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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.
Slashdot will soon return as http://soylentnews.org/
Have the ReactOS guys reached feature parity with NT4 yet? Last time I tried it, it was almost as unusable as slashdot beta!
ReactOS is like Google. Will remain in Beta for years.
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.
Worth putting it in a VM and at least trying it out, isn't it? However, I'm with you when it comes to putting on a real machine. I'll wait until 1.0.
Unless the new site runs on ReactOS, please shut the fuck up about slashdot beta.
Unless the new site runs on ReactOS, please shut the fuck up about slashdot beta.
Using the URL http://slashdot.org/?nobeta=1 should fix that.
"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.
What's a vm? Will this run on my dell win8 laptop ok, without ruining my current setup?
Virtual Machine, yes a VM will run on your computer and allow you to test ReactOS safely.
/. refugees on Usenet: news:comp.misc
Sort of a master Beta, if you will.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
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.
Office 2007 and newer have this crappy 'ribbon bar', so since Office 2003 is so widely used... in a way it makes sense.
I also suspect the newer UI APIs aren't fully implemented, so, perhaps... indeed only the old software actually works.
Have some comparison screenshots. First, between the first two pics, note that slashdot's solution to the problem that after you get three-four comments deep in a conversation it becomes unreadable is to just not show comments beyond that point unless you repeatedly mash the get more comments button (compare to Reddit's solution of having a link directly to the rest of the thread). Also note how little text fits on the screen in the beta version compared to the classic version.
For the third screenshot, note how the fonts for different comments are different for no reason, and how small the comment box is. It's also worth noting that they've removed the maxlength attribute on the comment subject box, so instead of the browser telling you when you've reached the limit, your subject is truncated.
Inkscape went from 0.35 to 0.48 in its 11 years of existence, and is one of the very best and most useful software the free software community has produced. Don't take the 1.0 number too seriously, because there are many other numbering schemes.
I see the new Beta is managing to attract new readers! Welcome!
A VM or "virtual machine" is a type of computer program that creates an emulated software environment. Not that any real person actually knows what that means. Think of it as a sort of a computer that runs on another computer. You can run multiple "virtual machines" on a single computer; then you give access to individual "VM" to all your clients or employees. Busy executives like yourself love VMs because it saves them so much money on hardware; why waste money on 100 servers when you can just buy one and make it look like you have 100 computers! All your peons down in IT would probably recommend against running it on Windows8, but that's just because they like running complicated things like Linux. Windows 8 can handle VMs just fine, and - thanks to its colorful and touch-friendly interface - it's so easy to use that you can fire all those overpaid geeks and have your secretary handle everything for you. Think of the cost savings!
I hope that helps; this is just one of those useful tips you'll find on the new Slashdot, now featuring shorter articles and nice big pictures. Not only has Slashdot has been redesigned to make all this computer gibberish more palatable and understandable for management and accounting types, but we've hidden all the comments from all those grumpy greybeards and nerds to make for a better C-level executive experience! Thanks for coming, and enjoy your stay!
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...
Windows will most likely always use a kernel and HAL based on the original NT model.
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.
by the time ReactOS hits 1.0, I can't imagine Windows will be using the NT platform anymore.
Then a compatible alternative will be more needed than ever.
Only one way to find out. Burn the Live version and boot it.
Weren't you folks supposed to be on some boycott this week?
Note that so far there has been no admission of just how bad the beta is, only promises to implement missing features and fiddle with the layout. They don't think it is badly broken, that's the problem. It just needs polishing and some more features in their minds.
The end is coming. The acknowledgement of the problems changed nothing, other than to stop the protests. It seems like most people are just waiting for the end now, consciously or not.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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?
Which at least is interesting in that iirc a lot of the codebase for ReactOS is WINE... They're sharing a lot of the API code... Though other than specific drivers and system applications, most programs run in later versions of windows with minimal issue... the most I've had to do for some older programs is manually install outside of the "C:\Program Files" path... generally, I do a C:\Legacy\* for older programs that don't work in the proper security context. Most work without issue.
I've only seen a few specific instances of hardware where it was worth while to maintain an old version of windows in place.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
Oddly enough, this comment could be about ReactOS Beta, which has been promised for years now.
Though I'm personally confident that the ReactOS Beta would be more welcolm among the /. community (aka, the "audience") than Slashdot Beta.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
I like the redesign, and the occasional redirection to the beta just makes life interesting.
Geez, take it easy. You act like Slashdot killed your dog.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Anyway, perhaps the best use of Reactos will be found in server farms and VMs. Not for enterprise apps but for cloud gaming, app hosting, automated testing where 100% uptime is not a big deal but the expense of licensing a genuine MS operating system might well be.