ReactOS Reviewed in Depth

An anonymous reader writes "NeoSmart Technologies has an incredibly detailed (6 long pages!) and mostly positive review of ReactOS, The Open Source Windows. The review covers the goals of ReactOS and how well it meets them, system stability, application compatibility, kernel design and development, and the networking stack. It discusses the use of WINE in ReactOS' kernel and the effect on both its compatibility and development times." For the visual learners, here are some screenshots."

Comments

Picture gallery toasted

[flynns]

Yep, it's a Windows clone alright. Slashdotted before a single comment ;)

Warning: mysql_pconnect(): Link to server lost, unable to reconnect in /home/neosmart/public_html/gallery/lib/adodb/drive rs/adodb-mysql.inc.php on line 373
Error
Error (ERROR_STORAGE_FAILURE) :

        * in modules/core/classes/GalleryStorage.class at line 236 (gallerycoreapi::error)
        * in modules/core/classes/GalleryStorage.class at line 465 (mysqlstorage::_getconnection)
        * in modules/core/classes/Gallery.class at line 239 (mysqlstorage::search)
        * in modules/core/classes/helpers/GalleryFileSystemEnti tyHelper_simple.class at line 110 (gallery::search)
        * in modules/core/classes/GalleryCoreApi.class at line 1968 (galleryfilesystementityhelper_simple::fetchchildi dbypathcomponent)
        * in modules/core/classes/helpers/GalleryFileSystemEnti tyHelper_simple.class at line 62 (gallerycoreapi::fetchchildidbypathcomponent)
        * in modules/core/classes/GalleryCoreApi.class at line 1911 (galleryfilesystementityhelper_simple::fetchitemid bypath)
        * in modules/rewrite/classes/RewriteSimpleHelper.class at line 48 (gallerycoreapi::fetchitemidbypath)
        * in ??? at line 0 (rewritesimplehelper::loaditemidfrompath)
        * in modules/rewrite/classes/RewriteUrlGenerator.class at line 96
        * in modules/rewrite/classes/parsers/modrewrite/ModRewr iteUrlGenerator.class at line 48 (modrewriteurlgenerator::_onload)
        * in init.inc at line 111 (modrewriteurlgenerator::init)
        * in main.php at line 71

Re:Picture gallery toasted

[bheer]

You were probably joking, but that server's running some flavor of Unix (Netcraft doesn't say what) and MySQL/PHP, but it's still somehow Windows' fault? Slashdot logic indeed. In the meantime, MySpace became the most-visited site on the 'net running Windows servers.

Re:Picture gallery toasted

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever used Myspace? Every other page generates an error. It's slow as hell....Windows is amazing!

Re:Picture gallery toasted

[Macthorpe]

You obviously have used Myspace, which disqualifies you from rational argument.

Re:Picture gallery toasted

[Anonymous Coward]

From www.reactos.org HTTP/1.1 headers:

Server: Apache/2.0.54 (Fedora)
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.0.4

Out of date Apache and PHP (both with known security exploits).

Also running on that unstable and unreliable abomination of an OS known as Fedora.

Re:Picture gallery toasted

[flynns]

You're right; I just couldn't pass up the joke :)

Re:Picture gallery toasted

[Anonymous Coward]

isn't it always slashdotted before the first comment? how would people comment before its on slashdot?

Re:Picture gallery toasted

[andrewman327]

Agreed. The vin diagram of /. users and Myspace users has a union of troll.

Re:Picture gallery toasted

[Anonymous Coward]

too bad the pathing suggests a *nix based OS

Re:Picture gallery toasted

[flynns]

Joke.

What is there to ReactTo?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am ReactIng right now to the fact the servers are down...

Too late?

[gasmonso]

While I find the idea of an open source Windows facinating... is it too late? With Vista coming out soon, many new applications written will only run on Vista because of the new architecture, driver model, etc. ReactOS seems like it will be stuck in the past catering to XP applications/games while Vista goes forward. Since most people already have XP who would use this? Or will ReactOS emulate Vista? No, this is not a troll post, but a legit question.

http://religiousfreaks.com/

Re:Too late?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

While I find the idea of an open source Windows facinating... is it too late?

At the very least, it will be useful for corporations using current win32 stuff who don't want to migrate to vista when XP eols.

(similar to samba really only fulling supporting domains close to NTs eol)

Re:Too late?

[AKAImBatman]

Look on the bright side, at least ReactOS went somewhere. It may be kind of late in starting, but it was fairly well managed from the beginning. Contrast that with the FreeDows project, the secretive brainchild of a whiz-kid who bit off more than he could chew. The end result? Absolutely nothing.

At least with ReactOS, it's likely to live on in some form as it's already useful to many people. (Fringe cases or not.) Even if it stays behind the Windows curve, it will be one more product nipping at Microsoft's heels.

Re:Too late?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

corperations? So when XP no longer is supported a coperation will switch to a system thats not 1005 compatabile or very tested and also not supported? Somehow I doubt that.

Re:Too late?

[TractorBarry]

If I can run Logic Audio, the Audiowerk 8 driver and Sound Forge on top of it then I'm definitely interested.

My primary use for my Windows box is for running Windows audio/MIDI related tools and I'd love to have an open source platform to run them on. Especially if I could strip the OS to the bare minimum that's required to run the hardware & software I want to use (i.e. complete control of which services are running, what's started at boot time etc)

As support for the Windows version of Logic Audio was discontinued I'm even keener to have an open source OS that can run these apps. I'm running Windows 2000 and will not be upgrading to XP/Vista etc. under any circumstances (too many friends/colleagues with too many problems). My current combintaion of Windows 2000 and Logic etc. allows me to get on with making music and I'm happy to stay this way but will have to face the fact that eventually support for Windows 2000 will cease.

And no I'm not going to switch to a MAC. Emagic pulled the rug from under me once (just after I'd paid for an upgrade) so I Learnnt my lesson the hard way. The only way I will ever buy commercial software again is it it comes with the source so can be supported by third parties/myself when thhe manufacturer decides to take their ball home.

Of course I'd love to be able to do what I can currently do on my Windows box using equivalent Linux tools bu sadly there is nothing yet to compare to Logic Logic. (and yes I have tried Rosegarden, Audacity, Ardour etc. etc.)

So I for one hope ReactOS goes from strength to strength.

Re:Too late?

[aymanh]

It's never too late, NES emulators are still being used to this day for example. Even after the release of Vista, many will still need to run legacy Win32 apps, and when ReactOS matures, I think some users will prefer an actively-developed OS over one at the end of its life cycle.

Just a thought.

Re:Too late?

[orasio]

There is actually no need to change to msvista, because most people won't do it.
But MS will try and force them to do it. When MS end-of-lifes winxp, they will have a supported replacement.
Even right now, MS support for XP is no good, for some people who are concerned with security and stuff. With a non proprietary solution, support is a free market, and you are not stuck with the same provider that keep giving you the shaft.
_If_ ReactOS ever comes to be a viable solution, it would be much more sensible migration path than going to msvista, if only because you would have a choice for support, and you wouldn't be subject to MS marketing decisions about the life of your installations.

Re:Too late?

[smallpaul]

With Vista coming out soon, many new applications written will only run on Vista because of the new architecture, driver model, etc

Many applications only removed Windows 98 support this year. Applications can't target Microsoft's latest and greatest immediately. They have to target the installed base for several years.

Re:Too late?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

a coperation will switch to a system thats not 1005 compatabile or very tested and also not supported?

Somehow I doubt that.

*snort* - I bet you said the same thing about linux (or samba, or bsd, or whatever) back in the day hey? :-)

Don't forget - XP will get extended support from MS for seven years after Vista's release. In the unlikely event Vista is released tomorrow (or hell, even Janurary), its still going to be plenty of time for ReactOS to get tested, support options, improve compatability, etc.

Re:Too late?

[bazorg]

Since most people already have XP who would use this? Or will ReactOS emulate Vista? No, this is not a troll post, but a legit question. This question is as legit as that one that shows up frequently around here: What are the good reasons for people to upgrade to Vista? Having WIN32 compatibility without getting the DRM,and inside properly protected userspace are good enough reasons to want ReactOS instead of Vista...

Re:Too late?

[IDontAgreeWithYou]

There may not be a need to go to Vista but most people will do it. ReactOS will never be a sensible migration path. You either stay with Windows or you go to something else. No corporation would go to some OS that is a kludgey combination of both!

Re:Too late?

[Spy der Mann]

is it too late? With Vista coming out soon

ReactOS started as a win95 clone, and yet it incorporates features in Windows XP. It can as well be extended to support vista features (and as we've seen, Vista still has a lot of the XP kernel code). IIRC there's a feature request in ReactOS for virtualization.

I hope that with the recent events happening in Europe, Microsoft will be forced to document the API for Windows Vista, so ReactOS can be more competition.

Most people DON'T need the latest advancements in the Windows OS, they just want it to do their spreadsheets and letter writing. Many of those still use Win98, they don't have the money to upgrade to XP, and with the support dropped for 98, they might as well conform the perfect userbase for ReactOS.

And with the ghost of Genuine Advantage approaching, i think ReactOS will make its debut just in time. When it's finished, the people who are using pirated copies of XP will probably switch instantly.

Because, why stick with a (buggy and virus-prone) pirated version of Windows, when you can have a legal one, for the same price (free)? :)

Re:Too late?

[Anonymous Coward]

"ReactOS seems like it will be stuck in the past catering to XP applications/games while Vista goes forward."

Vista is going forward? Really?

Re:Too late?

[sumi-manga]

(i.e. complete control of which services are running, what's started at boot time etc)

Uh... services.msc and msconfig?

Re:Too late?

[TheRaven64]

ReactOS started as a win95 clone, and yet it incorporates features in Windows XP

Not really. It started as an NT4 clone. Then they started adding features only found in NT5 (Win2K) and now they're also adding things in NT5.1 (WinXP). Note that they still don't have a full drop-in replacement for NT4 though. Not to knock the ReactOS team; there aren't very many of them, and what they have achieved is incredible.

Cloning operating systems seems to be a popular pass time in the F/OSS community. We have UNIX clones, a Windows clone, an Amiga clone, and even a BeOS clone. It's a shame no one is working anything VMS or QNX-like though...

Re:Too late?

[amazon10x]

Just thought I would let you know that Windows 2000 (OS which the GP is running), does not have msconfig.

Re:Too late?

[gQuigs]

Will this do what you want? Particularly Rose Garden? http://www.dynebolic.org/

Re:Too late?

[dbc001]

Are you kidding? As soon as it supports the major Windows Apps without crashing, I'm switching. I'm still running Windows 2000 and I cringe at the thought of upgrading to XP, and Vista sounds even worse!

Re:Too late?

[rts008]

True, but the XP version of MSCONFIG can be copied to W2K and will then work just fine. Usually MSCONFIG is found in c:\windows directory in XP, just copy to removeable media, go to W2K box, insert media and copy to C:\windows directory- don't even have to reboot amazinly enough- it just works!
(can also be moved across network, whatever)

Re:Too late?

[ArsonSmith]

Do you just keep cutting and pasting this message over and over every couple of years?

When Wine first started:
"While I find the idea of an open source Windows facinating... is it too late? With Windows 95 coming out soon, many new applications written will only run on Windows 95 because of the new architecture, driver model, etc. Wine seems like it will be stuck in the past catering to Win3.11 applications/games while Windows goes forward. Since most people already have Win3.11 who would use this? Or will Wine emulate Windows 95? No, this is not a troll post, but a legit question."

Then later
"While I find the idea of an open source Windows facinating... is it too late? With Windows XP/2000 coming out soon, many new applications written will only run on Windows XP/2000 because of the new architecture, driver model, etc. Wine seems like it will be stuck in the past catering to Windows 98/3.11 applications/games while Windows goes forward. Since most people already have Windows 98 who would use this? Or will Wine emulate Windows XP/2000? No, this is not a troll post, but a legit question."

Now you updated it again

Re:Too late?

[element-o.p.]

Of course I'd love to be able to do what I can currently do on my Windows box using equivalent Linux tools bu sadly there is nothing yet to compare to Logic Logic. (and yes I have tried Rosegarden, Audacity, Ardour etc. etc.)

Really? You couldn't get Rosegarden and Audacity to do what you need? Like you, I'm also into music in a big way, and I've been really happy with those two products. On a pretty low-end machine (500MHz Celeron, 384MB RAM on Slackware 9.1), I was able to lay down five stereo tracks of audio with Audacity before latency required me to bounce them into a single stereo track. Even at that, the recordings were fine, but the playback while recording was a little choppy :)

Just out of curiosity, what kind of problems were you having?

Also, since audio processing can be pretty demanding of your hardware, I'd be surprised if you can get the performance you want under an OS that was using Wine for compatibility. I haven't tried it, so I could be wrong, but I wouldn't expect outstanding performance while using software to emulate another OS and then running resource intensive software on top of that...assuming, of course that Wine will even run the software you want to use.

Re:Too late?

[Thinman]

Not so,

Remeber MS has halted support on 9x,me so ReactOS would be a good replacement in wintage hardware. I think some 180 millions of computers world wide.

Regards

Re:Too late?

[Helios1182]

Which means we may see applications that use the proper user privileges at last. Gone are the days of running as an "admin" under 98. Now companies should be able to expect user level rights and write code that respects them.

Re:Too late?

[TractorBarry]

Sadly it doesn't. I've tried Dyne::bolic, Agnula, etc. and it's not that the tools aren't there, it's just they're not all as well integrated or as "usable" as Logic is.

I have also tried Rosegarden and whilst it's quite good it is more like a cut down Cubase. No disrespect to the devlopers but it's not in the same class as Logic (but given time...)

My best hope currently is that Ardour will get full MIDI support but I haven't got any cash to fund the development so I'll just have to wait (like everyone else)

Re:Too late?

[BecomingLumberg]

I agree- at least they went somewhere. Ubuntu could really learn something from this. It is very easy to use, yes, but would items like mp3 support out of the box hurt them? Sure, to a current linux user who has tons of .oggs, it makes sense, who needs mp3. But to a new Joe-schmoe convert with gigs of mp3s, having to figure it out is going to be a tough first day when he wants some tunes to listen to as he downloads his nvidia driver.

Re:Too late?

[drinkypoo]

It also doesn't do anything you can't do yourself trivially with regedit. IIRC the various places programs are run from are all called "run" (the keys) and they're stored under something like HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (or _CURRENT_USER, etc etc) Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run ... might have been \Windows NT\... or something, I forget. Also Spybot S&D has a tool to disable startup services, though of course it doesn't allow you to create new ones. You can make non-service programs into services with a program which (again, IIRC) is called Fireburner.

Re:Too late?

[TractorBarry]

When I use Logic I regularly use 20 audio tracks (all with eq), several effects (on individual tracks plus some used as bus effects), several virtual instruments plus anything up to 20 MIDI tracks.

And this is all done on a machine with an Athlon XP2100 processor, 1Gb RAM, a 45 Gb system disk and a 250 Gb data disk. If memory serves me well the largest project I created had something like 30 audio tracks before I start to get glitches. Bouncing tracks is also not an option as I occassionally need to take projects into a "proper" studio where we run it over into a Mac running Pro Tools (it's easiest to do a real time dub of 8 audio tracks at a time as the loss in quality from the analogue bounce is so small as to be practically unnoticable)

And it's not so much that I've had problems, it's just that there's nothing currently on Linux that seems to do the whole integrated MIDI/Audio/Effects as well as Logic.

Re:Too late?

[Anonymous Coward]

But regedit is uncomfortable. The tools you mention are bloated and require installation.

Should you need to advocate again on this subject, please suggest Autoruns instead.

Re:Too late?

[chad.koehler]

Not that I disagree, but WINE is not an emulator.

Re:Too late?

[middlemen]

It's a shame no one is working anything VMS or QNX-like though...

FreeVMS exists at http://freevms.free.fr/indexGB.html.

Re:Too late?

[molarmass192]

From what I've seen, there's nothing on Windows that does what Logic Pro does either. That said, Logic Pro is incredibly deep and 90% of it is beyond what most amateur musicians simply recording tracks would use.

Re:Too late?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too late in starting? They began in 98, even earlier if you count the preceding project.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReactOS

If you consider the narrowness of the gap between Win98 and Vista, compared to the hyped-up predictions, they really have gone a long way.

Granted, there would be a lot less progress made without the Wine contributions, but still. A working reimplementation of any closed, commercial product is great.

This project will help everyone:
* Businesses who still(!!) have legacy Win16 and NT apps
* Microsoft: Fewer 98/NT clients to support, with them having moved to Wine/Linux, ReactOS, or MacOS
* Free Software supporters

I don't know if it will be nipping at their heels so much as taking up any slack Microsoft has to look back on and cornering them more and more into Vista.

Between Wine, CrossOver, ReactOS, Parallels, BootCamp, etc., removing Microsoft's hold on 98/NT/2K legacy technologies, and Microsoft shooting themselves in their feet over Vista, they have no choice but to crawl out into the Xbox/MediaCenter and out of the Server and Datacenter, which is where they belong, and have been trying to get to since Bob and their first Joystick.

Re:Too late?

[nine-times]

Even if it stays behind the Windows curve, it will be one more product nipping at Microsoft's heels.

It's not as thought that curve is very steep. When's the last time a new version of Windows added a feature you've actually used? For me, I think it was Windows 2000, and that feature was "not built on DOS".

Re:Too late?

[TheRaven64]

I saw that page a while ago, and it seemed a bit dead. Looking at the mailing list archives, it seems that the last traffic there was two years ago. A shame; it could have been an interesting project.

Re:Too late?

[radish]

I think the point is, if they're going to switch to anything it will be to Vista.

Re:Too late?

[EggyToast]

While I do think it's funny that you're so passive aggressive about your applications ("I hate what the companies did to me but will happily use their old applications"), you do have a good advantage in both staying with win2k and ReactOS -- your setup works for you.

I've got a dual G5 mac and while I've drooled and gawked as the new machines continue to come out, at the end of the day I use my computer and I'm perfectly happy with it. It goes very fast and performs very well for the music needs that I have. In your case, it sounds the same -- why bother upgrading when the old stuff already works? And since upgrading one aspect of your system would involve overhauling the whole bunch, including likely relearning much of what you're used to, you're right -- why bother when you can just get to business?

Often when I've spoken with musicians who use a computer a lot of it is about upgrades and the next big thing. Yet it always makes me wonder how much more productive they could be if they just sucked it up and made do with what they had, and then upgrade out of absolute necessity instead of just being bored. Probably would be a lot more music being made.

Re:Too late?

[element-o.p.]

Yeah, you're working on bigger projects than I have :)

And I didn't think about the effects...I typically add effects to the instruments before my recording hardware, which probably isn't the best way to do it, since if I don't like the way the effect sounds in the mix, I have to re-record.

Re:Too late?

[orasio]

"_If_ ReactOS ever comes to be a viable solution,"

There was an emphasized "If" in my post. Of course, is ReactOS is "kludgey", there will be no use for it, but _if_ it isn't, it _will_ be a viable solution.

The feasibility of a good clone of winxp is another issue completely. Of course, I agree that it's difficult, and that it's not a good idea, but the motivation to d it, of course, is that if they succeed in their huge task, there is in the end some use for the project.

There are actually lots of places that use 2000, because they have no need for XP. The migration to vista should be more difficult than the migration to a good xp clone.

A good xp clone _is_ something else, specially if it has some hidden advantages you can enjoy, like better licensing, support and stuff.

GNU/Linux is a unix clone, and people choose it instead of the real thing, even if it's not 100% compatible.
Functional compatibility is important, but other things are important too.

Re:Too late?

[1u3hr]

No corporation would go to some OS that is a kludgey combination of both!

Further down the road, the only supported MS OSs will be laden with DRM and anti-piracy "features that may well refuse to run for whimsical reasons. You may not be able to buy a licence for a vintage MS OS at all. So it may be a solution a corporation, and not just a geek in his basement, could use for running legacy apps, especially under virtualisation.

Re:Too late?

[Patented]

Not only does it seem to late, but wouldn't prospective users be somewhat turned off at the lack of a cleaner look in lieu of the Windows 95 look-alike shell? Granted ReactOS is in Alpha stage, but it really looks like fvwm95, which I always thought looked like a poorly rendered "copy" of an OS that was pretty ugly in the first place. I hope that once the functionality is in place, they work on aliased fonts, and general, yet resource-friendly UI enhancements. That would definately help new users in their transition.

Re:Too late?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

I think the point is, if they're going to switch to anything it will be to Vista.

Please reread my original comment:

At the very least, it will be useful for corporations using current win32 stuff who don't want to migrate to vista when XP eols.

Re:Too late?

[melonman]

I bet you said the same thing about linux (or samba, or bsd, or whatever) back in the day hey? :-)

If he did, he has been proved right. None of those OSs has made a serious dent in Microsoft's core market. (Linux is strong in the server market where Windows was initially not present at all.)

When corporations don't like the new Windows release, they tend to hang onto their existing one until their concerns are addressed. So, depending on the issues related to Vista, corporations might decide to stick with XP until 2008 or 2009. The longer they wait, the more the pressure grows to be compatible with Vista, and that's why they are likely to get Vista eventually (as well as the fact it turns up on all their new PCs whether they like it or not). Moving to a system that does some of what XP does when they have XP already really doesn't make a lot of sense, unless they want to get out of the whole MS system (in which case the existence or otherwise of Vista is largely irrelevant, and an XP clone would be an odd way to go).

Re:Too late?

[0racle]

Companies who do not want to move to Vista will keep using XP, not move to another unsupported OS.

Re:Too late?

[IDontAgreeWithYou]

I'm saying that the idea of ReactOS is kludgey. Why reinvent the squeaky wheel. I don't see any corporation getting so fed up with MS that they want to switch operating systems but then they switch to a clone of an older version of windows. If they get fed up with MS that much, then they will move to Macs, Linux, BSD... whatever. Also, if this happens the software vendors will be more than happy to port over to the OS of choice. All that being said, in a few years most people, businesses, government offices etc. etc. will be running Vista.

Re:Too late?

[deviceb]

I think you have it correct. Alot of new versions of powerfull software will be written for Vista only.
Lets speculate on.. say AutoCAD 2008.. a company like Autodesk only moves forward.. they will not keep a seperate version for XP under dev. -perhaps 2007 version if vista is even out by then. Maya? Lightwave? Adobe? It depends on corperations affording to migrate to Vista
Games. we all know ReactOS will not be able to run anything bleeding-edge much less cutting-edge. or any other edge. maybe nothing by the sounds of it.. spider solitare??

Hopefully they will try and emulate Vista /shrug
2 years ago this news would have had me hyped up a lil more ~~

Re:Too late?

[IDontAgreeWithYou]

As I said in reply to the post above yours, I sincerely doubt that MS will lose much market share in the OS business in the near future. When and if they do, it will not be to a clone of Windows. Microsoft is not run by complete idiots, as others would have you believe. They are pretty good about pleasing corporations, universities, gov't agencies etc. I think they will push DRM and anti-piracy as far as they can, but the second it appears that it will impact their market share, it will be gone.

Re:Too late?

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys are looking at the wrong place - there's multiple copies of the FreeVMS pages and mailinglists, incuding the above (very out of date); it seems that they're really badly organized in that aspect. You should be looking at http://www.systella.fr/~bertrand/FreeVMS/indexGB.h tml . The newest FreeVMS (0.2.11) is just a month old, and *is booting on real hardware*. Check the freshmeat entry, it's usually up to date.

Re:Too late?

[xRizen]

The reason Ubuntu doesn't come with MP3 support out of the box has nothing to do with preferring Ogg. It's a legal issue. If they wanted to distribute it in the US, they'd have to pay royalties for each copy of the decoder they sent out.

This is, by the way, one of the biggost reasons Vorbis was created.

Re:Too late?

[Anonymous Coward]

We have UNIX clones, a Windows clone, an Amiga clone, and even a BeOS clone.

Yeah. I'm still waiting for the Linux clone, myself. What's keeping it?

Re:Too late?

[xenocide2]

If joe wants to play his mp3s, he'll need to take it up with the people asking for cold hard cash for the privledge of listening to his music. This is what happens when Joe User allows the people who disrespect intellectual property entirely (aka The Scene) dictate technological choices.

Enabling mp3 support could hurt them in a number of very real senses. If they choose to purchase a licscence for every user (and subsequent user as possible under the GPL) they'd be out serious dough. If they choose to distribute such software without paying, they've exposed themselves to legal liability above that cost. If they use the recently created legal gstreamer-mp3 plugin, they cannot fully comply with the spirit of Open Source and the GPL. And by supporting mp3 they also implicitly support software patents.

It's unfortunate that this problem exists, and it's all because a piracy group or two started releasing mp3s to the public, instead of carefully investigating and developing their own solution. Essentially, the public has bought into disreguarding intellectual property and they'll have to dig themselves out of this mess one way or another eventually. I think the current RestrictedFormats system is burying one's head in the sand and won't solve any problems in the long run.

The only good news here is that the first of the mp3 patents (and only?) is expected to expire in 2010. But even then, the argument only shifts from how awful it is that mp3s don't work to how awful h264 playback is, and why various movie files people have don't play on Ubuntu.

Re:Too late?

[xenocide2]

And Hurd has been working on a microkernel approach for the last... twenty years. Seems some designs lend better to distributed development than others. Or perhaps it's merely a matter of organizations, with Cathedral central designs underperforming Bazaar like organizations.

Re:Too late?

[Captain DaFt]

Um, how about a fully documented set of APIs for third party developers?
MS won't (maybe even can't) offer it, but Reactos does.

And if you read their wesite (www.reactos.org), the ultimate goal isn't to be a Windows clone, but quote:

"Once the compatibility level has been reached, we may even choose to improve ReactOS beyond its Windows roots. These changes would be external from the main OS, and totally compatible with Windows, but they would add an extra advantage. For example, one of our goals is to have built-in POSIX compatibility, much like Windows Services for Unix. It could also be as simple as natively supporting multiple desktops however, instead of requiring a powertoy."

In other words, Reactos' goal is to be a proper OS in its own right, not just Windows compatible.
(One day, Windows may even struggle to be fully compatible with Reactos. Heh, one can dream, eh?)

Re:Too late?

[mrogers]

Unsupported like Red Hat Enterprise? ReactOS opens the door for any number of companies to sell and support an XP-compatible platform, for as long as the customers want.

Re:Too late?

[Bruitist]

Have a look into using Planet CCRMA (http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/) for Redhat/Fedora. It gives you a special low latency kernel and with the ability to connect various APPs using Jack, it might be able to do the whole integrated thing you want. I really like it, but then I've never used Logic and my needs are probably different to yours...

Re:Too late?

[snuf23]

I've used Windows XP's system restore three or four times on various PCs - and once it actually worked!

Re:Too late?

[Thuktun]

No, this is not a troll post, but a legit question.
http://religiousfreaks.com/

Could you at least put that link in your signature block instead of every post? I and others turn off signatures for a reason, and you force us to look at your signature each time you do this. You already have that listed as your website, so it already appears in the header of your post.

Re:Too late?

[0racle]

Red Hat supports RHEL. Message boards 'support' ReactOS, it's not the same thing. So the choice becomes XP, which you know will run Windows software because it is Windows and you have been running it for who knows how long, or some project that tries to be the same thing while not being the same thing.

You're not going to choose to run something that is essentially untested on the hopes that someone somewhere might see money in supporting you.

Re:Too late?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://religiousfarks.com/

Please consider putting that in a Sig. You can do so by going to http://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=edituser and entering it in the "Sig" field. That way you also don't have to paste it into every single post you make.

Re:Too late?

[Anonymous Coward]

*** And with the ghost of Genuine Advantage approaching, i think ReactOS will make its debut just in time. When it's finished, the people who are using pirated copies of XP will probably switch instantly. ***

Not until it plays all Windows games....

Re:Too late?

[BionicPimp]

*** And with the ghost of Genuine Advantage approaching, i think ReactOS will make its debut just in time. When it's finished, the people who are using pirated copies of XP will probably switch instantly. *** Not until it plays all Windows games....

not all, just Counter Strike

Re:Too late?

[ChrisA90278]

It's a shame no one is working anything VMS or QNX-like though

Look at "FreeVMS" http://www.systella.fr/~bertrand/FreeVMS/indexGB.h tml

There are a couple widly used modified version of Linux that attempt to be QNX like in that they handle "hard real time" scheduling and run on very low-end hardware.

There is only one UNIX clone I can think of, that would be Linux. The others such as BSD and the like re not clones they ARE UNIX. Well OK there is Mac OS and NextStep before that but they ARE UNIX too. Mac OSX code can betraced back to Bell Labs in the late 1960's but I'd bet every line is replaced by now.

Re:Too late?

[drsmithy]

At the very least, it will be useful for corporations using current win32 stuff who don't want to migrate to vista when XP eols.

Why would companies "not wanting" to switch to Vista, "want" to switch to ReactOS ? Where's the advantage ?

Re:Too late?

[DuckDodgers]

Moving to a system that does some of what XP does when they have XP already really doesn't make a lot of sense, unless they want to get out of the whole MS system (in which case the existence or otherwise of Vista is largely irrelevant, and an XP clone would be an odd way to go).

Not at all.

• Third party companies can provide top to bottom support for ReactOS. You can even put them into bidding wars with each other. For some aspects of Windows, if you don't like the way Microsoft does things you're stuck.
• You not only don't have to pay for the software. You also don't have to handle the bookkeeping and the licensing management. Ideally you'll be able to slap the software on almost any PC built in the last six years.
• You have the full source to the OS. You can freely modify, disable, or replace anything you want.
• Anyone anywhere can create a custom installation disk or liveCD with defaults of their choice and pre-installed, preconfigured applications (freely redistributable, of course). Anyone anywhere else can download and install that image as many times as they like.
• Old hardware that may not have been worth the hassle or cost of upgrading to XP becomes free to upgrade with ReactOS.

I'm not saying ReactOS is there yet. It may never be really good enough to be a valid XP substitute for most applications. But if it does reach that point, I really can see it taking off.

Re:Too late?

[drsmithy]

It can as well be extended to support vista features (and as we've seen, Vista still has a lot of the XP kernel code).

Of course it does. XP is Windows NT 5.1. Vista is Windows NT 6.0.

While Vista was built from Windows 2003 (NT 5.2), not Windows XP, it's still just the latest major release of Windows NT. Vista is to XP, roughly, as Linux 2.6 is to Linux 2.4. (A more accurate comparison might be RHEL3 to RHEL4.)

And with the ghost of Genuine Advantage approaching, i think ReactOS will make its debut just in time. When it's finished, the people who are using pirated copies of XP will probably switch instantly.

I'd say by ca. 2010, any "verification" processes that Vista might be using will have been well and truly cracked, for the tiny proportion of people who don't just end up with a copy of Vista by default when they buy their new PCs.

ReactOS is interesting from an academic perspective, but it's relevance to the real world is small, and not getting any bigger.

Re:Too late?

[ozmanjusri]

Why would companies "not wanting" to switch to Vista, "want" to switch to ReactOS ?

Product Activation. When your hardware dies it can be replaced and ReactOS will keep running.

Re:Too late?

[yusing]

I have to agree with you 'Tractor', the state of music/audio software these days would be greatly improved by better open-source projects. I recently moved to Logic reluctantly; these commercial progs are very slow to see fixes done, and the cobbling and hobbling of features is a sign of incurable disease. Meanwhile the costs continue without apparent limit.

Fortunately, our platforms are getting 'cross' enough these days that a great open-source sequencer might actually come to pass. Audacity is a nice beginning, and the open-source plugs are getting better and better. With Ubuntu getting so many raves, it may be just a few years.

Re:Too late?

[1u3hr]

I sincerely doubt that MS will lose much market share

But it could be a niche that MS neglects in favour of pushing out newer software. Most customers would fall into line and upgrade, a few might choose ReactOS rather than an unsupported MS OS.

Re:Too late?

[drsmithy]

Product Activation. When your hardware dies it can be replaced and ReactOS will keep running.

And your evidence supporting the claim that Microsoft won't reactive your Vista (or XP for that matter) install after a hardware failure would be...?

Re:Too late?

[melonman]

Most of your points are actually good reasons for most corporations not to touch ReactOS with a bargepole:

• They are restricted to a far smaller number of third party companies who can provide support
• They have to install the OS themselves, rather than just unpacking a new PC and switching it on
• If there's a problem with, say, software RAID, they can play ping-pong between the hardware vendor and the OS maintainer, rather than phoning Dell and saying "fix it NOW"
• They have enough problems already with every department writing their own undocumented Access applications containing half the company's valuable data, so they really want everyone to start forking their own version of the OS, not
• Upgrading old hardware is only free if they don't pay their staff - one day's fiddling with downloaded images costs about as much as a new PC with Windows pre-installed
• In addition, they have to retrain all their in-house staff, which is tricky given that there are no training courses and no manuals, and they have to retrain every MS Certified Engineer who joins them from that point on.
• Whenever they have a problem with any third-party application, Adobe, Lotus or the guy down the road who writes VB in his lunch break will all swear blind that the problem is down to the unsupported OS, not their application, and point them to the EULA of the third-party software before hanging up.

MS stuff is expensive, late and sometimes buggy, but MS is much better at judging what combination of late, expensive and buggy the corporate market will bear than the OSS community. Corporate IT departments will moan about the cost of Vista, think through the implications of changing, and buy Vista. Or, maybe, they'll wait a couple of years and then buy Vista. Or, possibly, they'll go for a radical move to, say, Linux thin clients. But moving to a DIY clone of an obsolete version of Windows just doesn't work, mainly because of support issues.

Re:Too late?

[ozmanjusri]

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=302 878

Re:Too late?

[drsmithy]

That link does not support your assertion.

Re:Too late?

[ozmanjusri]

Yes, it does.

Re:Too late?

[DuckDodgers]

Good points. I disagree with some, though.

• They are restricted to a far smaller number of third party companies who can provide support. A good support contract from Microsoft costs a fortune. A company with 1000 employees and a reasonable operating profit won't have a problem. A small business would.
• so they really want everyone to start forking their own version of the OS, not But if a home hobbyist or any other group does a fork of the OS that they like, they can get it free.
• one day's fiddling with downloaded images costs about as much as a new PC with Windows pre-installed Absolutely true. But in the small companies I've worked, management often isn't rational enough in their cost benefit analyses. They'll force three employees to waste a week's pay doing things in an inefficient manner before authorizing a $100 purchase to make things easier.
• In addition, they have to retrain all their in-house staff, which is tricky given that there are no training courses and no manuals, and they have to retrain every MS Certified Engineer who joins them from that point on. This would only work if ReactOS was mature enough to be a drop-in replacement for XP. Training would only be required for features ReactOS have in addition to full XP compatibility - like the liveCD.
• Whenever they have a problem with any third-party application, Adobe, Lotus or the guy down the road who writes VB in his lunch break will all swear blind that the problem is down to the unsupported OS, not their application, and point them to the EULA of the third-party software before hanging up. Install application on XP and try to reproduce the bug. If you can, file bug report with application vendor. If you cannot, file bug report with ReactOS.

Re:Too late?

[SiChemist]

Wine Is Not an Emulator! It's a compatibility layer. Applications run at or near native speeds. I personally use it to play a few older 3D strategy and FPS games. It works great.

Ars is less positive

[ZachPruckowski]

Ars Review

They basically say it runs Firefox and Solitaire, but that's it. "Lots of promise, but needs work".

Re:Ars is less positive

[Adelbert]

They basically say it runs Firefox and Solitaire I reckon the vast majority of Windows users use a web browser and a solitaire game more than any other applications.

Re:Ars is less positive

[kimvette]

It may run firefox and solitaire, but have you tried to install drivers on it? It's not a fun process. :(

Some (many) drivers consist of:

  - install driver on a Windows box
  - Track down all dependencies, registry entries, COM component registrations, etc.
  - Move all those components to the ReactOS box

I started working on an AiW install on ReactOS but it was too time-consuming to finish for a system I just wanted to play around with a little bit.

What they need to work on is making sure that drivers can be installed using the native installers, then more people will come and get involved in the project, even if only to provide feedback.

Re:Ars is less positive

[Smidge204]

No Freecell? Screw that.

=Smidge=

Re:Ars is less positive

[Anonymous Coward]

The free version is called Commercialcell.

Re:Ars is less positive

[Petrushka]

I'd say running an app as complex as Firefox is fairly impressive.

BSOD too...

[William Robinson]

It has BSOD too

Now I call that 100% compatible;)

Re:BSOD too...

[Lord of Hyphens]

It has BSOD too

/.ed. Go go roving DDoS that is /.

Re:BSOD too...

[noidentity]

Too bad the webserver BSOD'd before I could see ReactOS's BSOD:

<p><b>Warning</b>: mysql_pconnect(): User neosmart_gall has already more than 'max_user_connections' active connections in <b>/home/neosmart/public_html/gallery/lib/adodb/dr ivers/adodb-mysql.inc.php</b> on line <b>373</b><br />
<h2>Error</h2>Error (ERROR_STORAGE_FAILURE) : <ul><li><b>in</b> modules/core/classes/GalleryStorage.class <b>at line</b> 236 (gallerycoreapi::error) </li><li><b>in</b> modules/core/classes/GalleryStorage.class <b>at line</b> 465 (mysqlstorage::_getconnection) </li><li><b>in</b> modules/core/classes/Gallery.class <b>at line</b> 239 (mysqlstorage::search) </li><li><b>in</b> modules/core/classes/helpers/GalleryFileSystemEnti tyHelper_simple.class <b>at line</b> 110 (gallery::search) </li><li><b>in</b> modules/core/classes/GalleryCoreApi.class <b>at line</b> 1968 (galleryfilesystementityhelper_simple::fetchchildi dbypathcomponent) </li><li><b>in</b> modules/core/classes/helpers/GalleryFileSystemEnti tyHelper_simple.class <b>at line</b> 62 (gallerycoreapi::fetchchildidbypathcomponent) </li><li><b>in</b> modules/core/classes/GalleryCoreApi.class <b>at line</b> 1911 (galleryfilesystementityhelper_simple::fetchitemid bypath) </li><li><b>in</b> modules/rewrite/classes/RewriteSimpleHelper.class <b>at line</b> 48 (gallerycoreapi::fetchitemidbypath) </li><li><b>in</b> ??? <b>at line</b> 0 (rewritesimplehelper::loaditemidfrompath) </li><li><b>in</b> modules/rewrite/classes/RewriteUrlGenerator.class <b>at line</b> 96</li><li><b>in</b> modules/rewrite/classes/parsers/modrewrite/ModRewr iteUrlGenerator.class <b>at line</b> 48 (modrewriteurlgenerator::_onload) </li><li><b>in</b> init.inc <b>at line</b> 111 (modrewriteurlgenerator::init) </li><li><b>in</b> main.php <b>at line</b> 71</li></ul>

The one time!

[Anonymous Coward]

The one time i plan to read the article the server is down who would of thought it.

ReactOS and WINE

[slashdot-jake]

In case anyone doesn't know. The ReactOS project works closely with WINE. They are implementing the API from WINE on a replica of the Windows 2000 kernel.

This means that both Windows drivers and applications will work natively without any changes. They seem to have come on leaps and bounds in the past year with many applications working straight away (OpenOffice, Abiword, mIRC, Unreal Tournament, InfranView, PuTTY as some). Once they start implementing some of the security features then there will be another viable alternative.

In the future I can imagine ReactOS coming on a CD with OpenOffice, Apache etc, much like Linux distributions do, which creates an easy migration path:

Windows + Apps -> Windows + OSS Apps -> ReactOS + OSS Apps then then off to a Linux or *BSD varient if you want.

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[Anonymous Coward]

copied comment?

http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=166001&c id=13853454

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[Vorondil28]

Windows + Apps -> Windows + OSS Apps -> ReactOS + OSS Apps then then off to a Linux or *BSD varient if you want.

What?!? Why the step from one implementation of Windows to another? The point of ReactOS is to be a free (as in beer and speech) replacement of Windows, not a stepping-stone of some kind. I can understand getting acquainted with OSS apps on Windows before diving into Unix, but switching to ReactOS along the way would be redundant and a waste of time.

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[diegocgteleline.es]

I doubt many people is interested in a opensource Windows - why would I care to run a open copy of a operative systems if I'm going to need binary drivers anyway?

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[Excelsior]

with many applications working straight away (OpenOffice, Abiword, mIRC, Unreal Tournament, InfranView, PuTTY as some)

When I first saw ReactOS I was very interested, at the very least as a dual-boot for apps that won't run on my Linux desktop. But what runs on it is less than interesting. Take your list:
OpenOffice - runs on Linux.
Abiword - runs on Linux.
mIRC - there are dozens of IRC clients for Linux, some of which are superior to mIRC, IMHO.
Unreal Tournament - runs on Linux.
InfranView - There are better options on Linux, IMO. The only reason I've ever used this app is because 5 years ago there were no good free image tools on Windows. Now, I even use Gimp on Windows.
PuTTY - only necessary on Windows to get at ssh servers running on *nix. ssh is supported by so many things on Linux, not the least of which is the original openssh client.

So, I'm having a hard time seeing any reason to try ReactOS out. Could someone point out something that ReactOS can run that doesn't run on Linux, and doesn't have a better option on Linux?

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[mabhatter654]

Windows + Apps -> Windows + OSS Apps -> ReactOS + OSS Apps then then off to a Linux or *BSD varient if you want.

The first "step" isn't really a step at all, it's migrating your current PC from Windows-only, proprietary software to cross-platform Open Source Software. Then when you're tired of dealing with "the Man" (or when windows activation refuses your legal code, again) you can just switch to free React OS that will be able to run the few Windows-only things you have left.

As a side note, Windows 2000 compatible is more than enough. There are still very few XP only applications out there on the store shelves. Getting ReactOS up to speed may be just the push OSS needs. Now developers can QA against something relatively similar to windows, and OSS benifits because they share the code with WINE. I think the very best course of action would be to start building distros that can virtualize Linux and ReactOS without dual booting. Then you'd have an even better version of what OSX has in Parallels. ...But FREE !!

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[Anonymous Coward]

why would I care to run a open copy of an operating system if I'm going to need binary drivers anyway?

As a stepping stone to Linux?

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[toleraen]

WGA?

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[bubkus_jones]

I'm pretty sure linux users are not ReactOS's main target. Their target are Windows users who want to stop using Microsoft, but find Linux/BSD too intimidating.

Of course there are more/better Linux options. For one, Linux is vastly more mature, and has a much greater user/developer base. Second, ReactOS is still in ALPHA stage. It has a ways to go before a full release worthy OS, and they (the ReactOS developers) would be the first to tell you.

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[WilliamSChips]

I think the very best course of action would be to start building distros that can virtualize Linux and ReactOS without dual booting

I think you mean "get ReactOS in Xen".

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[Vorondil28]

Yep. That's exactly what I said.

In your example you're using ReactOS to replace Windows for the few Windows apps you have left after jumping into Unix. The OP made it sound like (and even diagrammed it as) a linear progression; uncool.

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[Vorondil28]

While that is indeed a cool idea, last I knew, the Xen port of ReactOS barfs once the kernel gets passed execution. http://www.reactos.org/wiki/index.php/Xen_port (Assuming that page is kept reasonable up-to-date.)

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[WilliamSChips]

I'm sure that ReactOS will work in Xen before it reaches stability

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[Excelsior]

As a side note, Windows 2000 compatible is more than enough. There are still very few XP only applications out there on the store shelves.

Perhaps few, but some few are very important. Take Windows Media Player 10. Only available for XP and won't run in Wine. This means if you buy a new non-IPod media player that is labeled PlaysForSure (the branded name for Media Transport Protocol) as most now are, you can only use it if you have XP, because you must have WMP 10!

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[linuxrocks123]

> PuTTY - only necessary on Windows to get at ssh servers running on *nix. ssh is supported by so many things on Linux, not the least of which is the original openssh client.

PuTTY actually has a Linux port, which is somewhat amusing.

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[robogymnast]

It sounds like ReactOS is supposed to be a Windows replacement. If you are already running Linux solo then I don't think you are in their target audience.

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[V_Pundit]

It looks just like windows so I can fool those persons who want me as an IT consultant for free (family) into using it without knowing that they have left Redmond behind. As previously noted - they even get BSOD

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[Excelsior]

ReactOS is still in ALPHA stage. It has a ways to go before a full release worthy OS

Granted. And I fully understand that software this complex takes serious time to do. I personally don't really understand why a full OS, instead of contributing directly to something like Wine. And here's why. Now, you have an OS that is fairly useless until it is very mature. With Linux, we can run a few Windows apps. But we also have a huge number of native Linux apps to run. With ReactOS, very few Windows apps will run, and you also have next-to-no native apps.

It's open-source, so the developer(s) giving his(or her) time to this can do whatever he wants. I understand that. I'm just digging here, trying to get some insight from someone about this project, and why it should be worth my interest, or if it's just some folks neat hobby, nothing more.

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[bubkus_jones]

The thing is, is that Linux is still more complicated than what some people are willing to deal with. Part of that "problem" (and I use that term loosely) is that many Linux developers don't want Linux (and FreeBSD, etc.) to become as "easy" as Windows, and many of the attempts at getting an easy-for-Windows-users environment have met rather subdued enthusiasm or outright criticism.

Perhaps the developer(s) of ReactOS saw this and decided to do his/their own thing. There are also some people who just don't like Linux or how it works, and prefer a Windows environment.

Remember, at one point, Linux was some folk's neat hobby, and nothing more.

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[angryflute]

Could there also be a benefit in Linux using the ReacOS kernel itself? For example, imagine a Linux distro that incorporates the ReactOS kernel and can simultaneously call it up when needed to run a Windows app, or peripheral that uses a Windows driver (using the WINE APIs in conjunction, of course). If this could be theoretically possible, then perhaps the work that the ReactOS team is doing might have other benefits for the Linux community beyond WINE.

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[Anonymous Coward]

PuTTy is open source and ported to *NIX. Try for example apt-cache show putty

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[mabhatter654]

But what kind of hypritical Slashdotter would but a M$ only player? If your trying to get a way from Microsoft enough to use Linux I don't think your going to jump back into bed with the DRM'd, Trecherous computing, Privacy stealing, evil-capitalist beast again.

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[mabhatter654]

The orginal poster may need to use some windows only apps, and might be invested in a custom environment they can't change just yet. ReactOS would allow you to put whole worstations on it until you were ready to make the jump to *nix. That's the point of the thing, to have a MS compatible OSS stack. It's not perfectly utopian Free Software, but it is pragmatic. Right now MS biggest competitor for Vista isn't Linux or OSx it's their own Windows 2000 for business or windows 98 for home users. MS needs to talk all the retired moms & dads out there into upgrading whole computers for minimal benifit. IF ReactOS adds the ability to not upgrade at ALL but still keep security then MS could be in more trouble!

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[Excelsior]

I'm not saying that I love Microsoft DRM any more than any other DRM. However, if I want to purchase mainstream music legally online, I believe it is the lesser of two evils. At least I can purchase music from multiple vendors. With ITMS, everyone is forever locked into a single vendor, and there is no competition.

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[Anonymous Coward]

*nix may be more "mature" but it can't play "Evil Genius" worth a damn

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[Anonymous Coward]

[Could someone point out something that ReactOS can run that doesn't run on Linux, and doesn't have a better option on Linux?]

How about the custom applications written by companies inhouse for their personal use. Or the software that runs CNC routers, saws, etc on top of DOS, 95, 98, NT. A supported OS to run on without having to rewrite for vista or port to linux.

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[mabhatter654]

if you support Apple, just your itunes music is locked.. and it's a pretty flimsy lock. It's trivial to copy itunes songs to something without DRM... and without breaking any laws.

On the other hand, if you go the MS route, you continue MS dominance and feed the execs exactly what they want to hear. MS will continue to lock more and more suff down soon we'll have to pay for EVERYTHING!

react, to their servers...

[joe 155]

If you want screenshots then you can get them from the official site... http://www.reactos.org/de/screenshots.html

Re:react, to their servers...

[__aafutm5472]

Does anyone find it funny that we're looking at screenshots of a Windows clone? I mean...why not just look at Windows? Then you can see where ReactOS wants to be...

Re:react, to their servers...

[joe 155]

it's for those of us who run linux 24/7... why is it that you know how windows looks?... can I see your geek card?

ReactIIS

[_Pablo]

Doesn't look like their build of ReactIIS 1.0 is quite up to the load...

Re:ReactIIS

[Maarten Bosma]

The link in this article has nothing to do with ReactOS and the ReactOS website surived previous slashdot attacts just fine. It's running under Fedora/Apache. There have been experiments with using reactos as webserver, but it was not stable at all.

Re:ReactIIS

[Anonymous Coward]

There have been experiments with using reactos as webserver, but it was not stable at all.

They're doing a good job of copying Windows then.

Official ReactOS Website

[frik85]

Official ReactOS Website:
http://www.reactos.org/

Screenshots:
http://www.reactos.org/?page=screenshots
http://www.reactos.org/?page=tour

About ReactOS:
http://www.reactos.org/?page=about
http://www.reactos.org/?page=about_whatisreactos

Downloads (LiveCD, InstallCD, VM images):
http://www.reactos.org/?page=download

Compatibility Database:
http://www.reactos.org/support/

Re:Official ReactOS Website

[Anonymous Coward]

::Cough:: Karma Whore ::Cough::

Re:Official ReactOS Website

[carlmenezes]

Now, if only they could get compaitbility for DirectX and NVIDIA chipset/graphics drivers, I'd switch immediately. Honestly, I'm seriously LOOKING for something, ANYTHING, other than Windows that is open source, but that will let me play games.

Re:Official ReactOS Website

[frik85]

NVIDIA chipset (nforce, etc.) graphics (Geforce, etc.) drivers are already working.

DirectX for ReactOS is under development, some parts of DirectX do already work fine, DirectDraw is under heavy development and some simple games work. DirectX 3D has a way to go. We have Mesa a software D3D implementation and OpenGL too.

Try it out, although ReactOS is currently in alpha status.

The fonts!

[karji]

Why didn't they use Microsoft's fonts?

Re:The fonts!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they're Microsoft's fonts?

Re:The fonts!

[jesuscyborg]

Why didn't they use Microsoft's fonts?

Uhm, because Microsoft's fonts have a restrictive license that prohibits them from being included in a Free OS.

Re:The fonts!

[frik85]

ReactOS does NOT use MSFT fonts! The fonts are "Bitstream Vera fonts" from http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/ttf-bitstre am-vera/1.10/ So do not spread BS around.

Re:The fonts!

[venir]

He didn't say they were using MS fonts, but asked why not. Read the post before you reply to it.

Re:The fonts!

[Valdrax]

Uhm, because Microsoft's fonts have a restrictive license that prohibits them from being included in a Free OS.

Huh. Really? I wonder what I just emerged last month?

Re:The fonts!

[lee7guy]

What part of being included is hard to comprehend?

Downloadable after installation doesn't qualify as included.

Re:The fonts!

[Valdrax]

Fair enough, but that's a semantic line of division that wasn't readily apparent in the original post. However, even given that definition of "included," the distinction only matters is you sell copies of the product for profit:

Reproduction and Distribution. You may reproduce and distribute an unlimited number of copies of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT; provided that each copy shall be a true and complete copy, including all copyright and trademark notices, and shall be accompanied by a copy of this EULA. Copies of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT may not be distributed for profit either on a standalone basis or included as part of your own product.

From the Core Fonts SourceForge website.

I don't believe that ReactOS sells copies so far, so the point is moot unless they're planning on selling copies later down the road.

Re:The fonts!

[Anonymous Coward]

I beleive the part of the licence that is a problem is the "true and complete copy" part, which I assume means they have to be distributed in their original form as cab files. As far as I'm aware the installers for various Linux distros actually download the cab file extract them, make a package and then install that package.

Non-Slashdotted Screenshots

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.reactos.org/xhtml/en/screenshots.html

Re:Too late? Are You Serious?!?!?!

[Nom du Keyboard]

With Vista coming out soon, many new applications written will only run on Vista because of the new architecture, driver model, etc.

That seems like a really careless statement on your part. Are you saying that virtually all new applications are being written for an OS that you can't even buy for 6 more months? Boy that's sure going to put a dent in the next 2 quarters earning statements for every major software company.

Oh, and btw, are they writing for 32-bit Vista, or 64-bit Vista?

Nope, not too late

[Weaselmancer]

Go to CompUSA and look on the shelves. Tell me what you see.

Ya but...

[keith_nt4]

Will it run LiteStep

No, LiteStep

I said...litestep...ah forget it.

Pages

[Anonymous Coward]

6 long pages, as opposed to 25 pages that have half a sentence and a megabyte of ads? Excellent! Sense from website designers at last!

But there's more!

[peipas]

Don't forget it also runs Photoshop 3!!

Re:But there's more!

[creepynut]

Runs, but is it usable?

Putting aside how outdated it is, it looks like the controls are missing icons, which would make it rather difficult to do... you know, anything.

Re:But there's more!

[snuf23]

Psssshaw! REAL Photoshop users do everything with keyboard shortcuts! Who needs those steenking icons anyway!

Not soon enough!

[DigitAl56K]

A free Windows-compatible OS which is not encumbered with all kinds of DRM, backdoors, phone home security updates, Internet Explorer, has native support for all the device drivers that Windows supports, and means that I don't have to learn Linux / migrate all of my current software practices? How can this possibly be too late?

Personally I'd far sooner consider ReactOS than any of the other much touted Linux alternatives. Will that buy me brownie points on /. ? Maybe not, but it's probably true for most people.

Have they tested on actual hardware?

[martinultima]

Kind of a rhetorical question, but I'm kind of wondering if any reviewers have actually tested it on a real machine, rather than VMware, QEMU, etc. I've been watching it since 0.2.3 or so, and I've actually started toying around with 0.3.0-RC1 on a spare machine I have – Compaq DeskPro EP6000, PIII-650, 64MB – and have found that with, say, Notepad and Firefox running it's quite stable. Kept it up for around half an hour before I just got bored and shut it off. Doesn't yet support my video card or network, but it's still pretty nice.

My own review is on the ReactOS forums if anyone wants to know exactly what it's like – no pictures, because I haven't installed any screenshot or image manipulation software yet, but anyway... http://www.reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=20166

Anyway, just thought I might point out that it works on real machines just as well as, or in some cases even better than, on a virtual machine.

Re:Have they tested on actual hardware?

[Computer Guru]

http://neosmart.net/blog/archives/220#comment-3117

Re:Have they tested on actual hardware?

[Pantero Blanco]

"Anyway, just thought I might point out that it works on real machines just as well as, or in some cases even better than, on a virtual machine."

You've had much better luck than me. I've tried it on several older physical machines (Mendocino and Coppermine stuff, as well as an Athlon) and it hasn't worked yet...Either it craps out during the installation or it blackscreens when I try to boot it. I try again with new versions or different hardware occasionally, because most of the time (that is, every time I found someone with the same problem on the ReactOS forums) the issue is with drivers.

Re:Have they tested on actual hardware?

[martinultima]

Well, I'll admit I had a few problems on some of my other machines – the first "real" machine I tried it on was a Pentium-133 laptop with 80MB RAM, which installed it just fine, but the bootloader wouldn't run, and I eventually gave up on the effort... (The machine had been running a Linux and OpenBSD dual-boot previously, but I wiped that out before installing.) And even my DeskPro didn't work entirely, it had to boot from a floppy disk, even after I ran Win95's FDISK /MBR and restored a backup MBR to erase LILO From the existing disk... either way, though, I still definitely like what I've seen so far.

DOH

[Spy der Mann]

What did they expect with version 0.3.0? It's not even Beta quality yet.

History

[dpaton.net]

And no I'm not going to switch to a MAC. Emagic pulled the rug from under me once (just after I'd paid for an upgrade) so I Learnnt my lesson the hard way.

Actually, Apple bought Emagic and killed the PC version. Emagic didn't really have a choice once they'd been bought. The odds of Logic working on a Mac for a long long time are better than they ever were on a PC. Not to say you should get a Mac, just trying to clarify the history.

As for me, I'm still pining for the long gone Studio Vision Pro. Gibson...now there's a company to hate.

Re:History

[Perl-Pusher]

Gibson...now there's a company to hate. Can't agree more there. They are the most expensive "average" instruments I've seen. I work in a guitar store part time repairing guitars and setting them up. I've seen Korean made PRS guitars with the same quality and 1/4 to 1/8 the cost! We have a gibson mandolin that cost $11,000, we also sell two $1,000 Michael Kelly mandolins that are the same construction quality and to me sound better.

Re:History

[laffer1]

Apple hurt their customers too. I have an emagic usb 2/6 external sound card. Apple stopped updating the drivers for it. I can either run it in XP or Mac OS 10.3 or lower. If I install it in tiger, I get random crashes, lockups and even crashes shutting down! I wouldn't have bought a 300 dollar external soundcard to begin with, but my mother in law thought it was a usb hub :)

It worked great with iTunes and I love the bass compared to my lame iBook soundcard. All well, maybe i'll use it in linux someday as i know the 2.6 kernel has support for it.

Re:History

[dpaton.net]

There are a lot of USB and FireWire sound output devices that are plenty good that use CoreAudio drivers. I'm particularly fond of the MOTU stuff. I have some older stuff kicking around that's not supoprted either, but with the mess that was the old driver system, I'm kinda glad to see the new stuff.

These days I use a USB to optical (TosLink) output adapter that I feed into an old DAC I have laying around. Much better than any of the onboard audio systems I've met, and it gives me total electrical isolation too (the TosLink cable is glass and plastic), so no more ground loop.

It's not as simple as the 2/6, but I don't have any complaints.

Re:History

[dosius]

You do realize that Gibson has a less expensive brand called Epiphone which is just about equivalent?

-uso.

Re:History

[innocence18]

You do realize that if you were SERIOUS about music you'd all me playing Fender Strat's anyway ;)

Re:History

[dosius]

Some people prefer the guttier sound of humbuckings to Fender-style pickups. (Yes, I know Fender made guitars with humbuckings too.) And some people don't like the look of the Strat. On "Hotel California", Glenn Frey of the Eagles uses a Gibson EDS-1275 (aka "double-neck SG").

-uso.

Re:History

[yusing]

I'll never forget Vision, the greatest product of its day only now being approached ... another tragic death.

A pox on Gibson 'til the end of time. And, for that matter, on the guy that sold to Gibson in the first place.

Re:History

[Perl-Pusher]

You do realize that Gibson has a less expensive brand called Epiphone which is just about equivalent?

And Fender has Squire what's your point? Many Epiphones are in my shop needing the truss rods adjusted or have noisy pots. Gibson charges over 2 grand for an ES335, you can get an Epiphone Dot for $350, but there's a real good chance you'll be taking the Epi in for repairs in less than a year. Especially if your a beginner and don't know what to look for. Fender Squires usually have poor quality hardware too but at least the necks are straight coming out of the factory overseas.

Eh...

[Vorondil28]

Lots of pages does not a good review make.

I do appreciate the lack of "punch the monkey" adds, but it's still a pretty fluffy review. To sum up:

• Really cool idea.
• App computability is spotty.
• Networking blows.
• The interface looks spiffy.
• Project has promise.

I'm not sure if I even need to install a copy of it to write that much. I did think the insight on the development process on page two was interesting, but overall I think "ReactOS Reviewed in Depth" is a bit of an overstatement.

Re:Eh...

[Reverend528]

I imagine it's about 6/25ths of a full review.

Re:Eh...

[miro f]

why are /. readers always so critical of review layouts? I find when a page is too long it gets harder to read, and it's better off when it's split into logical segments. The review was well spaced, not full of ads, and easily readable.

I suppose now that soviet russia jokes are getting old and there seem to be less dupes the new cool thing is to complain about having to click too much...

Nice review

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, this is a nice article once the pages load. I've frequented the ReactOS site before and read many pages there, including documentation and release notes. (I find release notes fascinating, do you?) The article takes an overview approach to the status of ReactOS, stating the pros and cons in a not-to-technical-but-still-interesting sort of way. Makes me want to take the time to help out the OSS community, I've always wanted to, but never had the time.

I knew the WINE project and ReactOS were tightly integrated, as the article reaffirms. It has come a long way since even just a few years ago. I look forward to seeing the new developments.

Slashdot Effect - Flashback

[SpanishArcher]

Seems like TFA's server is having a hard time dealing with the /. visits flooding.

Anyway, would it be totally wrong to compare the creation of reactOS (and in some ways Wine) to what was done before the creation of a Posix standard?
I mean, I'm not really prepared in this kind of "ancient history" (!), yet I seem to remember there were some efforts to rev engineer the early unix syscalls in order to build compatible environments.

I hope this is not completely OT, I seem to remember having read something about this, yet I can't remember when and where (damn early-morning/late-night surfing sessions :D)

ReactOS Desktop in Linux/Wine

[GodWasAnAlien]

I think a big step for Wine would to be able to run the ReactOS desktop.
Then a Wine Desktop could be running in its own virtual terminal.
One could also create a Wine/Linux distribution, to create another free windows development/run environment.
A Wine/Linux distribution would use Linux drivers. This currently would have an advantage over ReactOS,
as ReactOS is limited to use blob windows drivers, or a few open source drivers.

If you can successfully run the ReactOS desktop in Wine, please share. I have tried it a few times (running ROS exploerer.exe desktop in Wine), but it is not quite usable.

Viruses?

[suggsjc]

I mean most all of them were designed for windows anyway...

DRM is Microsoft's secret weapon

[CustomDesigned]

Sure, you can run your open source Windows or Linux OS. But you can't view any of the new DRM media without Microsoft. Of course, even with Microsoft, you can only view the new media when and where they let you. Open source software is only half the answer. Without open content, people will still be compelled to remain a Microsoft slave. Creative commons content is as important as open source software at this point in the war against the Evil Empire.

Very soon, DRM media will include documents created with evil software like Microsoft Office. It won't be simply a matter of decoding undocumented file formats. Reading MSOffice documents without Microsoft software will require cracking the encryption. One can only hope they stay true to form and screw up the encryption as badly as the DVD format. But I wouldn't count on it.

Another defense against DRM office is the movement to require open formats for government documents. That is throwing a monkey wrench into Microsoft's evil plots. If Microsoft is forced to support a way to write readable documents (as inconviently as possible, of course), then at least it will be possible for Microsoft users to send readable documents.

Re:DRM is Microsoft's secret weapon

[suckmysav]

Why on earth would anyone *want* to view DRM infected documents? Having the opportunity to restrict my own use of media is certainly not a good selling point for switching to Vista.

Win98 EOL

[owlman17]

If ReactOS were only a little more stable, all these people http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/11/ 0218250 could easily make the switch almost painlessly. Compared to Linux its almost a drop-in replacement for 98.

Code Audit

[cdcarter]

Wasn't all of reactOS put on a halt for a huge code audit, because there were suggestions that they weren't cleanroom?

Re:Code Audit

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and the progress is linked to prominantly on the main page.

I give you an A for good memory, and a D for follow-through.

ReactOS is GOD...

[Khyber]

Seriously, you can run most driversets! I've found it very useful (Emulators run awesomely, most of my games, too!) and very, very, VERY fast. Because of the striped down Kernel there's less CPU being used by the OS, freeing up more for other applications (Games, oh yes, GLASS)

Seriously, by the time vista comes out, People may very well start ditching Microsoft and start using ReactOS. I intend to once the next release of ReactOS comes out, at least for a nice long trial for major testing.

Re:ReactOS is GOD...

[bazorg]

Your comment and a few others remind me of other uses for this OS... for those people and companies stuck in the middle of migrating from windows98 to linux, being able to run a few specific apps in a virtualized windows box without paying software licences for the OS might be a good idea. Other people working on filters and converter tools for semi-closed formats might find it handy to run Win32 applications in a more controlable environment than MSWindows to figure out how certain things work.

Re:ReactOS is GOD...

[Al Dimond]

Unfortunately, in my opinion, striving for backwards-compatibility can harm an operating system much more than help it.

Windows, for example, is an operating system targeted at end-users, runners of programs. Microsoft has thus focused heavily on binary backwards-compatibility, allowing it to get in the way of imposing good security defaults. Had Microsoft put their foot down and told vendors to write their programs properly for NT they could have had a non-admin user be default in Win2k/XP. Alas. Macs and Unixes tend to break binary compatibility every time their creators sneeze...

Unix, however, is an operating system (well, many operating systems) targeted at programmers. Its developers have been in my opinion too focused on keeping source-compatibility with old Unix programs. Thus still today on Unix we emulate VT100s for a significant portion of our work and have interfaces (both programming- and user-) that are the result of design decisions made in the 70s, decisions that would be made differently if made today, and would result in a cleaner, better system.

ReactOS - VirtualPC - Debian

[bigredradio]

This is great. I just got Debian installed! I used ReactOS, then installed the free version of VirtualPC from microsoft, then installed Debian Sarge. Now I can use nano instead of that crappy notepad.

Re:ReactOS - VirtualPC - Debian

[Provocateur]

Debian installed! I used ReactOS, then installed the free version of VirtualPC from microsoft, then installed Debian Sarge. Now I can use nano

Damn, nano seems to have some pretty hefty system requirements. Are you sure you want to ditch notepad?

Re:ReactOS - VirtualPC - Debian

[SchwarzeReiter]

You intended to be funny, right?

Re:ReactOS - VirtualPC - Debian

[bigredradio]

ya think ;-)

Re:ReactOS - VirtualPC - Debian

[TheStonepedo]

How is this different?
From the nano download page:
nano-1.2.5 .zip WinNT/9x binary, .zip format.

What about native Linux app support?

[Clazzy]

Would it not be highly advantageous to allow the running of Linux binaries as well? I don't have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but wouldn't it be relatively easy to implement something like this because it's open-source code?

Re:What about native Linux app support?

[frik85]

If someone code a posix subsystem for ReactOS, you will be able to run your linux apps as well. But there are no big reason for it, the windows world has several thousand applications and drivers. Even most open source applications have been ported or have been developed for Win32. If you then still want to use unix versions of apps, you can use cygwin, colinux, etc. which allow you to run these apps in Win32/ReactOS.

Re:What about native Linux app support?

[hamfactorial]

It wouldn't be necessarily easy. However, the project being open-source means we get the benefit of it being possible!

Re:What about native Linux app support?

[miro f]

we shall have to begin coding LINE immediately! at least the API is properly documented

Whoops - they've been Slashdotted!

[SkyDude]

Warning: mysql_pconnect(): Link to server lost, unable to reconnect in /home/neosmart/public_html/gallery/lib/adodb/drive rs/adodb-mysql.inc.php on line 373 Error Error (ERROR_STORAGE_FAILURE) : * in modules/core/classes/GalleryStorage.class at line 236 (gallerycoreapi::error) * in modules/core/classes/GalleryStorage.class at line 465 (mysqlstorage::_getconnection) * in modules/core/classes/Gallery.class at line 239 (mysqlstorage::search) * in modules/core/classes/helpers/GalleryFileSystemEnti tyHelper_simple.class at line 110 (gallery::search) * in modules/core/classes/GalleryCoreApi.class at line 1968 (galleryfilesystementityhelper_simple::fetchchildi dbypathcomponent) * in modules/core/classes/helpers/GalleryFileSystemEnti tyHelper_simple.class at line 62 (gallerycoreapi::fetchchildidbypathcomponent) * in modules/core/classes/GalleryCoreApi.class at line 1911 (galleryfilesystementityhelper_simple::fetchitemid bypath) * in modules/rewrite/classes/RewriteSimpleHelper.class at line 48 (gallerycoreapi::fetchitemidbypath) * in ??? at line 0 (rewritesimplehelper::loaditemidfrompath) * in modules/rewrite/classes/RewriteUrlGenerator.class at line 96 * in modules/rewrite/classes/parsers/modrewrite/ModRewr iteUrlGenerator.class at line 48 (modrewriteurlgenerator::_onload) * in init.inc at line 111 (modrewriteurlgenerator::init) * in main.php at line 71

Mirc

[LWATCDR]

Runs fine under Wine.
The only windows program I use Wine for actually.

Article offline 2:06pm EST

[Brit_in_the_USA]

Jumping from page 3 to 4 of the article I got

This Account Has Been Suspended
Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible.
BR Which is a shame as it was a good read and very interesting (as I had not previously heard of ReactOS).

Re:Article offline 2:06pm EST

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess the bandwidth bill exceeded the expected ad revenue...

Sorry bout that...

Re:Article offline 2:06pm EST

[Brit_in_the_USA]

You woudl think that the hosting company would put adverts on there error pages. Think of all that extra money they could get.

hang on - that is actually a very good idea ..... :-)

Re:Article offline 2:06pm EST

[wild_berry]

I read the thing through the Coral Cache. It remains a god read...

Re:Article offline 2:06pm EST

[wild_berry]

And the one time I write a one-line post, I notice that typo: too few 'o's in the woord 'good'. And we now see where that 'o' escaped to...

Perfect Platform: Linux + ReactOS under XEN virtua

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I've tested, XEN makes almost no overead to the syetem, so I think it would be perfect if we could run ReactOS under a XEN virtualized kernel...

Or am I missing anything?

I've heard that MS Windows have aleredy run inside XEN (unfortunately just internel lab testing) but guess MS don't want it out, so lets make ReactOS XEN compatible...

Yeah, sure, and DOS is dead by now.

[DrYak]

There's no such things as FreeDOS nowadays, which was developped to late to be anything useful, specially it's not used by many people (including hardware manufacturer and corporate IT staff) to build bootdisks used to flash and upgrade firmwares and BIOSes(1). Neither is it used by computer manufacturer who signed an agreement with a popular OS company that forbids them to sell a computer without an OS.

Whith such an exemple of another old system, we can be sure that nobody will find whatever use for ReactOS, given the fact that Windows Vista will retain no compatibility with a legacy of win32 APPs and has nothing to do with the NT family which is emulated by ReactOS and Wine. And ReactOS and Wine have stated that they will never, I mean really never try to implement more modern API like Win64 and thus won't be able to run all the huge amount of 64bit apps that are seen everywhere (and of which most aren't open-source anyway and aren't ported to linux either (2) ).

ReactOS is likely to die and go the Linux/BSD way. Netcraft is confirming it in Soviet Russia. In Korea, only old people find usefulness to free and open alternatives that retain compatibility to commercial versions.

Har, har, har.

1 - bootdisks and -CD are specially popular in big places where you need to quickly upgrade BIOSes and Firmware non-interactively just by pluging a disc. The same can't be achieved from windows yet (there are windows-based flasher, but they can't be deployed thru usual network channels as software update)
2 - Windows 64bits is once again a proof of the supperiority of open-source. The first softwares that was the most easily ported to Win64 API were the open-source one, were the developpement is much easier because of source code availability : 7Zip, Blender&Yafray, Mame, FireFox, PuTTY, POV, VirtualDub, and many other. Where as only a couple of commercial games (because they make nice tech demos in booths) were ported, and almost no commercial multimedia package (although multimedia was supposed to benefit the most from the increased memory address space and was hoped to be among the first ported to Win64).

Nice B.S. ;)

[antdude]

Nice bullsh*t of death. [grin]

This Account Has Been Suspended
Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible. :P

Re:Nice B.S. ;)

[Anonymous Coward]

Before you listen to any more drivel by 'AntDude', take a look at who you're dealing with: http://pbx.mine.nu/antdude.jpg. The abortion in the center is 'AntDude'. I won't even get into discussion about him listing his 'sex' as 'female' on his SHITTY 'blog' (aqfl.net). This faggot has nothing better to do than sit on the internet and spew worthless garbage. He's the new LostCluster when it comes to posting utterly worthless tripe. Not to mention his submitted stories! Every single one of his last 10 or so submissions have been tagged as 'lame' or 'slownewsday'. Why does taco even bother posting his shit. Maybe he gets some tiny deformed chinese cock up his taco ass in exchange for some linkspam with google ads? Do the world a favor and never reply to comments from ANTDUDE and mark him as a FOE.

Re:Nice B.S. ;)

[lolhyguys]

Before you listen to any more drivel by 'AntDude', take a look at who you're dealing with: http://pbx.mine.nu/antdude.jpg. The abortion in the center is 'AntDude'. I won't even get into discussion about him listing his 'sex' as 'female' on his SHITTY 'blog' (aqfl.net). This faggot has nothing better to do than sit on the internet and spew worthless garbage. He's the new LostCluster when it comes to posting utterly worthless tripe. Not to mention his submitted stories! Every single one of his last 10 or so submissions have been tagged as 'lame' or 'slownewsday'. Why does taco even bother posting his shit. Maybe he gets some tiny deformed chinese cock up his taco ass in exchange for some linkspam with google ads? Do the world a favor and never reply to comments from ANTDUDE and mark him as a FOE.

'Infranview' ROCKS!

[Chordonblue]

First of all, it's IrfanView, and secondly, why would I want to open pics for preview with something that can take a full minute to load? Irfanview's main goal isn't to be an image editor, it's to be an image VIEWER with a few quick editing tools. In my 'view' Irfanview is still the best free tool to quickly view pics with in Windows. That's not to diminish GiMP, I use this as well, but there is a difference in purpose here.

Re:'Infranview' ROCKS!

[Excelsior]

First of all, it's IrfanView, and secondly, why would I want to open pics for preview with something that can take a full minute to load?

Good points. The spelling I copied from the post I quoted. My mistake. And, I don't use Gimp for simple image preview either. I was trying to make a quick point. But to expand, on Linux I use "Eye of Gnome" (aka eog) for quick image previews. There are at least a dozen similar apps. For other more session-like image viewing, I use F-Spot. We also now have Picasa, though I still prefer F-Spot.

On Windows, well that's at work and I can't just install the kitchen sink. I use "Windows Picture and Fax Viewer" for quick viewing of images, just because it's the default.

Now, aren't you glad I kept my original post short and concise? ;)

Re:ReactOS

[kernel_canine]

Hello, we spent almost two days testing reactos Network IP must be entered from Registery only the VGA Driver installation worked, Network,Audio Did not work Shutdown icon does not do anything Logoff icon shutsdown Abiword have been installed, but did not run We were tusing on the SVN version, and 0.3 I was hoping that it is more reliable so, I will kick Windows out, but unfortuantely I could not Kernel the Canine

Faster migration path

[Lonewolf666]

Once you have Windows + (exclusively) OSS Apps, the step to Linux is not that big. Especially considering that KDE looks a lot like Windows.
So I would make that Windows + Apps -> Windows + OSS Apps -> Linux/KDE + OSS Apps

ReactOS may be more interesting for those who have some Windows-only apps they cannot easily replace.

Re:Perfect Platform: Linux + ReactOS under XEN vir

[Maarten Bosma]

http://www.reactos.org/wiki/index.php/Xen_port

Huh?

[StarKruzr]

Isn't ReactOS open-source?

Re:Perfect Platform: Linux + ReactOS under XEN vir

[Mike Zilva]

yeap, but from that link:

2005/06/02 ReactOS domain builder submitted to Xen 2005/05/20 FreeLdrs job is complete, kernel starts executing (but crashes immediately)

is seems it didn't made any progress during the past year :(

This could provide a smooth migration path win->lin keeping some win-apps in XEN/ReactOS

Drivers

[Runefox]

Software works to a degree thanks to Wine integration in the kernel, but what about drivers? Where do they come from? Are they *nix-based or Windows? Drivers are the big thing to look out for, because if it doesn't JustWork (TM), then a lot of average people won't bother.

Re:Drivers

[Anonymous Coward]

They aim for driver compatibility with Windows drivers, this seems to me to be the most significant reason for using ReactOS over Linux+Wine. I don't know what they have done for the drivers they include with it though.

Virtual PC?

[slapout]

I wonder if this would work on the recently freed Virtual PC.

Okay, ReactOS is nice...

[Mantrid42]

But will it run Linux?

UNIX is a brand

[tepples]

There is only one UNIX clone I can think of, that would be Linux. The others such as BSD and the like re not clones they ARE UNIX.

FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD are not UNIX® brand operating systems. They may be descended from the source code of a UNIX system, but they themselves are not UNIX systems. Only those complete operating systems tested and approved by The Open Group can be called UNIX, and this costs money up-front plus a royalty per copy.

Re:UNIX is a brand

[ChrisA90278]

I think you are right. Solaris, Open BSD, Ultrix, Irix and so on are are UNIX but with out the brand name. Maybe we all should start spelling UNIX as "unix" in lower case to refer to al thos unix derived OSes. the word "*nix" does not really cover Solaris, or Irix. OK from now on I'm using lower case

Apparently you've never used ReactOS, before.

[Khyber]

Because ReactOS, in it's full ISO form that is burned to CD, is no larger than 25 megs - that's smaller than Damn Small Linux. This entire Os is specifically *AIMED* for efficient coders/programmers. (Remember this is an open-source *CLONE* of Windows - and since even a Win98 install is over 200 megs, yet this OS (Supporting the NTOS Kernel) is only a max os 60-70 megs install-wise? This system is so lean, mean, and clean, any developer would cream themselves to work in such a clean Windows environment. Don't believe me? Then go ask Ingram Micro - one of the largest computer retailer/developers in the world, and ask them about ReactOS and how it helped them test machines for Windows compatibility and how it boosted their income by half a million yearly by using home-built test machines to see what hardware combos worked - then they advertised it internally for more testers, until they finally asked some customers to test RC 0.2.? and they had an overwhelming response. What this means is that they found an amazing number of programs that work under ReactOS which were originally meant to run under Windows - this means BIG TROUBLE for Microsoft - Odds are ReactOS can even do open-source non-copy clones of Vista's multimedia handling system, and allow DirectX 10 to be installed and used.

You must not understand ReactOS is striving to find every imaginable way possible to clone Windows in any flavor without violating their own proprietary source code - you should be grateful to this, because an open-source Windows-capable OS means potential security, wider hardware support as more join the bandwagon, and perhaps better security since this kernel was originally designed to run Windows-native programs and handle Windows' insecurities while remaining secure itself. This OS has *YET* to disappoint me. I suggest you try it out further and MAKE SURE YOUR HARDWARE IS COMPATIBLE! (Check the compat list at http://www.reactos.org/ for details.) There are limitations to the install since it *IS* an Alpha "Release" (Even though we all know Alpha testing is internal testing and beta testing is public testing. Yes, I wish ReactOS Team would get that idea set right in their heads.))

works quite ok in vmware (dapper host)

[mAriuZ]

i tried and works somehow, i installed firefox and firebird (firebird setup didn't finished)
It crashed a lot (many BSODs) and was slow but is interesting that it works :)
Think of it as wine++ , it's an open source alternative to windows with many things left to be done
I guess is good for hackers who want to learn more about windows os iternals

So what is a "unix"?

[tepples]

Solaris, Open BSD, Ultrix, Irix and so on are are UNIX but with out the brand name. [...] OK from now on I'm using lower case

That's like saying Pepsi or RC Cola is coca-cola in lower case, or an Intel AT compatible PC running a Microsoft Windows OS is a macintosh in lower case. This can only confuse readers. Does your use of "lower-case unix" refer to operating systems that implement the popular parts of the Single UNIX Specification (equivalent to POSIX), or to operating systems descended from the source code of at&t's UNIX OS? It matters, as GNU/Linux is the former but not the latter.

Is it secure?

[JamesGecko]

Ok, I know it's still alpha software, but still.

What is the security model like? Is this thing going to inherit all the viruses, spyware and adware that normal Windows users have to put up with?