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."

Comments

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?

[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?

[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, Linux was just called a "hobby" OS, and now it _exceeds_ all the MS server OS's for many server tasks and is preferred for most high-end tasks.

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!

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: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?

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.

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

[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 new version of the leaning tower of Pisa that isn't leaning -- probably a lot of effort, but not really that important compared to building something new and purposeful.

However, you get the gist of my message wrong when you tell me to deal with it because it's here. I really don't care about ReactOS, so I really don't have to "deal with it". It boggles the mind that you talented people are spending your free time on this instead of something productive and useful, but I can say that about an incredibly wide variety of people. And hell, you're way above the people in the alley shooting up -- nowhere near the bottom of the crazy pile. You are free to do whatever you want, and I am free to be baffled as to why you'd want to.

As to the technical argument, I don't think you quite understand me. Wine allows people to run Windows applications on Linux, which I can see the value of. But ReactOS allows people to run a broken and inferior clone of an old version of Windows. Since I don't know what you find broken about it (your FAQ doesn't specificy) I don't know what components are the biggest concern to you. My suggestion is that if you have the skills required to re-implement the entire complex api/kernel system, you probably also have the ability to drop in replacements for windows components you find broken.

One of the BeOS clones is doing exactly this, and their target is to re-implement them one by one until they get the whole system reinvented. This would allow your team to fix the problems you have with Windows NT/2K while not having a completely broken and useless OS. I'm not saying this would be easy, just that it would actually make sense compared with the path this project seems to be taking. But hey, I can't and won't even try telling you what to do with your free time.

Why does everyone hate this

[Anonymous Coward]

ok, ok, i read their posts about how this is a "waste of time" and the developers should "be spending it on linux." I dont know about you guys but I dont do everything for the advancement of mankind. So to counter the complaint about these developers wasting their time when they could be working on linux, I make the argument that this project looks just plain fun. I am finishing up my os programming class in college and got really excited for this project. It looks fun and challenging and who wouldnt want to run their own windows box free from the conglomerate that everyone here seems to hate. This site is news for nerds, stuff that matters. Well im a nerd and i think this is awesome and really matters. Sure this is probably a troll but come on guys and lighten up, these guys are having fun with what they do and are doing a good job at it.