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ReactOS Revealed
reactosfanboy writes "DRM Hacker Alex Ionescu explained the internals of ReactOS in a recent talk. Ionescu indicates that ReactOS is nearly 100% binary and API compatible with the Windows 2003 kernel, and that they are aiming for full Vista compatibility. Ionescu attempted to demonstrate ReactOS but only succeeded in installing it after two BSoDs. This alone should make it clear that ReactOS is still not ready for prime time." In what may be a red flag for Microsoft's lawyers, ReactOS is described as "an environment identical to Windows, both visually and internally." Here are slides from Ionescu's talk (PDF), which might prove more useful than the video offered in various forms at over 450 MB.
...but only succeeded in installing it after two BSoDs ... the Windows emulation seems perfect !
How about a link to ReactOS in the summary?
^^
ReactOS would still be unsupported and untrusted in business, and it's proliferation would only add to MSFT's dominance of the market.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Not until all the malware works too!
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Without RTFA (or any prior knowledge of ReactOS, honestly), my first thought came to the leaked Windows source code. Of course, no one would be that stupid...right?
They might want to look up what "identical" means. There is still a very long way to go. (I could have put a traditional screenshot up there too, from W2K or even W95, and it would still be true.)
onescu attempted to demonstrate ReactOS but only succeeded in installing it after two BSoDs. This alone should make it clear that ReactOS is ready for prime time."
Fixed.
Jenny's got a new number! 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
How about another link?
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
This has inspired me to create a ground-up 100% reimplementation of the AOL client, identical in looks and functionality. Wish me luck!
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
1) Is it more stable than XP or Win2003? That should be easy :)
2) Is it more stable WITH MY APPLICATIONS than the OS I'm using now? This is the really important question.
3) What about security vulnerabilities?
4) What about Microsoft application software security vulnerabilities?
5) What about replacements for MS application software that won't download on "non-genuine Microsoft" operating systems?
Remember folks, if your Microsoft Applications like IE6 have security vulnerabilities, and you run them on this platform, you may or may not be able to install the Microsoft patches.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I just had to wonder, WHY would anyone develop another OS that is "identical" to Windows?
Windows is bad enough...why do it all over again?
--E--
Having begun the struggle with adapting application installers to Vista, I think I'd be more interested in a version of ReactOS that ISN'T Vista compatible.
Thinking about this:
"In what may be a red flag for Microsoft's lawyers, ReactOS is described as "an environment identical to Windows, both visually and internally.""
People at the Microsoft campus must be moving the furniture out of Ballmer's office as we speak.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Or combine self-deprecation and blandness to create GAROFFOLO!
If ReactOS is almost a Windows clone, but a sub-par one, this begs the question of why do we need ReactOS anyway? Well, to find the answer I went straight to the source reactos.org, but apparently they haven't figured out the answer yet either.
Just for fun.
"In what may be a red flag for Microsoft's lawyers, ReactOS is described as "an environment identical to Windows, both visually and internally."
Oh, please... While I have no doubts MS will try to destroy ReactOs when it becomes too popular, the developers have made painstakingly difficult steps to ensure the proper reverse engineering is done ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_box_testing ). They can sue all they want, they can't win this. (They can however make it an expensive legal wrangling...but then again, since it's open source, it's difficult to imagine any single lawsuit will be able to end the project).
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
it seems a pretty obvious answer to me.
...but free, secure and open source...
put aside the fact that the softwares you mentionned are emulators, not OS,
it would steal users from windows.
imagine, having an OS the same as windows, friendly for computer illiterate
need i explain more ?
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
OK, I don't need to know this, but I'm an old assembler-head: I remember how much SMALLER DRDOS was than MSDOS. Microsoft makes bloated things.
I want to know how much memory ReactOS takes up versus WindowsXP. Has someone run it who can trivially answer? Did these guys make a smaller, lighter windows?
But you can see them here: http://www.alex-ionescu.com.nyud.net:8080/wloo-tal k.pdf
If ReactOS is a clean-room implementation, they probably can't do squat about it.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Ah, WINE (rather specifically) Is Not an Emulator. It's a compatibility layer, as are all its derivatives.
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Well, having a product that actually does what these products claim to do might actually be helpful, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
Wine
Is
Not
Enough
brilliant!
The only reason I run Windows is to run Audible.com and iTunes. If I could get an OS to run these apps in a virtual machine under Linux, I would be Windows free.
A compatibility layer by any other name, would still be unable to run many Windows applications.
ReactOS still, apparently, has much of the graphics system in the kernel. Along with drivers. It emulates NT 4/2000/XP architecture, not NT 3.51, which actually had a cleaner kernel.
But at least they didn't put in a 16-bit subsystem.
The incident had nothing to do with Windows source and it was certainly not minor. It was due to certain parts having been implemented by the same programmer that had reverse-engineered them and was consequently "tainted" if the project was to adhere to its principle of black box testing only. That programmer was the very same Ionescu as here. The result of the unfortunate incident was that the programmer that found out about it (Hartmut IIRC) resigned from the project and the audit that is still going on was started. I read some of the discussion about it on the mailing list and apparently there was a great deal of concern about Ionescu's contributions since they came too quickly and were too good to be the result of just blax box testing (but not all is available for everyone so there could've been something else as well that resulted in the conflict between programmers - the whole project was to some extent in jeopardy, though). The only thing you're right about is that they take copyright infringement seriously but that has nothing to do with that incident.
hey, that sounds mighty familiar...
I remember vaguely that names ending in 'escu' are typical Hungarian or Bulgarian names, or other similar Slavic languages from Eastern Europe (Czech, Polish, Croatian, I am not sure which ones). Is 'escu' also used in other Slavic languages besides Hungarian (Bulgarian), for example Polish or Russian? What does it mean? I think that French people also use this kind of names, I believe that a French playwriter is named Ionesco.
how tf did they get a 2.4ghz Pentium II?
I blame geof's speakers.
...but free, secure and open source...
That doesn't necessarily follow. Duplicating a broken API will retain some of the security problems designed into the original OS.
but I have no idea what does 'escu' mean. Hungarian slashdotters should help us on this one.
Because when it's finished, they essentially open up all the hidden APIs/file formats/protocols, and being open source, make it a very good environment for reverse-engineering all the other stuff Microsoft hides away.
This could conceivably allow full compatibility with Windows hardware and software in the future. Legally, it'll be interesting, because Bill will NOT be happy with that.
VMWare on Linux.
This project can become very interesting for companies that rely on old equipment and software, which I think is a huge market.
With Microsoft changing the driver model and the API of Windows with Vista, a lot of applications and devices will not be supported by the latest and greatest from Redmond. This means no security patches/bugfixes for old equipment and software.
If ReactOS can emulate Win2k/XP, it could be used as a secure and supported replacement in those environments.
Illegal Mnemonic Character
* Stay Simple *
I guess it's because Steve Jobs is only doing this for "Peace on Earth"? He doesn't profit from this I guess!
Only 2 BSoD's? Come'on! In real windows there are much more!
> Ionescu attempted to demonstrate ReactOS but only succeeded in installing it after two BSoDs.
With alpha or beta software, before giving a demo, test what you are going to do in private.
If it doesn't work, don't do it.
Too bad. The world would be a better place with ReactOS. What we need is a fat ass investor with loads of cash and a grudge against Microsoft to donate to this thing.
Linux has proven you can have a viable freeware OS. Now, while Vista makes everyones life miserable, there is an opening.
By using these hacks you can install OSX on a plain, non-Apple computer. The hacks circumvent Apple DRM and thus they are illegal in America (I dont know about other countries). There is a wiki about all these illegal activities, http://www.osx86project.org/. Slashtot competitor, Digg, diggs everything about it.
reactos uses a great deal of wine code and certainly isn't an emulation.
"Except via patent claims, for which independent development is not an adequate defense."
Well, in Europe we still don't have (enforcable) softwarepatents. Though it being an Open Source project, I'm not sure under what jurisdiction it falls.
But you make a good point: more proof that softwarepatents suck.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Okay... so we have a virtual machine... what runs on that virtual machine?
Windows with snapshots! Being able to save and load the vm's state makes Windows much more tolerable.
I would be much more interested in an OS X clone running on my PC, than in a Windows clone that I don't need.
Why clone a bad interface when you can clone a good one that many people would like to use?
VMWare et al don't count. You still need a *legal* copy of Windows to install into the virtual machine. The main advantage of having something like ReactOS being API/Binary compatible is that you don't need to rewrite all the drivers, you can just run with the windows ones. Whether this is a good thing or not is questionable in itself given some of the dodgy 3rd party drivers out there.
Anonymity of the internet is responsible for the views expressed in my post.
The point is that you need a copy of Windows to run in it. Which costs the same as a copy of Windows to run natively.
Think Bucharest and Budapest sound about the same. I think they are both Slavic languages (all languages in that part of Europe are)
Ah, the genius! But where are modpoints when you need them...
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
What we DON'T have is a viable commercial product to compete with the PC/Mac control of the market for those of us who need to run professional programs. I mean no disrespect to Linux, and I plan to try out the UbuntuStudio as soon as it's out, but if you need to do video or audio/music production, for example, you're stuck with two platforms that continually underwhelm and have very little incentive to give users what they really want.
Both Microsoft and Apple have held the marketplace hostage for so long, that they can get away with ignoring the demands of their users, which is the symptom of a market out of whack. I want to run OSX on a box I build, but I can't. I want to run Vista without DRM, but I can't. I can keep going like this for a long time. It's the lack of serious competition that has kept the entire desktop market moribund for decades now.
We need another player, simple as that. We need a well-financed company to get into the desktop operating system game and stay there for a solid decade. Then we'll start seeing products and features that we REALLY want, at reasonable prices. Until then, it's going to be this silly charade of Bill and Steve, who we're supposed to believe are competitors, when they're really just enabling each other to abuse their customers, playing to their business partners in the entertainment-industrial complex. They may have done something at one time to move the status quo forward, but in the last decade they've just been a couple of jackoffs, doing zip for you and me.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Wine/cedega/crossover are application-level implementations. They allow you to run Windows applications. Reactos actually uses Wine code as well for this. Reactos however aims not only for app compatibility, but also for driver compatibility. That is, you can use the Windows drivers your hardware supplier gives you. In other words, if they achieve their goal, any hardware supported under Windows will automatically also be supported under Reactos, through the vendor-provided drivers. That's something you currently simply don't get with Linux.
...).
:-)
VMWare is a virtual machine. It's completely useless without an operating system to run on. That is, if you want to run Windows programs with VMWare, you need some OS to run Windows prorams on. That is, VMWare doesn't help you with this problem at all (nor does Xen, QEMU, Bochs, VirtualBox,
And 2007 of course doesn't help you even the least in running Windows programs without using Windows.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Aside from shooting the lawyers, the best way to mitigate the lawyers, I think, would be to get rid of the "MS GUI". That is, abstract it a little bit and make it an API-compatible theme engine, with the default looking different.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
The only time a Windows NT/2000/XP install will fail is when there is a hardware problem. Despite the propagandist Slashdot FUD, Windows versions based on the NT kernel are really stable and reliable products, and always have been.
/. is so ready and eager to provide. But they need to start learning that things work far differently once you get into the real world: sadly, Slashdot refuses to let the reality-based community intrude on their anti-MS agenda, truth be damned.
I've installed Windows hundreds of times since Windows 95, and build and supported at least a hundred servers since NT4. If someone has a problem keeping Windows stable, their problem is between the screen and the keyboard, not in Redmond WA.
It may be hard for your average 12 year old Slashdot MS hater, but granted they don't have a lot of understanding or experience. That's why they parrot the FUD... which
How about less FUD, and more expert opinion? Ahhh... nevermind. There are actually better places to get that, which is why digg and del.icio.us are eating Slashdot's lunch: it's geek info, sans the constant anti-MS FUD and shrill, puling whine.
I visited a research institute of the Romanian Academy for a few weeks and Romanian sounds very Slavic to me (although they claim it is a Romance language - I dont know why). Many frequent words are obviously Slavic, for example they say 'da' for 'yes', which is the same as in Russian, you hear them say 'da', 'da' thousands of times a day, sounds nothing like any other Romance language (No Si, no Oui) They use vremya for weather (also the same as in Russian). The name of my host was Vlad (like in Vlad Drakula) which is short for Vladimir, obviously a Slavic name. Romance languages are very musical (think of Spanish or Italian) while Romanian sounds rough and it is anything but musical, sounds Slavic to me. Many names of cities, rivers and other places in Romania are almost impossible to pronounce (which is not the case with real Romance languages , say Italian or Portugese) Very often they contain two or three consonants one after another.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
But then how is that:
we have VMware, we have 2007, we have everything necessary to run Windows programs without running Windows.
Pls post instructions on how to run Windows without Windows using VMWare. thx.
Not saying that is a bad solution, but that still doesn't allow you to run Windows programs without windows.
Windows with snapshots is still Windows.
Are you referring to this discussion:
0 6-January/007393.html
....Any source code produced by direct reverse engineering should be treated in exactly the same way as any other non-free source code useful for study and understanding of the system, but not permitted for inclusion in ReactOS."
http://www.reactos.org/archives/public/ros-dev/20
Here's a quote from one of the messages about the standard policy, which helps to put the discussion in perspective:
">From Section C of the ReactOS IP Statement (C. Copyrights of Others)
I am a Romanian from Transylvania and I can clarify this problem. In Old Romania (The former Old Kingdom, which is made up of Southern Romania (Vallachia) and the Romanian half of Moldavia, but NOT Transylvania) the word ending ...escu is used to transform a christian name into a family name. From Ion (John) to Ionescu, from George to Georgescu, etc. In those parts of Romania family names were introduced quite recently, about 160 years ago, and there was need for a rule for transforming a first name into a last name. On the other hand, in Transylavania family names were used for many centuries and there was no need for such a rule. Due to migration now there are a few families from Transylvania with a name ending in ..escu; however they are no natives of Transylvania, but originate from other Romanian provinces. In fact, the presence of ...escu in a family name is an easy way of identifying a Romanian which is not a native of Transylvania.
By default, Wine translates Win32 calls to something a POSIX operating system can handle. With a Win32-aware kernel, the translation layer is much thinner. Wine only has to handle the user-space portion of the call, and not the adaptation between one kernel-space and another.
--JoeProgram Intellivision!
/* Waste time to look like real Windows */
int i;
for(i = 0; i 1000; i++) {/*spin */}
Engineering is the art of compromise.
and please post instructions on how to Windows programs w/out windows using 2007.
MOD PARENT UP
MOD PARENT UP
MOD PARENT UP!!!
Amen to that. I'm so glad somebody else has put what I've been thinking so succinctly! Nicely done!
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Maybe he just has stored screenshots of every possible pixel configuration on the screen, and he loads them in order?
1. Theres more than 1 Slashdotter, not all of which despise Windows.
2. Who said any of the ReactOS developers are Slashdotters?
OS X runs on PCs. Despite what the Apple commercials would lead you to believe, The 'Mactels' are pretty much normal PCs (the 'biggest' difference between a Mac computer and a Dell/HP/other-OEM is EFI other than the default OS).
I'll repeat this again since a lot of people seem to have trouble realizing this: All new Macs that AREN'T running a PowerPC processor are PCs!!! So much for 'Think Different'!
Most decent compilers would optimize that out. The ReactOS team would have to be *much* more clever to achieve the typical MS-Windows slowdown. If they programmed the whole thing in C#, it might just work.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Well in fact it is an emulator, regardless of the silly name. It's just not emulating a machine, which is what people tend to think of emulators doing.
You have a bit of a skewed view there.
An emulator pretends to perform all the actions given to it, within a virtualized environment, whether it's a machine or an API. A compatibility layer provides real services between a piece of software and the underlying subsystem. The primary differences are speed (emulation is slower) and stability (a maliciously or badly written program, run in a compatibility layer, can do as much damage as a native one. Fortunately, Linux users are less likely to run programs as administrator/root), and compatibility (hardware emulation can achieve 100%, as it's not chasing a moving target).
You may not care about the fundamental difference, but I assure you that your employer (assuming you have a job) would, given the appropriate information and choice.
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No, in the genral case an emulator pretends to be (or more accurately, "imitates the behavior of") something else. It doesn't pretend to do anything, it actually does something. A foo-emulator is a standin for foo that isn't actually foo, but which is (ideally) indistinguishable from the outside.
Your "fundamental difference" is fundamentally founded in nothing. Emulation isn't necessarily slower -- it just usually is, because that's the way the universe works. And your point about security is just due to the design of "emulators" that you're familiar with -- i.e. hardware emulators, the most common "emulators", which are in fact entire virtual machines.
WINE doesn't emulate a machine; it emulates a set of libraries. It isn't Win32 but it does its best to function just like Win32 (so that the apps can't tell the difference). It is, as such, a "Win32 Emulator" in the general sense of the word.
Why do BSoD's indicate that it is not ready? Bill Gates has shown BSoD when presenting an new OS, or is this an urban legend? It seem that they are somewhere around Windows 2000 right know.... I remember BSoD during installing W2K, so a fully compatilbe OS should show BSoDs during installing. Other companies sell proiducts in such a state....
> I can honestly say I've never had any issues installing Windows...
:-P
Well, I can honestly say I haven't any issues in the last 8 years installing Windows... and I even installed it once during this time, for a 2 week-long use!
I foresee Windows will continue to give me no problems in the coming years -- except maybe my curious daughter asking me to install it on one machine to play some idiotic game. But she's having a lot of entertainment with Linux, why spoil her fun?
OTOH, at work I have a marvellous 12-year old PC with Windows 98. Reboots by the minute. No, it's not funny. If installing Windows is easy, let me make this point clear, and it's not an opinion -- it's a fact I've learned the hard way: Windows is not easy to use, despite what marketeers parrot everyday.
Linux is a lot more easier. And it's free and free. So, to all who say "you get what you pay for", I reply: "the fool and his money are soon parted".
If IBM, one of the biggest companies out there, does not dare enter the competition on a product that itself created, then nobody can...
Of course there is another way out: a small group of well-financed programmers that use a more advanced programming language than C could produce a decent O/S not in a decade, but in a year.
I think it'd be interesting to create a full POSIX subsystem on top of the ReactOS kernel. Microsoft has already proven that this sort of thing is possible in their architecture with Interix. You could then get the best of both worlds by running a GNU userspace (GNU/ReactOS?) on top of it. Presently the only real options are Windows+SFU (which works okay, but is not a complete solution) or Linux+Wine.
There are some good design decisions in the NT kernel. Lots of the crap MS has piled on top of it is sub-par, but the core kernel design is on the whole very clean and malleable.
Ionescu's talk, page 8:
"A secure and reliable OS, written for C2 security level certification, and updated to B1 for Vista."
I am almost sure that this is wrong, because Windows Vista only implements mandatory integrity control (a derivate of the so-called "BiBa" model), but does not implement mandatory access control / information labeling as required by TCSEC B1, therefore not being eligible for B1 evaluation/certification.
I couldn't agree more.
I want a computer for running Audio programs (sequencer, VST software synths, WAV editor etc.) that is good enough for pro use. I don't want anything else at all running on that machine beyond basic network functionality (so I can upload/download files to a server for backup etc.) That means no internet connectivity, no "anti crapware", no unrequired services, and especially no DRM crap. I want every CPU cycle possible to be available for Audio work. In fact given the current rate of development of flash drives sod the network connectivity - I'll do my transfers vis USB drives.
Currently the best tools I have available (Logic Audio 5.5.1, Sound Forge 7.0, Native Instruments Battery, Native Instruments Massive etc. etc.) all work on my Windows 2000 installation. A version of ReactOS that could run these tools will be enough for me to ditch Windows altogether.
The rest of my computing I can do happily on Linux but the Audio/MIDI tools currently available aren't a patch on the Windows ones (yes I have tried them thankyou, I am aware of dyne::bolic, agnula, Ubuntu Studio, Rosegarden, MUSE, etc. and NO they are not yet as good as the Windows tools)
So roll on ReactOS 1.0 !
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
Read your own quote. RUN WINDOWS *PROGRAMS* WITHOUT RUNNING WINDOWS. Pls return to high school for English comprehension studies.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Here comes the Waaaahmbulance!
I'd could be snarky and make references to your idiocy, but let's keep this mildly friendly, shall we? There is precisely 1 pixel of border "shading" difference between a Windows button and what you show in ReactOS. 1 pixel. That's it. Dry your tears and realize Windows buttons have looked almost identical for a decade.
And, please, don't even try to pretend the default Windows XP buttons are made of cotton candy and polka-dotted unicorns. They are ugly as sin and my first post-installation act was to disable that 'theme' from Playskool.
Before you pretend Vista's Aero is worth the resources it consumes, wait until Beryl works on ReactOS, my friend.
lets just say i'm REALLY windows dependant,and this reactOS sounds like something much more lightweight than the real windows,and if this get secure,100% compatible with my apps and still be smaller than XP,i'm moving to it
For people who are asking why make an open-source implementation of Windows, I could ask you this: why make an open-source implementation of Unix? Why make an open-source implementation of anything?
I could just reply that you are a moron, which would be deserved given the ignorance you display in your obnoxious reply, but instead I'm going to be polite and point out that VMWare provides no facilities to run Windows programs that aren't already available on a PC without VMWare.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
An emulator pretends to do something, in the sense that what its doing doesn't actually occur at a hardware level, merely at a logical one. If you change screen resolution, for example, the window size changes rather than your screen. If you move your mouse, the movement is translated into the logical movement. It may have passthroughs to hardware, but the action is abstracted down to the emulated hardware, then passed onto the real stuff.
The short of it is that an emulator is something that pretends to be hardware.
A compatibility layer works rather directly on the hardware, or at least through the host system's HAL, with as little as possible going on in between the application and the low-level interface.
Of course, you add to the confusion by adding Virtual Machines, which aren't emulators either; They're actually even more direct than a compatibility layer; the rather directly provide managed low-level machine services to a separate operating system, and aim to get as close to the real hardware as possible.
I think the confusion here comes from the fact that you're using the canonical definition of 'emulator', rather than the jargon term that would be appropriate for this discussion.
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It's not my fault that I'm speaking English. And everything you've just said is still horribly confused and wrong. You're discussing one kind of emulator, and one (incredibly limited-scope) kind of virtual machine, and pretending that the words don't mean all of the other things that you're utterly ignorant of. But go ahead, reply, and show the world a little more of what you don't know.
Windows with snapshots is still Windows.
Oh Stewie...
Wow, but you're a dick. I'm pointing out the differences in what projects that claim to be one, the other, or the new third are. It's not my fault if you can't comprehend a difference in scope.
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FOSS Windows clone that runs 95% of windows software and LOOKS like mac os x, while having all the advantages of Linux and the FOSS world (beryl, firefox, etc. built in?). Which one day may be possible with ReactOS as the core. I mean, other than the nice Aqua GUI is there something THAT great about OS X that is not already implemented in Linux or somewhere else? Personally I think beryl+3dworld completely trumps most other GUIS anyway....
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.