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Windows Replacement? ReactOS 0.3.16 Gets Themes, CSRSS Rewrite, and More
jeditobe writes with this announcement from the ReactOS home page: "The ReactOS Project is pleased to announce the release of version 0.3.16. A little under a year has passed since the previous release and a significant amount of progress has been made. More than 400 bugs were eliminated. Some of the most significant include completion of the CSRSS rewrite and the first stages of a shell32 rewrite. 0.3.16 is in many ways a prelude to several new features that will provide a noticeable enhancement to user visible functionality. A preview can be seen in the form of theme support, which while disabled by default can be turned on to demonstrate the Lautus theme developed by community member Maciej Janiszewki. Another user visible change is a new network card driver for the RTL8139, allowing ReactOS to support newer versions of QEMU out of the box."
You can download release images here.
Want to see how it handles Windows software? Here are demos of Office 2003, Photoshop CS2, and OpenMPT.
You claim you heard us and are working on fixing the shortcomings of beta. Then why do you keep redirecting us randomly to it, knowing it is defective in its current state ?
Stop redirecting, fix the problems as you perceive them to be, and try again.
Many opponents of beta don't believe that it is possible to fix it, but that is irrelevant. If YOU believe it needs fixing and that it is possible, your current random redirection of large groups of visitors does not make sense. It only infuriates people. The redirection to a broken product is likely the single reason for the protest in the comments to continue, and only drives more people to the alternative slashdot initiatives. Most people would probably be happy to
wait and see how you fix beta, but no, you have to push it in our face every 4th time we visit, broken as it is.
On the other hand, if you think beta is fine, and it is ok to redirect people there, then why not simply disable classic altogether and get it over with ?
kind regards,
your "audience"
Slashdot will soon return as http://soylentnews.org/
Wake me when it gets to version 1.0 at least
Have the ReactOS guys reached feature parity with NT4 yet? Last time I tried it, it was almost as unusable as slashdot beta!
please join us, currently at http://soylentnews.org/ (which will be up in few hours). Tomorrow we will start collecting suggestions for a new name for altslashdot. People will have one week to submit suggestions for a new name. Then we will have voting. If you are really an old timer, then you would know Bruce Perens. He is very excited to be working with us.
Join our side. It may have problems, but they can be fixed. Beta is your friend. Beta is life.
Do you have to think in Russian?
Now before I say anything, do know that I GREATLY applaud the efforts of the ReactOS platform. I am incredibly impressed by the huge undertaking the ReactOS team has decided to pursue. Programming an open source, binary-compatible alternative to Windows is, in my opinion, the most difficult OSS project to ever make happen - after all, Microsoft can't exactly do it right when they have the actual source code, a lot more software developers, and a LOT more money. I do one day hope to be able to use it as a primary operating system that will work with my existing hardware and software as seamlessly as it presently does with Windows, leaving Windows as a memory as the ReactOS community take the best parts of OSS development and apply it to making my very expensive Windows software run.
One day.
I really don't mean to be a jerk to the devs, because I know that I have no skill, talent, or ability to write an operating system. I know that they have to hit a constantly moving target, while making plenty of rough decisions along the way: two pieces of software exist. One doesn't work past Windows XP. One works only on Vista/7/8. Which do you make compatible? Microsoft clearly has their way of going ("forward", i.e. Win8 apps), but ReactOS could easily spur adoption by catering to people who have $5,000 pieces of hardware that are no longer made, perfectly fill their needs, and don't have drivers for >WinXP. This is a tough question to answer, and one I do not envy or posit a response.
Based on their demos, it seems that they're going the 'Open Source XP' method, as can be deduced based on their demos of Office 2003 and Photoshop CS2, the former being four revisions out of date, and the latter being five (assuming we count 'CC' as a single version). If the /only/ thing it will run is old software that is not being updated, I understand that - it's no longer a moving target, after all. However, constantly playing catch-up with Microsoft, though inherently a consequence of the nature of the project, is all but impossible to truly consider a replacement.
Perhaps I need to read up on their website or do some Google searching, but are they planning to start eyeballing Win7 at all? What about more recent iterations of DirectX? I'd love to be independently wealthy enough to dump a few million at the project, and yes, next payday I plan on sending $20 or somesuch to the cause. That doesn't mean that the devs will be able to achieve critical mass effectively.
Having said all of that, if they could get an OSS flavor of Windows ThinPC up and running (i.e. completely iron out hardware compatibility and a remote desktop client), and charge even some nominal amount for it so that companies could use it instead of ThinPC (which is stupidly licensed), that'd be a great way to start making inroads.
And can Norton Commander take advantage of EMS memory cards?
My first post, hi all. What's a vm? Will this run on my dell win8 laptop ok, without ruining my current setup? Thanks. :-)
Everybody go to http://www.soylentnews.org
I only occasionally visit the actual /. site (instead preferring to digest my news via feed-reader), but when I did last week, I was immediately pleased with the aesthetics of the redesign. What are the (perhaps not-so-subtle) nuances I'm missing with which people are so unhappy?
"ReactOS is a free and open-source operating system based on the best design principles found in the Windows NT architecture. Written completely from scratch, ReactOS is not a Linux-based system and it shares none of the UNIX architecture. The main goal of the ReactOS project is to provide an operating system which is binary compatible with Windows. This will allow Windows applications and drivers to run as they would on a Windows system. Additionally, the look and feel of the Windows operating system is used, such that people accustomed to the familiar user interface of Windows would find using ReactOS straightforward. The ultimate goal of ReactOS is to allow people to use it as an alternative to Windows without the need to change software they are used to." anybody tried this? pretty obscure, first I heard of it.
Why use 10 year old software to demo a "Windows replacement"? If a successful demo only works because it is old software, that somewhat speaks volumes.
Thanks.
Can anyone recommend a good slashdot replacement? Slashdot beta is worse than Windows!
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...
I have visited this website on a near-daily basis for over a decade. I have greatly benefited from its community, whether +5 Insightful or -1 Troll. It thus saddens me to watch Slashdot be changed into a bland, cookie-cutter news site, a la the present incarnations of Engadget and Digg. I am perhaps in the minority in this, but I kindly urge you to read this post, and others like it, and to consider joining the week-long Slashcott that begins on Feb 10th. I realize that posting off-topic comments such as this is disrupting the Slashdot experience for many of you, and I do apologize for it. But can you honestly say that the new Beta interface does not already disrupt Slashdot for all of us? These anti-Beta posts can quite rightly be viewed as "a series of shock slogans and mindless token tantrums", to borrow a phrase, but since we feel that we are ignored by Dice, this is the best that I, like many other slashdotters, could come up with.
What company directs 25% of its users to a partially-working, not-ready-for-production website? Please realize that Beta will not have the features that we want, because they interfere with Dice's plans for Slashdot. Dice presents Slashdot to their advertisers as a "Social Media for B2B Technology" platform. B2B - that's the reason Beta looks like a generic wordpress-based news site. To be sure, a large precentage of Slashdotters work in IT, but Slashdot is most certainly not a B2B site.
Nevertheless, Dice is desperate to make money off of Slashdot, even at the cost of losing much of its current userbase. Turning Slashdot into a social platform for IT "decision makers" is a Haily Mary attempt to recoup the failed investment Dice made in buying Slashdot. As they have revealed in a press release detailing their performance in 2013, this acquisition has not lived up to their financial expectations:
Slashdot Media was acquired to provide content and services that are important to technology professionals in their everyday work lives and to leverage that reach into the global technology community benefiting user engagement on the Dice.com site. The expected benefits have started to be realized at Dice.com. However, advertising revenue has declined over the past year and there is no improvement expected in the future financial performance of Slashdot Media's underlying advertising business. Therefore, $7.2 million of intangible assets and $6.3 million of goodwill related to Slashdot Media were reduced to zero.
The new Beta interface is not the result of a superficial makeover. Keeping in mind that Dice felt confident enough to present it as the new face of Slashdot to 25% of its visitors, it is safe to say that the new commenting and moderation system is exactly how they intended it to be. It is a new design that deliberately cripples the one thing that makes Slashdot what it is today, viz. thebest commenting and moderation system online today. From the users' perspective, there is nothing wrong with Slashdot that demands gutting its foundations and dumping the one part of Slashdot we exactly like. As others have commented, this is an attempt to monetize /. at any any cost, and its users be damned. Dice views its users, the ones who create the site, as a passive audience. As such, it is interchangeable with its intended B2B crowd. We, the current users of Slashdot, are an obstacle in Dice's way.
This is why they ignore the detailed feedback we have given them in the months since Beta was first revealed. This is also why they now disregard our grievances and complaints. Their claims of hearing us are a deliber
This would have been a wonderful alternative for businesses running WindowsXP now that Microsoft support is ending. But I think they are too late to the party. By the time this is ready for production deployment people will have already put other solutions into place.
why go nowhere?
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
its the best OS evar!!! http://i.imgur.com/1uNNZSp.png
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
testicularcancerdot
Well, nothing is still better than Beta.
Anyway, try http://www.soylentnews.org/wiki/index.php?title=SoylentNews
Is it just me that sees ReactOS as a "lab" kind of software - it's theoretical and doesn't follow the outside reality.
I can't see how it can ever catch up to, say, a lightweight virtualised Linux with Wine for those people who want to avoid a Windows licensing fee. The overhead of a full Linux is absolutely minimal on modern hardware while the hardware support and control is phenomenal.
Sure, I imagine purists prefer a ReactOS but it's really only for the purists and always has been. Which is probably why Wine etc. get much more of a developer following.
The real question:
Is ReactOS going to be 100% compatible with Blue Screens, Malware and Viri?
If not, then it probably won't run enough of the software that's available.
It definitely has to pass Windows Genuine Advantage checks, I wonder how that will go....
I'm looking for help on an OS/2 Warp open source clone. Comments, suggestions or hate mail is welcome. Even flaming is considered good feedback on the OS/2-eCS community :)
http://openwarp.blogspot.com/
Does that query string also work for the RSS feed? Because I don't browse Slashdot by visiting the front page; I use a feed aggregator and click through to interesting articles that way.
Family, listen to your bullshit. There isn't any family here. Just two herds here. The circle-jerking Linux zealots, who are the most pissed about the Beta, and the rest of us nerds/geeks/old-timers, and we really don't give a fuck. Dice just doesn't care about people like YOU, nor should they.
I'd recommend Pella, though, they are expensive. You could go with Curadco for a cheaper replacement.
He clearly just wants an open source platform to run his Windows-only applications on without relying on WINE, and doesn't get abandoned like XP is about to be.
Sure, ReactOS is beta, they're honest about it. Unlike Microsoft which ships randomly crashing Windows and that it's ready for business.
All I needed was evidence that audio worked, thanks!
Using the belief that this will happen to avoid using ReactOS is like using the belief that the second coming of Christ will solve global warming to avoid using solar panels.
Office 2003? Just like many open sores offerings, a decade late.
The bitching about beta looks like it could drive me away from this place before I even see beta.
WTF should we have to wade past hundreds of offtopic posts before we get to the comments about the article?
No? Then it's not a viable Windows replacement.
I'd switch to some flavour of Linux in a heartbeat if it were possible to play Windows-based games on it.
I think this whole beta-bashing thing has gone way out of hand. People are not being reasonable at all. The new layout actually looks better - more modern. People have actually been you know, working, on that because they wanted to get rid of the 90's look. Well that's fine to me.
Sure there are some issues and bugs. Is that so bad?
People are overreacting and making complaints about petty things. For worse, they do so about a platform that they can use for free.
nope, still just getting a domain name placeholder. about equivalent to slashbeta
Not exactly free... There are ads/banners.
I am impressed by the blue screen of death and NT ish debug/loader screens but this is all I've ever seen of ReactOS none of these have ever worked over the years with VMware 6.5 and I'm not going to fork over the cash to upgrade to the latest and greatest just to see if its fixed or spend the kind of time to install an alternate VM product, burn live disks or even shut down my computer. I know this is harsh, lazy..etc of me.. but the question remains... why can't the live CD boot in VMware?
Cashing in on any name is Dice's vision. They need money, and they need it now!
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Says old timer AC
More like, "More than 400 bugs were created due to poor programming, but, now we took the time to fix them, whilst creating a few more no doubt".
As a programmer, i see the word "bug" as a direct indication of poor programming. When i create bugs in my code, its an insult to my own work and i cant sleep until its resolved, even if this means rethinking the logic completely.
There seems to be a large gap between software with a few bugs, and those with endless amounts.
If my software was unstable, buggy and i just left them like these guys, i wouldn't really call myself a programmer.
Poor logic and lack of knowledge are usually what allows for 400+ bugs.
If this is trying to get publicity for ReactOS, its only achieved awareness of poor programming and lack of acceptable internal testing.
It's not a protest, it's whining and it's stupid at this point, you complain about beta ruining things and then proceed to destroy any usability of the commenting system yourself. You certainly turned me against your position. Weren't you all supposed to be gone this week so the adults could have real conversation?
Posted in the BETA.
... I'm not sure what problem ReactOS solves. ... at best, ReactOS just saves me $140.
It wold solve my >5K of software that won't run on any Windows past XP. It would solve my having to deal with Win 8 turning my new computer into a fondleslab. ...
If they remove the 400 bugs t will not be able to compete with real windows. Sorry