The ReactOS Project Suddenly Shows Signs of Life (reactos.org) 38
jeditobe writes: ReactOS is an open-source operating system that aims to replicate Microsoft Windows, and can already run many Windows applications without modification. ReactOS published a new (infrequent) newsletter to outline recent work. It reveals that progress has slowed down recently, but the project definitely isn't dead. The newsletter also acknowledges the team hasn't put out a new version since the end of 2021, although progress continues. Due to shifting focuses to quality releases, they are no longer on a quarterly release cadence. The date of the next release is not set yet, but according to a huge list of already-implemented changes they aim for it to be a substantial update.
The last update to ReactOS was version 0.4.14, released on December 2021. While developers were previously committed to releasing updates every three months, that has since changed and updates will now be focused on quality rather than quantity. For the ReactOS team to be confident enough to release something, it needs to have less than 20 known unfixed regressions while adding new features and functions.
Behind the scenes, it looks like things are spinning well. The team specifically highlighted its progress on the x64 port of ReactOS, which went from being a non-booting mess to an operating system that boots up and mostly works. It doesn't run any x86 programs since it doesn't have WoW64, but it's going well.
The last update to ReactOS was version 0.4.14, released on December 2021. While developers were previously committed to releasing updates every three months, that has since changed and updates will now be focused on quality rather than quantity. For the ReactOS team to be confident enough to release something, it needs to have less than 20 known unfixed regressions while adding new features and functions.
Behind the scenes, it looks like things are spinning well. The team specifically highlighted its progress on the x64 port of ReactOS, which went from being a non-booting mess to an operating system that boots up and mostly works. It doesn't run any x86 programs since it doesn't have WoW64, but it's going well.
Russian Project (Score:3, Interesting)
Just be aware that this project is largely built by Russian developers, which in and of itself may not make the project risky, however, I think it is fair to make this clear in-case anyone has any concerns about this. Is the project trustworthy? What are the odds of any back-dooring or Russian government influence in the project?
I don't want to be a fearmonger, and it's quite possible that the project is safe, but in these times it's worth asking these questions.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Just be aware that this project is largely built by Russian developers, which in and of itself may not make the project risky, however, I think it is fair to make this clear in-case anyone has any concerns about this. Is the project trustworthy? What are the odds of any back-dooring or Russian government influence in the project?
I don't want to be a fearmonger, and it's quite possible that the project is safe, but in these times it's worth asking these questions.
I'm pretty sure no one uses it.
No business runs line-of-business apps on "fake Windows", they'll just use real Windows or pirated-license-key Windows.
"Serious gamers" won't use it because the framerate is 2 FPS slower than real Windows and they can *totally tell* with their own eyes that it's slower.
So what's the venn diagram of "people who hate Microsoft so much they won't use Windows" and "people who hate Microsoft so much they want to have a Windows-like GUI" and "people who don't game" and "people w
Re:Russian Project (Score:4, Informative)
Agreed; the risk is low given this project is far from usable in practical cases (it boots and runs firefox and libreoffice, but its stated goal, which is to run proprietary software and drivers, is really far away) and even when it is usable, it is unlikely to be used by high value targets that the Russian government might be interested to infiltrate.
Also, their goal is to run classical windows (NT, XP), it's not even designed to replace recent versions of Windows. It is like FreeDOS, to run legacy software (that don't run on recent Windows). It's nit for people who don't like Microsoft, it's for people who don't like Wine.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
>Also, their goal is to run classical windows (NT, XP), it's not even designed to replace recent versions of Windows. It is like FreeDOS, to run legacy software (that don't run on recent Windows). It's nit for people who don't like Microsoft, it's for people who don't like Wine.
Scope changed a while ago. Target for software support is NT6+ (Vista, 8, 10 at the time of announcement of official policy shift in 2018).
They're chasing lower, but still moving targets, not fixed in time.
And the baseline target
Re: (Score:2)
It's "for" the things it can do now. Having their goals limited in scope is good, but obviously expand once they reach certain milestones. I actually do like Wine but ReactOS is basically just WINE without the Linux kernel. It removes a lot of unnecessary abstraction layers for the use case. Because of that, there's a lot more work to do. You can't just translate syscalls to Linux equivalents, you have to actually implement them. It's not quite like the difference between DOSBox and FreeDOS. But a lo
Re: (Score:3)
You mean it could be backdoored like this? https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
Re: (Score:1)
The US doesn't usually try to extort westerners. The Russian's very much do.
Re: (Score:3)
The link has nothing to do with ReactOS. Not that you implied it, but I wanted to be clear to other readers.
Re: (Score:2)
this project is largely built by Russian developers
Or this is a misinformation campaign against ReactOS.
Or an evil disinformation campaign!
Or wait... maybe they just want us to think this is a disinformation campaign and actually it isn't!
Maybe it isn't even Russian developers at all and they want us to support it because by saying it is, we'll know that it isn't!
Re: (Score:3)
Just be aware that this project is largely built by Russian developers, which in and of itself may not make the project risky, however, I think it is fair to make this clear in-case anyone has any concerns about this.
ReactOS began more than twenty years ago as a labour of love and it's open-source to boot. What is there to worry about?
Is the project trustworthy? What are the odds of any back-dooring or Russian government influence in the project?
Trust but verify as the saying goes, but back in the Real World no-one is using ReactOS for anything important.
I don't want to be a fearmonger, and it's quite possible that the project is safe, but in these times it's worth asking these questions.
You may not want to be, but you are. In a way ReactOS is not so different from Linux.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree that ReactOS is an unlikely attack vector, but two thoughts:
As much as us fans would like to believe otherwise, being open source does not actually mean something isn't backdoored or do other malicious things. That would require in-depth code auditing likely requiring more hours than were spent developing the thing. The number of possibly intentional backdoors discovered in major Linux and cryptography packages over the years should be plenty of evidence of that. Especially the ones that were found
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Putix?
Re: (Score:1)
Just be aware that Microsoft is largely built by American developers, which in and of itself my not make the project risky, however, I think it is fair to make this clear in-case anyone has any concerns about it.
Well, as European, I do have concerns (proven concerns) for American and Russian software.
I won't stop publicly saying that you can bomb yourself through the other side of the ROUND Earth and avoid flying ever again over Europe.
Please, free us from your belligerence and stupidity.
Re: (Score:1)
The only ones chaining you to our belligerence and stupidity are you. Feel free to stop using products from either of our empires, maybe it would be enough of a wakeup call to our governments to give us a chance to bring back some democracy (I doubt it, but we can dream)
I suppose Linux at least has its roots in Europe - though at this point I suspect the US and Russia are responsible for a larger portion of its total code base.
Re:Russian Project (Score:4, Informative)
Just be aware that this project is largely built by Russian developers, which in and of itself may not make the project risky, however, I think it is fair to make this clear in-case anyone has any concerns about this. Is the project trustworthy? What are the odds of any back-dooring or Russian government influence in the project?
I don't want to be a fearmonger, and it's quite possible that the project is safe, but in these times it's worth asking these questions.
This statement is more like speculative and slanderous
While several Russian developers took part in the project, their total number cannot be called significant against the background of a total number of developers of 250 people.
Check the names:
https://github.com/reactos/rea... [github.com]
https://reactos.org/wiki/Peopl... [reactos.org]
The project, despite the wide publicity, did not receive any support from the Russian government, which prefers to develop its own forks of Linux distributions
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
For many years now, the project has been managed exclusively by a German foundation, whose board includes mostly people with European citizenship. The Russian body was disolved in 2015.
https://ev.reactos.org/index_e... [reactos.org]
https://reactos.org/wiki/React... [reactos.org]
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Which is the direct corollary to Microsoft being based in the US. Both sides want a version without spy software by the other.
ReactOS isn't dead! (Score:2)
It's merely pinin' for the fjords...
Re:ReactOS isn't dead! (Score:4, Informative)
ReactOS has very few use cases left. Good virtualization has largely replaced it.
Re: (Score:2)
I think virtualization doesn't do anything to replace it. It will likely make it more useful.
I think it will eventually be the better target for vintage games vs. Wine or Proton (and neither of those are virtualization either). Right now, a VM is largely a separate machine with a separate screen, but there's nothing keeping virtualization from having a separate kernel and userspace but interacting on the same desktop as a host app. We just aren't there yet.
I can also imagine there being older abandoned
RedoxOS? (Score:2)
No? For a second I almost cared.
why (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Every bit is needed for compatibility. It's neat how you can browse it in file explorer.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
ReactOS and WINE are complementary projects. WINE implements the Win32 API, while ReactOS implements the NTOSKRNL and WIN32S (Win32 Subsystem) and other bits of the Windows OS below the application layer.
Basically the goal is to have an OS kernel that can load Windows drivers and present them to the user space. So if you have say, a driver for a device that only runs on say, Windows XP, ReactOS can run that device as an alternative because XP is deprecated.
The userspace side can be handled by WINE implement
Re: (Score:2)
WINE and ReactOS go hand in hand on the reverse engineering side. WINE translates the syscalls but ReactOS actually implements them rather than handing them over to a Linux kernel.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Whew, that was close.
In due time (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Even if it is Russian (Score:2)
We need something to keep running our Windows programs becuase the direction Microsoft is taking it is worrying. 11 will probably be the last one I use.
ReactOS is not dead! (Score:2)
ReactOS is not dead! It just smells that way.