ReactOS Celebrates 30 Years (phoronix.com) 27
jeditobe writes: ReactOS, the open-source operating system aimed at binary compatibility with Windows, recently marked its 30th anniversary. Launched in 1996, ReactOS has focused on providing a free alternative to Windows, with compatibility for Windows applications and drivers. Though still in development, it has made significant progress in recent years, including improvements to USB support, better hardware compatibility, and enhanced performance with the release of version 0.4.15. The upcoming 0.4.16 release is set to introduce UEFI support, KMDF and WDDM graphics driver support, marking a major step forward in ReactOS's development.
Fr1st P0sT! (Score:2)
I don't think I've ever seen an article sit around this long with no comments.
Re:Fr1st P0sT! (Score:5, Funny)
Well, if you're into ReactOS, I guess it's proof that you're not in a rush for anything.
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From the home page:
Page last updated: Nov 26, 2001.
FVWM95 is still relevant as of this century!
It's a shame it's so undeveloped (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's a shame it's so undeveloped (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:It's a shame it's so undeveloped (Score:5, Informative)
The latest releases of WINE and Proton are doing amazing things. Then looking at FEX-Emu running native 32 & 64-bit Windows software on an ARM Linux PC and having the performance to play modern games.
That said. React could serve some purpose in terms of compatibility. There are still XP installs in many manufacturing and medical research faculties due to multi million dollar devices that don't have drivers for anything new.
If React could run on modern hardware, while still supporting these older devices, it could be fill a niche. Though VMs can handle that, but the issue is you're still running XP. Maybe just React in a VM ends up being the go to.
Re: It's a shame it's so undeveloped (Score:5, Insightful)
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Exactly, running in a VM to support specialized hardware that can't be ran under a supported version of Windows. React is at least supported versus needing to segment XP and manually transport files over physical media.
General desktop usage, or trying to run an application have so many other options. It doesn't make sense sticking with React for those use cases.
iTunes uses a driver to sync to an iPhone (Score:4)
If ReactOS were to become mature enough to run iTunes well, that'd let you use it to sync music onto an iPhone through a USB cable. The iTunes application uses the Apple Mobile Device Service driver to sync music to the library used by the iPhone's included Music app (formerly called iPod).
Linux users can use libimobiledevice to put files on an iPhone but not edit the library. Players such as VLC can play loose files but not music rented on an Apple Music subscription. The Music app can play the library and rented music but not loose files. So if you want to combine Bandcamp purchases with rented songs in a playlist, you're out of luck unless you have a recent Mac or Windows PC to update the library.
Re:It's a shame it's so undeveloped (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is ReactOS is a clone of XP more or less. XP is literally so far in the rear view mirror that adults graduating college and entering the workforce were still breast feeding and in a way nobody would get judgmental about when it was released. Its been so long since older workers used it for the most part that any system vaguely similar will be just as familiar or thought about the other way have no more or less learning curve. Slap XFCE or really even KDE on some Linux distro and it will be as usable for day to day desktop work with a prescribed set of applications as React would be. For the personal / home user Ubuntu or something like it is probably no better or worse in terms of 'gotcha' and 'how do I' for someone coming from Windows 10/11 that wasn't a 'power user'.
So this leaves us with compatibility...At the application layer its not better than WINE on a Linux based OS because mostly it is WINE. At the kernel/driver layer at one point there was an argument for a NT clone, but now contemporary drivers don't target NT5 and Reacts support for modern drivers is lacking, all and all hardware support on a Linux based OS is probably better. For older hardware you are probably still better off with a light weight Linux distro of some kind at least that way you'll enjoy some commercial support like Google making Widevine availible etc.
If it is about keeping your cica 1995 punch press running on the shop floor, well just pirate Win98, Microsoft probably really does not care or you can find license on ebay if that is really your IT/Legal departments issue. Reality is you are going to want to fence off ReactOS anyway with firewalls, jumpbox etc because if its that valuable an important to your operation you don't want the ransomware getting to it, and most of the security considerations should not rely on the platform integrity of the control box. Sure it'd nice if it was something with fewer known exploits than Win98 but ultimately not really the security model there.
In short I think the real market for a Open Source Windows clone is probably pretty small, precisely because it is already largely filled. To the degree a market maker like another Valve might want one, well they do what Valve did and extend/customize/invest in getting WINE and few kernel patches for Linux or *BSD to make it do what they need.
Re:It's a shame it's so undeveloped (Score:4, Interesting)
Unless Microsoft decides to change course, people who want an NT based OS don't have many other options. React OS is about as close to a "clean supported Windows" as you're going to get for the foreseeable future. Granted that "support" is abysmal, but it's there, and it doesn't require you to learn POSIX shells or deal with the other American devil: Apple. From a corporate workflow perspective, XP is good enough.
Given the recent push to get away from American IT, ReactOS might be a better choice if you're trying to avoid America but still want a "Windows" that "works". A nation state could choose to support the project financially simply as a "fuck you" to the US / Microsoft, which would help a bit. (ReactOS already hires people to work on the project, and it seems to have a non-US bank registry if their donation page is any indication.)
The only real hurdle would be getting it to work on some old abundant office hardware, or some cheap set top client. But if you've got the money and skill to do it, it could end Microsoft's OS in the corporate world entirely with enough effort.
you don't want the ransomware getting to it,
Most critical systems like that should already be air gapped / firewalled. Regardless of which OS they're running. Hell you should also have an active monitoring system on it too looking for unusual behavior.
just pirate Win98
Microsoft probably really does not care
Uh, NO. Microsoft doesn't really care about consumers pirating Win98, because they have nothing worth the time and effort of a lawsuit to get. Companies running multi-billion-dollar industrial equipment? You bet your ass they'll be paying you a visit if they find out, and they'll take you to the cleaners for it.
Reacts support for modern drivers is lacking
They said the same about Linux. Hell, they still do. Nothing's impossible. Unlike Linux which has an unstable by design API, any support added to ReactOS for later Windows driver models would be guaranteed to function for the long haul. That support is one of the stated goals of ReactOS.
Getting hardware support for ReactOS is less work than Linux because once the driver model is implemented, ReactOS gets instant support for any hardware with Windows drivers using it. Unlike Linux which needs to reverse engineer the hardware if the manufacturer won't play ball, and regardless of how a Linux driver is made, constant updates to keep the driver working. (Or it gets deleted from the kernel tree, and you get to keep all of the pieces.)
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I would think the market is rather large for one simple reason: People hate change.
React or any other windows clone that isn't nearly in lock step with the UI and feature sets of Win10/11 is change. That was my point.
Given the recent push to get away from American IT, ReactOS might be a better choice if you're trying to avoid America but still want a "Windows" that "works". A nation state could choose to support the project financially simply as a "fuck you" to the US / Microsoft, which would help a bit. (ReactOS already hires people to work on the project, and it seems to have a non-US bank registry if their donation page is any indication.)
I think they even demo'ed it for Putin once. Even the budget constrained Russian state could afford to give React all the patronage they require if that was really the issue and they haven't. They have had plenty enough reason to want to be off US IT platforms going back to at least 2014.
Uh, NO. Microsoft doesn't really care about consumers pirating Win98, because they have nothing worth the time and effort of a lawsuit to get. Companies running multi-billion-dollar industrial equipment? You bet your ass they'll be paying you a visit if they find out, and they'll take you to the cleaners for it.
Microsoft isn't going to go after companies unless maybe you are a fourtune 500 or someth
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I do think that the original goal of making ReactOS an XP clone was worthwhile. However, when Windows 8 came out, they should have decided to make Windows 7 their final goalpost. There is no reason they needed to take it further to Windows 8 or later. Most people to this day think that Windows 7 was the best version of Windows that was there, and hated Windows 8, somewhat tolerated Windows 10 and now are back to hating Windows 11
ReactOS could have planted its flag there, started w/ making a drop-in for
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It has to feel bad to spend decades of work to fork something long dead and worthless... even at the time it was hardly worth using if you had a real choice and most people didn't have a choice which is why that monopoly continued to this day. Finally people are starting to leave after being screwed with for so long. WTF?
I'd only run a VM of old windows out of necessity for an app that just worked (despite windows.) The reason we have WINE is to get apps we need working in a real OS that we actually can c
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Absolutely. Also, I have seen screenshots of ReactOS, and it looks like that of Windows NT, when it had the Start button. Which is fine, but I do wish that they had made Windows 7 their final compatibility target, and done a bunch of things:
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Frankly, Linux + Wine probably better supports modern Windows applications than ReactOS. A more faithful clone of the Windows design down to the kernel is probably not actually that much advantaged...
Hobby software (Score:3)
I mean, yeah, there are some potentially interesting use cases if it were to be developed more significantly, but it remains a hobby-level project at best. Good on the developers for apparently managing to get paid for working on it, I suppose.
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Were they? Had they been paid, this project would have been much further along
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You made me check GNU HURD and they're currently at release 0.9 !
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The Dev Gods. (Score:2)
ReactOS Celebrates 30 Years..Though still in development..
Gotta hand it to ReactOS.
They made Permanent Beta Mode cool before Google ever did.
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In another 30 years it will reach GA (Score:2)
But the good news is,. it will work like Windows XP, which seems like the favorite version of Windows around here!