlls for mswindows in cases where you think it's broken? This is something you'd have to write in the first place if you're going to reimplement the whole goddamn system, and seems a lot more productive. Alternatively, why not work productively to improve Linux or a BSD variant so it has the supposed "advantages" that you find in mswindows?

Re:What a horrible idea

[isolation]

"This is something you'd have to write in the first place if you're going to reimplement the whole goddamn system, and seems a lot more productive"

I have spent the past three years porting Wine dlls back to Windows via Mingw-GCC as drop in replacments for use in ReactOS.

Re:What a horrible idea

[absurdist]

If you can't see the value of a free, open source OS that will run the abundance of Windows executables, then I guess there's nothing more that needs to be said.

Re:What a horrible idea

[mmusson]

So by that logic you are also against Linux since there were free Unix implementations already available?

Re:What a horrible idea

[KJKHyperion]

Windows applications are not legacy. Linux is not a Windows replacement. BSD neither. We are totally, absolutely, positively sure: it's a Windows clone we want. We don't all secretly dream running Linux, and in fact several of us must fight the puke back when forced to deal with it (except KDE. I like KDE. I'd like it even more if it ran under Windows). Some have had their weird ideas phase, but you get over it soon.

We're tired of hearing about this every damn time, and I'm not speaking personally here. Even the Linux users among the developers are fed up with that argument. It doesn't make sense, ReactOS is real, is here, today: deal with it already, because at the point it is now, it's not just going to go away.

Your technical argument doesn't make sense, either. One of such DLLs you talk of is called "the Windows kernel", and it's a pretty big piece of software (a 2+ MB binary, for the record). And it has a private API to talk to the HAL. And one to the authentication service. And another to the event logging service. And yet another to the PNP service. Each of these services can be queried by applications with an undocumented RPC protocol. It's a recurring theme in Windows: most APIs have two sides with unknown grounds in the middle, and many DLLs expose multiple client sides. Picture the graph in your mind. No, more arcs. No, way more than that. Yes, you're getting closer, and yes, that arc does go twice the same way. Etc.

One has to wonder why couldn't Wine just provide a loader for Windows executables and let the (air quotes) D-L-L-s (air quotes) do the rest, if your statement had even the slightest trace of truth in it.

Please don't trivialize our work, which is something you apparently don't fathom in the slightest

Re:What a horrible idea

[theantix]

Sadly, I find your work is in fact, quite trivial. You are seeking to re-implement an operating system that is already out of date and will continue to age as Microsoft powers through the upgrade treadmill. I'm sure your work is indeed very difficult, and that the developers are very talented -- but that doesn't change the fact that your work is perhaps the very essence of trivial. **You are building something that has already been built.** To me it seems like you are doing the equivilent of building a

Re:What a horrible idea

[ebooher]

theantix wrote:

but that doesn't change the fact that your work is perhaps the very essence of trivial. **You are building something that has already been built.** To me it seems like you are doing the equivilent of building a new version of the leaning tower of Pisa that isn't leaning

Well, I have to step in here and fire up my rant machine. Everyone else is having a row, I want one too. So here goes: It's time for my Bullshit Theory of the Day!

You say that the team is building something that has already been built. You claim that they are attempting to reinvent a wheel that is no longer useful. I must call bullshit on this whole diatribe. This isn't the wheel. I know how to build a wheel. More importantly I'm pretty sure you know how to build a wheel. My little brother knows how to build a wheel. With so many people building wheels we have to stop using this analogy for open source implementation.

I say this is building a Pyramid. Do you know how to build a Pyramid? I know I sure don't, and they are one of the wonders of the world. The Great Pyramid was built within the lifetime of one man. But the secrets that allowed them to build the Pyramid died with the master builder. (Oh, and let's nip this before it starts. The workers were not slaves. They were freemen as evidenced by "signatures" around the pyramid structure.)

The secrets of the source of the Win32 API are held by one man. He (and his team) know exactly how to push this block on that level and move it hundreds of feet into the air to start the next level of the Pyramid being built. I don't know how to move that block, and the ReactOS guys don't know how to move that block either. But they are trying to learn.

For hundreds of years man has attempted to relearn knowledge that was lost through the sands of time. Hundreds have tried to decode exactly how this block moved to be placed on top of that one after being rough cut by hand from a quarry at the base. Is this worthless? Is the knowledge of how a structure was designed, fabricated, built, and weathered as such that it has lasted hundreds of years useless information?

Rome had aquaducts, plumbing, roads. All structures designed in the minds of men and built on the backs of men. But which required decades, if not centuries, to recreate elsewhere in the world after the fall of the Roman Empire. Those structures too are still standing today.

My house, however, built only a year and a half ago, is not. Creaky boards, swaying walls, truly horrifing things happening. I, Sir, want an aquaduct. I want a Pyramid, a Castle. I want a home I know is going to stand for centuries. Not a measely couple of decades.

This is no different than what is happening here. There is no amount of information which is not knowledge. There is no knowledge that is not power. Power is what mankind strives to achieve. The very fact that the secrets of how to move those blocks into the air to get Word to run belong to so few is why so many are working so hard to recreate the information needed to perform these tasks.

It's the *why*. Why does x+y=z? Why does yellow + blue = green? Why is the sky blue? This isn't about recreating an OS that is dying if not dead just so they can have a perfectly dead OS. This is not about wanting to run an old copy of Word 2.0 they happen to have lying around. This is about the why of the power.

It's also the exact same why that created Linux.

Why is it that whenever someone with so little resources accomplishes so much there are always millions waiting to tear them down and tell them to go to hell? You don't want to install ReactOS to run Word 2.0 because you've already pirated XP SP2? Fine! Don't download it, don't install it, don't run it. But as a member of mankind at least understand that we will always rebuild what has already been built. Always.

Cars, Trains, Buildings, Waterways, Boats, Spaceships, and yes even the leaning t

ReactOS would impress me more ...

[elronxenu]

... if their website ran on Windows, rather than Unix ...

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 05:18:23 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.29 (Unix) PHP/4.3.3

it's a joke, laugh ...

Not what you say it is

[blackmonday]

The xbox is not a crippled PC, it's a game console, and a damn good one at that. I'm not a Microsoft fanboy (I'm an OS X fanboy), but the xbox is the best console I've ever had, and I've had every major one for the last 10 years, including the Dreamcast. The hard drive kicks ass, mine is modded for the xbox media center, the games look great and optical out to dolby digital was easy with the advanced pack.

Que?

[blackmonday]

If the Xbox is a broken PC, then ReactOS is a broken Video Game.

Oh Great...

[durtbag]

Once again the mod community pulls through in their quest to make a Microsoft product less stable.

Just kidding, good work all.

New joypad soon

[zenst]

I look forward to the modded controllers with CTRL/ALT/DEL. Kick, block shoot and reboot.

I'd like to see Plan-9 for XBOX, now that would be some funky fun to be had.

ReactOS rules!

[808140]

Ok, first off: I hate Windows. I hate its stupid UI, its ugly fonts, and the company that produces it. I jumped ship and switched to Linux before Windows 95 came out. I mean, I hate it, and I would never run an OS that even superficially resembles it. That includes ReactOS.

But.

ReactOS is a perfect example of the OSS spirit. Lots of folks here have been making comments along the lines of "You ought to be working on Linux" or "You ought to be working on WINE" or the like. It surprises me that a site as devoted to the OSS concept would parrot such ridiculous drivel.

It's possible that Linux-based OSS has gotten so popular that we now have lusers of our own. You know what makes a hacker? Someone who codes because he (or she) loves to code. Loves, you know? Not to be productive. Not because they want to change the world. These things may be true of some hackers, but these things alone do not a hacker make.

There was a time when people here respected this. When the majority of Slashdotters were active hackers themselves. Don't be fooled by my high UID -- I remember those times. We wrote software because we loved to. I rather suspect that lots of folks would have told Tim Berners Lee that the web was a dead end idea, or that at the very least it would never be useful. Lots of people have belittled Linux over the years using the same flaccid arguments.

You know GNU? The group that started it all? What was their goal? To produce a free UNIX. Yes, a clone. You understand this? In those days, there was no Windows (1984). A hacker at MIT decided that he wasn't going to put up with this proprietary software bullshit and he said, "I'm going to make a free UNIX clone." And people laughed at him. They said it would never happen. But it did, didn't it? I'm typing this from my Debian GNU/Linux workstation. People like Stallman and Torvalds made that happen. All they wanted was a free OS to replace the one they used at school/work and loved.

Now, most of us (myself included) dislike Windows. We dislike Microsoft (but then, I'm sure RMS disliked IBM, Sun and HP, too). But aren't you missing the point? Some guys like Windows. They like its interface. But like RMS, they demand freedom. Freedom, you know? In this world of the business-friendly "Open Source" movement, people seem to have forgotten this concept, the concept that motivated hackers to create a free UNIX in the first place. It's easy to forget about uncomfortable, uncomprimising ideals like Freedom. But people like Richard Stallman and Theo De Raadt -- and even Linus -- for all their failings -- are motivated by this ideal.

ReactOS is simply another GNU project. But this time, the hackers that have undertaken it aren't fond of the UNIX way. So what? They like an OS I don't like, but so the fuck what? Look at what they're doing. They're creating a free replacement. Free. As in Freedom, you know. So people everywhere that like Windows can use Free Software.

As difficult as it is for me, a unix-geek, to believe, some people don't like UNIX. Some people prefer VMS (I actually quite like VMS and wouldn't mind a FreeVMS). Some people prefer Windows. BeOS. Whatever.

People seem to think that if these guys weren't working on ReactOS, they'd be working on Linux, or BSD, or the HURD, or whatever pet project you have. But that's not how it works. Developers scratch and itch, you know? Because they're coding for love, because they like to code. Not for you. Not so that you can sit on your fat ass and benefit from their work. They do it for themselves, in an ultimately selfish way, to scratch their personal itches. And if you benefit, that's great.

Lusers are people that think FS devs are out to serve them. But guess what: just because you discovered Linux last week and found out that you can run on your machine and get work done doesn't mean that its a "product" that is being "produced" for you to consume. It's a labour of love, made by

Yes, but

[RAMMS+EIN]

Will it run XLiveCD [slashdot.org]?

Seriously, ReactOS has been making some amazing progress lately. I don't know why anyone would want to use it (other than geek factor), but it shows that even Microsoft's crown jewels aren't safe from assimilation.

Google doesn't cache images!

[Shimmer]

The cached HTML doc refers to the image on the original server. You're not helping.

Mirrordot.org cached image

[gwydion04]

this will help their steaming, smoking server... I believe mirrordot has a local copy of the image.

Screenshot (pops) [mirrordot.org]

Re:USB Driver?

[Ingolfke]

Anyone know what chip houses the USB controller on the XBox?

I think it's the one on the right.

Re:USB Driver?

[hattig]

USB controller is in the nVidia southbridge, then there is a 4 port USB hub chip connecting to the USB ports that are gameports.